Finish What You Start

It sounds easy enough to do and actually quite logical.  But it’s something that’s harder to do in practice than in theory.  The other day I was on the bus – on my way to work – and I was fumbling through my purse for a tube of lip balm.  Nothing fancy, just a Blistex stick.  And that’s when it happened…I found my secret stash hidden in a zipper pocket – there were 4 tubes all of different flavours!!  Why in the name of all that is lip moisturizer did I have 4 tubes of the same thing, all of which were almost brand new??  This small, seemingly irrelevant realization got me thinking of something a lot bigger.  How we are all guilty of starting new things and abandoning them before we see them through.  How we are easily distracted from function and purpose to newer and different ideas without closing the book on what we started. 

 This becomes a repetitive cycle and slowly becomes a way of life, simply because the cycle is never broken.  But this type of behaviour generates lots of clutter – both physical and mental – that prevents us from achieving our goals and stretching the boundaries of our potential.

 Physically, never finishing what you start can relate to a number of things.  For example, clothes, accessories, cars… anything really.  When we don’t finish what we start we often find ourselves replacing new or lightly used items for fancier or newer ones.  It’s not that there was anything wrong with what we already had, just we were bored and needed a change.  It’s no surprise with the increase in the amount of information we are taking in on a daily basis, any lack of stimulation or change causes us to get anxious and seek new things.  While it isn’t a terrible problem to have (trust me there are worse afflictions…) it can definitely become a serious problem when chronic and “untreated.”  Think about it: if we are always seeking new things and never using our older items till their end of life, we can accumulate a whole bunch of stuff that is, in essence, unnecessary.  All this physical clutter becomes very restrictive.  We will find ourselves lost in piles of things that at the end of the day have no significant value because they’re just doodads.  With this accumulation of physical goods, we lose our purpose and focus on things rather than processes – we become distracted by glitter.  All this distraction derails us from our main purpose and goals and uses up our energy and resources (financial resources) that would otherwise help us invest in our goals and roadmap. 

 Mentally, by not exercising our follow-through muscle, we become guilty of abandonment.  We abandon ideas and initiatives that at first give us energy and motivate us to action.  Again, this is a symptom of a much larger problem – the inability to focus our energies on a certain goal or objective and see it through.  Abandonment often happens at the first sign of a challenge or when the different glittery tools distract us from our roadmap of our self-defined successes.  Perhaps, more importantly, however, is how continuous abandonment and lack of follow-through can damage our self-esteem and confidence.  If projects continuously get started and there is never any closure, we develop habits of never finishing what we start and this is who we become.  We lose faith in our objectives and begin to lower our standards of performance.  We inevitably begin to sell ourselves short. 

 And why should we sell ourselves short?  Do we not believe that we, too, deserve to pursue passions and hobbies and opportunities?  Constant abandonment will, also, inevitably affect our performance…in the downward direction!  Imagine how many opportunities we will miss by giving up or not seeing something all the way through?  Obstacles are generally an opportunity…an opportunity to see something in a different light, to try something in a new way or to help expand your vision.  If we are constantly giving up at these moments, then we will never learn to see past difficulties – impairing our vision.  And what is success if not the ability to keep on pursuing something when others give up and to see the possibilities when the path is still not clear?  Success = Persistence + Vision.   

So let’s all aim to improve our follow-through, which will in turn help us to extend the limits of our vision.  While I opened my post with a somewhat irrelevant anecdote regarding tubes of lipstick, this has helped me realize how I have let the habit of abandonment permeate from meaningless things to impairing my vision of success. 

 The question is how do we refocus our energies and flex our follow-through muscles? 

1. Start small.  Just like my Blistex story, find something small in your life that you find you are guilty of abandoning (it could be not utilizing a gym membership to never finishing your cups of coffee) and work on following through until completion.  Even these small exercises will work your follow-through muscle until it becomes second nature.
2. Stick with it.  Before you abandon a project make sure you explore all possibilities and opportunities to the fullest extent possible.  Persist past the point where you feel that you are done.  Something I hear my art teacher say over and over again is “you know you are almost finished your painting when you reach the point of hating it and wanting to start over.” 
3. Be accountable.  After persisting and finding satisfactory closure, write a note to yourself explaining why you decided to abandon what you were doing or why you decided to move on to something else.  This will help you to focus on the real reasons why something was not working out or to identify new opportunities to pursue your goal…only, maybe in a different direction.
4. Remember what it feels like to cross the finish.  Let’s introduce a little Neuro-Linguistic Programming!  Sometimes we give up on things too early because we forget the feeling of exhilaration that accompanies completion and success.  If we can remember the emotions, feelings and thoughts we have when we achieve an objective or succeed, we may be more inclined to seek out those same feelings again and again. 

 How many of you are guilty of abandonment?  What are some of the things you have tried to help you remain focused on following through to completion you numerous projects or objectives?

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