How to Finish What You Start To Meet with More Success Than Ever Before
Content:
Introduction
1. There’s A Word for Not Finishing: Procrastination
2. The Pain and Frustration of Not Finishing
3. Benefits of Learning to Finish What You Start
4. The Mindset To Get Better at Finishing Tasks
5. Simple Steps to Finish What You Start
6. Create Your Best Results
Conclusion
Finishing Is A Cornerstone of Success
I’d like to share with you today my experiences and challenges in finishing tasks and projects. And how learning to finish tasks and projects, and bring things to a logical conclusion, is one of my cornerstones of success.
When you finish what you start you are able to work more strategically and proactively to achieve your important long-term goals.
To finish you have to begin. To be successful you must start. Seeing bits of your projects finished is great, but unless you finish you merely start again tomorrow. The opportunity to learn how to finish what you start begins in a schoolroom with your teacher.
But as we grow older, we often don’t learn or intentionally unlearn how to finish. We also don’t learn how to see the value in doing so. Here, in my words, is how to start and finish something, and subsequently get what you want.
There’s A Word for Not Finishing: Procrastination
Procrastination is delaying a task even though you may be aware of the negative consequences. But I like to think of it as not finishing. The word procrastination sounds heavy.
I’m pretty much with Yoda on this one. Do or do not, there is no try.
If you find yourself trying but not finishing, over and over again, this article will help you focus on the steps to take to finish what you start.
If you don’t plan ahead and commit to your work, chances are you have wasted hours on trivial pursuits (watching TV, updating your Facebook status, shopping online) when you should have been focused on work or school-related projects.
Procrastination can have a major impact on your job, your grades, and your life, whether you’re putting off finishing a project for work, avoiding homework assignments, or ignoring household chores.
Here are some common examples of not finishing.
- Not preparing a speech you need to give next week.
- Putting off an assignment until the day before it is due.
- Not cleaning your home this Saturday. You’ll do it next week.
- Even though the rest of the team is waiting for your project, you go out to a concert instead of working on the project.
Most people procrastinate at some point in their life. But when you consistently have tasks and projects you don’t finish you are shooting yourself in the foot. And, you can end up with painful, long-term consequences.
The Pain and Frustration of Not Finishing
Even though not finishing can feel good at the time…Hey, that concert was a once-in-a-lifetime experience…not finishing can lead to personal pain and frustration. Especially when you keep finding reasons to not finish.
If you haven’t learned how to finish tasks and projects, or bring them to a logical conclusion, you’re likely to face:
- Frustration: a deep chronic sense or state of insecurity and dissatisfaction arising from unresolved problems or unfulfilled needs
- Burnout: exhaustion of physical or emotional strength or motivation usually as a result of prolonged stress or frustration
- Wasted time: poor use of time when nothing is accomplished
- Financial loss: loss of money or decrease in financial value
- Loss of confidence: inability to believe in your skills and talents
- Self-respect goes downhill: being the kind of person you are satisfied with showing to the world
- Loss of people’s respect: others think less of you
You lose the ability to maintain a positive self-image by allowing yourself to feel confident in who you are and content with the person you are becoming.
In other words, you become so embittered you cannot even see the good around you. You can become so bitter that the only things you care about are your own needs and wishes and become unworthy of others’ kindness. You may become so preoccupied with your own hurts that you cannot see how others are hurting, too.
You may lose the ability to be a good friend or a loving spouse because you cannot concentrate on anything in your family’s life when you are focused on your own. You may lose the ability to care for yourself. You lose confidence in your ability to do something…anything.
That’s a bad place to be.
Benefits of Learning to Finish What You Start
The primary benefit of finishing what you start is a positive feedback loop of accomplishment.
Tech Target defines a feedback loop in a system:
A feedback loop is the part of a system in which some portion or all of the system’s output is used as input for future operations.
That means that in your personal “system,” each time your finish a project, you give yourself more confidence to finish the next project.
You only receive the benefits of a complete “feedback loop” from a task or project when you finish it. Failing to close a feedback loop will lead to either frustration or a misallocation of resources. The work is never accomplished.
One of the hardest things to do is close a feedback loop, but it’s one of the most rewarding. Anyone can close a feedback loop with a small task. For example, putting the car battery on a charger immediately after your last electric car ride would be one such task.
This has immediate benefits no matter how small. Every little bit creates a helpful loop of accomplishment. The closed feedback loop is the primary benefit. But there are others like money, profits, self-confidence, and knowledge of what you need to learn.
In fact, Learn From Blogs listed 13 key benefits to finishing what you start:
1. You will know what good planning skill is. You’ll start to plan things accordingly in stipulated time.
2. It gives a chance to prove yourself.
3. You can learn to juggle things well; you can see what’s important in front of you.
4. You will learn to prioritize.
5. You will know if this is the right way or right approach.
6. You will become more ‘selective,’ i.e., you will start picking on things you have an interest in. You will start to take work that you are sure about. If you are not interested, you will know it because you won’t be able to give your best in finishing it.
7. You will accept tough days as part and parcel of work and life.
8. You will start making the right decisions.
9. You will learn about responsibilities. Being responsible for something can make you act more positively and appropriately.
10. You can handle things under pressure.
11. You can prepare yourself to meet the different prospects in your work.
12. You will gain self-assurance and self-confidence.
13. You will gain respect and trust from your workplace and personal life as well.
Weren’t those the things you jeopardize if you don’t finish? You can start now and finally complete your task.
Above all, you’ll learn to trust yourself. What you finished helps you build self-confidence that keeps your feet on the ground.
Now you know how important it is to finish what you start.
Profits and feedback from the completed task or project make the next one more successful.
The Mindset To Get Better at Finishing Tasks
If you’ve been putting things off, you can train yourself to start finishing what you start. Each step you take builds your self-confidence and gives you feedback on successful completion.
Simply note your progress. At the end of each day or week, examine the things you did complete and record the tasks you accomplished. It’s as simple as checking them off on a to-do list.
For instance, if you start the morning with a to-do list, list the things you can complete. Each task that you do completes a step in your journey toward a finish. While forcing yourself to finish your to-do list is a good exercise, you can also feel even better doing it when you choose the task to complete because you put yourself in control.
Finishing tasks has a lot to do with mindset. Changing your mindset is often more challenging the doing the task itself.
1. Give Up Perfectionism. It’s fine to expect perfect results, but it can sometimes delay things. Breaking your work down into smaller tasks, goals, and actionable steps will make it easier to achieve the desired results. Also, don’t expect too perfect results from the start.
2. It’s Not All About You. Work is your job, and you have a responsibility, but there are limits. Take a few things off your plate. Trust the people working for you. You can trust that they will deliver the results you need. They can be trained. Start the task with a quick session of ‘what you need. Let people handle their tasks while you stay focused on what’s essential. You will be slowed down if you put everything on your shoulders. The situation will take a toll on you and cloud your thinking.
3. Prepare for Contingencies. Things fall apart. Even if we plan carefully, obstacles occur, and you can’t do anything about it. However, we can save ourselves by being properly prepared. Create alternative contingency plans ahead of time so you can face setbacks and unexpected problems. Make a plan to save your work, plan, and take care of finances. Keep going in spite of tough circumstances by making good decisions and alternate choices.
4. Do The Important Tasks First. You have only so much willpower. As you do tasks during the day, your willpower decreases. Doing the most important and harder tasks first means you won’t need as much willpower to do the secondary tasks. And, a secondary benefit, is you’ll close the feedback loop on the important task.
Employing these simple mindset strategies will help you finish what you start.
Simple Steps to Finish What You Start
Once you create a positive mindset about finishing what you start, you can use practical steps to get things done.
1. Set clear and attainable goals. Know what you want to accomplish and by when. Then list what you need to do to finish.
2. Set a schedule. Routine and habit define us. Having a clear idea of where you’re going next allows you to focus.
3. Own your choices. It is common for us to follow our impulses. But evaluating your choices and owning responsibility empower you to get it done.
4. Get feedback. Don’t wait until the end to get feedback. You will know if what you’ve done so far aligns with your ultimate goal.
5. Evaluate for focus clarity. Checking your work as you progress and getting feedback helps you learn where to focus your energy. You won’t lose time pursuing fruitless or unsuccessful paths.
Create Your Best Results
Use your positive mindset and following tasks to finish what you start.
You gain self-confidence as you feel and notice the satisfaction of finishing things. And you’ll get better results as your positive feedback loop improves your actions every day, each week, and month-by-month.
Your self-feedback improves on everything you do, reinforcing your success at finishing what you start. You create your best results because you are able to work more strategically and proactively to achieve your important long-term goals.
Each project that you finish builds your long-term satisfaction. Your self-confidence grows in your ability to finish things. The positive feedback loop reinforces your success for getting results.
You are more likely to catalyze ideas that lead to new projects you want to commit to finishing. You set more goals for your life. And you become a more successful, more positive, assertive thinker and a more positive person in general.
The long-term satisfaction of finishing future projects makes it easier for you to feel good and take risks and commit to being more proactive about finishing the things you start. And, all while you are living a life of greater overall satisfaction. Rather than seeing your potential future success as what may never happen, you will set long-term goals that you know for sure you will accomplish.
The Mentoring Answer to Mindset Change
It takes effort to adjust your mindset to finish what you start. If you always look for a quick solution or find yourself doing something else than the task at hand, you may want to work with a mentor.
It’s one thing to read a list of ways to finish what you start, but it takes self-awareness and focus to train your mind and implement reliable habits that get things done.
Our science-based mentoring focuses on you, and you alone. We start with an evaluation of where you are now. Our confidential, one-on-one conversations are designed to help you attain success in life.
At elevanation, we’ve helped students, entrepreneurs, executives, and people just like you make important life-changing decisions. Everything at elevanation is based on empirical data and actual results. So you can get the maximum benefit in the minimum time.
Schedule your free action call to supercharge your life now. Take that first step to finish what you start. I’d love to chat with you to help you define and achieve your prosperous career and a brilliant future.