25. Break the avoidance habit.
We’ve all been there. Something comes up in a relationship that’s hard. Or we drift apart. The temptation is to avoid the hard conversation. Avoidance is the path of least resistance. But avoiding a conversation can turn into avoiding a person. And the cost is higher than you may think.
What? Connection factoid
In the workplace:
85% of employees report experiencing conflict at work.
76% tend to avoid conflict rather than confront it directly.
This impacts psychological safety, engagement, productivity, and the decision to stay or leave: 40% of employees leave jobs due to unresolved conflicts.
Conflict avoidance can cause us to leave friendships behind too, sometimes with no explanation.
According to the Pew Research Center, 29% of adults have been ghosted. That number rises to 42% among adults in their 20s.
% of U.S. adults who’ve been ghosted:
A clean break is painful, but being ghosted is exponentially more so. Humans hate ambiguity. Researchers find that:
“The human brain prefers to know an outcome one way or another … Its disdain for uncertainty causes it to make up all sorts of untested stories hundreds of times a day because uncertainty equals danger.”
In fact, we are better at adapting to bad news than to uncertainty. People who live with job insecurity have more depression and worse physical health than people who actually lose their jobs. The same is true for people who receive a serious medical diagnosis vs. those who have symptoms but don’t know what’s wrong.
So what?
Not knowing why someone is avoiding you erodes trust—not just in that relationship, but in your ability to assess relationships more broadly. “I thought things were fine. I thought our relationship was more important than that. Maybe my other friendships are fragile too.” It can be deeply painful to go through this.
But avoidance costs the avoider too.
There’s the niggling anxiety of unfinished business. Knowing we could have handled things better. Over time avoiding difficult conversations can eat away at self-respect and reinforce the habit of taking the easier path. Avoidance communicates to others that you’re uncomfortable—making them more likely to avoid hard conversations with you, eroding trust, and keeping things surface level.
Avoidance closes the loop prematurely. You leave the job or the relationships instead of giving it a chance to repair, evolve, or end with dignity.
Now what? Connection practice: Break the avoidance habit.
If you have a relationship—at work or in your personal life—that's been consuming too much mental real estate, it's worth pausing to ask yourself:
Am I avoiding a hard conversation?
Do I need to set some boundaries?
Or am I actually done?
If it’s time to end the relationship, can you do the courageous thing and communicate clearly—and kindly—why you’re making this choice? The clarity may be painful, but it is also a rare gift. Writing your thoughts down first, or even practicing what you'd like to say, can help.
If you’re spending a lot of time having a conversation in your head, it might be time to have it in real life.
What about you? Please share your responses in the comments—we love hearing from you!
Have you ever avoided a hard conversation you knew you needed to have? What finally made you have it—or not?
Credit: Klaas Zwijinenburg