You know that thing you’ve been meaning to deal with? The one you keep pushing to the back burner because something else is going well and it doesn’t feel urgent enough yet?
Yeah. That one.
Maybe it’s your drinking. Or your marriage. Or maybe your lack of motivation to get to the gym. Whatever it is, I guarantee you’re not along. Most of us are really good at focusing on what’s working and convincing ourselves that the rest will sort itself out eventually. I did it for years.
Here’s what I’ve learned, both in my own life and sitting across from hundreds of people who look like they have it all together: ignoring what’s broken doesn’t make it smaller, nor go away. It just prolongs the inevitable. And at some point, something has to fill the the space while you wait. For a lot of people, that something is a drink.
This week I want to talk about why that happens and what actually gets us unstuck.
You Already Know… That’s the Problem!
Most people aren’t walking around unaware of what’s off in their life. They know. They know the marriage has become distant. They know the drinking has crept up. They know they haven’t been to the gym in longer than they want to admit. The awareness is already there. It’s been there for more than a minute.
What’s missing isn’t the knowing. It’s the doing something about it.
A former colleague of mine named Brian Bogart said something years ago that has stuck with me ever since. He said we all have our own AI built within us. Not artificial intelligence. Awareness plus intentionality. And when you pair those two things? You become unstoppable. But most people only have the first half. The awareness is there but the intentionality hasn’t shown up yet. And awareness without intentionality is just guilt. It sits there, accumulating, and doesn’t actually move anything forward.
That gap between knowing and doing is exactly where alcohol tends to step in. Not because people are weak. Because it works. It numbs the discomfort of knowing something needs to change while making it just comfortable enough to not change it today.
The Tunnel Vision Trap
I want to share something I did to myself after I quit drinking that I’m not particularly proud of. I got so laser focused on my health, working out, eating clean, feeling amazing, that I stopped showing up for the people around me. I said no to social events. I pulled back from friends. I told myself I was ‘working on myself’ and used that as a reason to ignore everything else. And it cost me. My friendships suffered. My marriage suffered. I was fixing one area of my life and letting the rest fall through the cracks.
That’s tunnel vision… and yet, it doesn’t exactly feel like avoidance. It feels like focus! (so I believed). It feels like discipline, like “look at me go!” But if you pulled back and looked at the full picture, you’d see what I eventually had to see.
You can’t fix one area of your life and call it done. It doesn’t work that way. The areas are connected. What’s happening in your health affects your marriage. What’s happening in your marriage affects how you’re showing up at work. What’s happening in your faith, or the absence of it, affects everything.
The research on this is consistent. Compartmentalizing stress, meaning putting one problem in a box and ignoring it while you focus somewhere else, provides short-term relief and increases long-term distress. The thing in the box gets bigger. And eventually it gets obvious enough that you can no longer ignore it.
The Question Worth Pondering
Rate yourself honestly, one to ten, across four areas.
- Your body.
- Your sense of inner peace and purpose.
- Your closest relationships.
- Your work or business.
Now look at where the numbers are low. That gap, the difference between your highest number and your lowest, is where the avoidance is living. That’s where the tunnel vision has been pointing you away from. And that’s almost always where the drinking, or whatever habit you’ve been reaching for, is doing its quiet work.
You don’t have to fix everything at once. You don’t even have to have a plan yet. But you do have to be willing to look at the whole picture honestly. Because you can’t address what you haven’t been willing to see… and that’s why I’m including a free resource for you at the end of this email that will greatly help.
One Small Shift to Do Tonight
Tonight before you go to sleep, take five minutes and write down three things.
- What went well today
- What you’re genuinely committed to doing tomorrow
- And what you’re grateful for right now
I know. It sounds almost too simple. But that’s exactly the point. It pairs awareness with intentionality in the smallest possible daily dose. You’re not overhauling your life. You’re just deciding to notice what’s working and choosing how you want to show up tomorrow. And when you do that consistently, something starts to shift. You stop reacting to life and start redirecting it. The thing you’ve been ignoring starts to feel more approachable because you’re finally pointing some intention at it.
I call it “WIG’s”. Wins, intentions, and gratitudes. And it’s the heart of the episode 18 titled: Why High Performers Ignore What’s Broken (And the 5-Minute Habit That Changes Everything), where I go much deeper into why it works and what it actually looks like in practice. Listen to or watch it HERE.
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I’ll leave you with this…. most people aren’t ignoring what’s broken because they don’t care. They’re ignoring it because dealing with it feels like a lot, and not dealing with it feels manageable enough for one more day. I get that. I’ve been there myself. But intentionality doesn’t require a perfect plan or an overhaul. It just requires five minutes tonight and the willingness to be honest with yourself about what you already know.
That’s enough to begin.
Here’s to living beyond the gray.
Kari
P.S. If you’re not sure where your gray areas actually are, I’ve attached a free resource called the Gray Area Audit. It takes about 15 minutes and looks honestly at all four areas of your life: body, being, balance, and business. It’ll show you exactly where you’ve been ignoring what’s broken and what it might be costing you. No sign-up, no strings. Just a really honest starting point. I hope it helps.
Download the FREE Audit here 👉 Gray Area Audit – GrayTonic.pdf
