Ask AltoTRY · 8 MIN
Avoidance Test
TAIU
Timing and avoidance can look identical from the inside.
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Tool 90 · Develop yourself
I keep doing the same harmful thing. What actually interrupts it?
A guided 25 to 35 minutes conversation, here in TAIU. For after responsibility is settled. Understanding how something happens does not reduce what is owed for it.
What happened in the hour before?
By the decision point it is already too late.
Understanding it changes nothing about what is owed.
What you'll look at
- 01The most recent time
- 02What you promised last time
- 03A time it did not happen
- 04Who has been affected
A note from Mark
I have watched people apologise sincerely for the same thing four times. I have done a version of it myself. What is going on is not usually dishonesty. It is that sincerity is being asked to do a job it cannot do.
The apology happens after. Whatever is going to work has to happen before. It usually has to happen much earlier than people expect. By the point where the decision feels like a decision, it has mostly been made.
The occasions where it did not happen are the ones worth an hour. People skip them because nothing went wrong. That is exactly why they contain the information.
Read my full view ↓
And I would keep one thing firmly separate. Understanding why you do something is useful to you and of no interest whatsoever to the person who was on the receiving end of it. They are owed what they were owed before.
What you'll get
This will not sort you into a personality type.It will give you answers about your own life that you can test.
01
What actually precedes it
02
What the behaviour pays
03
Why the promises have not held
04
What would interrupt it
+
Your TAIU handover: a summary of what the conversation found, written so you can take it with you.
See everything included ↓
- 01What you came here with
- 02The behaviour, stated plainly
- 03The occasions
- 04What they have in common
- 05What it does for you
- 06What has been said before
- 07Why the promises have not held
- 08What in your own tree may be feeding this
- 09Where it has not happened
- 10What would actually interrupt it
- 11What the people affected are entitled to
- 12The rival reading
- 13What deserves protecting
- 14The credible alternative
- 15What, if anything, should change
- 16What remains unresolved
- 17Where this goes next
When you finish
Bring it back to your tree.
Your tree is where TAIU keeps a picture of your whole life, in parts like work, money and health.
This session works on the whole of you, not one part of your life. Nothing is scored. At the end, you are asked once which part of your life this touched most. You can answer none.
The conversation writes this summary for you. Keep the sheet, print it or paste it into My Tree. Nothing from the conversation is stored by TAIU.
- Session
- Date
- The part of life this belongs to
- What we found
- The alternative we tested
- What deserves protecting
- What should change, if anything
- Next actions
- What to notice or find out
- What remains unresolved
What now?
01 · Save it
The behaviour stated plainly, in one sentence, without category language.
02 · Test it
Write down the last three occasions and the hour before each. Look at the three hours rather than the three events.
See more ↓
Before you take this anywhere
Do not offer this account to the person affected as a reason. An explanation delivered to somebody still carrying the consequence usually functions as a defence.
Where drink, drugs, gambling, compulsion or anything involving somebody's safety is part of this, that needs proper support and not an exercise.
What I would do
- 01
Start from an occasion rather than a theory. Theories are comfortable and specific mornings are not.
- 02
Look for the conditions, not the cause. Time of day, who was there, what had just happened, what was being avoided.
- 03
Take the exceptions seriously. Where it did not happen, something concrete was different.
- 04
Find an interruption that acts before the decision, because at the decision point it is already too late.
- 05
Keep what is owed separate. Understanding how something happens does not reduce it by anything.
Test it
- 01
Ask what was different on the day it did not happen. If the answer is willpower, keep looking.
- 02
Ask whether the explanation you have found would satisfy the person affected. If it would, be suspicious of it.
- 03
Ask what would have to be true for this not to happen again in six months, and whether any of it is actually in place.
The alternative
The obvious reading is that there is something wrong with you and that finding it will stop this. Both parts are worth testing. Sometimes there is no pattern and two different events have been joined by a shared feeling. Sometimes the behaviour is not the problem and the arrangement around it is, and anybody in that arrangement would be doing something. Sometimes the promise has never failed at the point of decision because it was never a mechanism, only an intention. And sometimes the honest finding is that you have already interrupted it, twice and have given yourself no credit for either because the story you are running does not have room for it.
Think about this
- The last time it happened, and the hour before it.
- Two other occasions, and what they had in common.
- What the behaviour does for you in the moment, said without flinching.
- What you promised the last time, and what was missing from the promise.
- The times the same conditions were there and it did not happen.
Take this to Ask Mark
You have done the exercise. Now look again at what it found.
This looks at what you found and helps you understand it. It is not another exercise to repeat.
Take this to Ask Mark →Want to go further?
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Finished the exercise?
What did this uncover?
Tell us whether it helped and what you discovered. It takes less than a minute.
Next tool
What has more control over me than I would like
If something has a hold on this
Further thinking
Good Habits, Bad Habits
Wendy Wood
Wanting is not liking
Kent Berridge and Terry Robinson
Identity-based habits
James Clear
See the thinking ↓
Book
Good Habits, Bad Habits
Wendy Wood
Wood spent three decades measuring what people actually do rather than what they intend, and her finding is uncomfortable: roughly forty three per cent of daily behaviour is repeated in the same context with almost no decision involved. That reframes the question. Something with a hold on you is usually not a failure of character, it is a piece of your environment doing reliable work.
Article
Wanting is not liking
Kent Berridge and Terry Robinson
Berridge separated two systems that everyday language treats as one. Wanting, the pull towards something and liking, the pleasure of having it, run on different machinery and can come apart completely. It is the cleanest explanation of a very common report: I do not even enjoy it any more, and I still do it. Useful precisely because it does not require the word addiction.
Article
Identity-based habits
James Clear
A short piece with one idea in it: every action is a small vote for the kind of person you believe you are, and the tally is more honest than the label. It is the clearest statement of the assumption this exercise runs on, which is that what you did tells you more than what you would say.