Be a finisher

Starting is easy, anyone can do it! Open your editor, write a couple of lines and you have started a project. Read the first few pages and you have started a book. Sign up to the gym and you have started your journey to get fit. Now that technology is lowering the barrier of entry to many things, starting has never been easier… and more meaningless.

Beginning is a drug

But after a while, things start to get tough. Your project grows and you start to encounter roadblocks. The book is not that interesting anymore. And your waistline is not decreaing because you actually have to… you know, go to the gym regularly.

When the resistance comes it is easy to get lured into starting something else. Get another high… “This time it will be different!”. We tell ourselves lies, that we are making an investment that will pay off in the future.

But that future never comes, and nothing is really ever achieved.

“Continuing” is just as bad

Then there is the trap of mistaking motion for progress and convincing ourselves that we are doing well because we are putting in effort. Inching our way to an abstract ideal that will come… someday.

What is happening really is that we procrastinating on defining a goal. Possibly to protect us from failure.

But success also stays undefined, and nothing is really ever achieved.

The value of being a finisher

Being able to finish things is a valuable skill that requires deliberate training. It wont happen unless we practice. Very few people can do it consistently.

It is also a skill very much in demand. If you work in software just look around you: there is a lot of software out there already… waiting to be finished, or at least reshaped to adapt to changes in its environment. I would make argument that in many cases we do not actually need more software: we need better software!

In a world obsessed with empty starts and grinds to nowhere, set yourself apart by becoming a finisher!