Denial doesn’t make a problem go away. It just makes you the last one to know about it.

Refusing to look does not pause anything, it only removes you from the group of people who can see it. Your friends, your coach, your manager will have noticed and adjusted, while you are working from an older version of events. Being last to know is costly, because by then the decisions have been made around you. Looking early is uncomfortable and keeps you in the room.

Pick the thing you have been carefully not thinking about and give it twenty minutes with a pen. Write what you already suspect, then one question you could ask someone to confirm it. Knowing is usually lighter than the work of not knowing.