Chronicles of Strength

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How to Finish What You Start [The Pat Flynn Show]

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how to finish what you start

“It doesn’t have to be perfect. It doesn’t have to be good.

But you do have to finish what you start.” 

There are two parts of any project that are the hardest to get through: the beginning and the end. If you get started, you’ve already done more than most–already surpassed “The Diet Starts on Monday”, or the “I’ll Write My Novel Next Year”, person.

Here’s How to Finish What You Start

OR, ==> CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE EPISODE.

How to Finish What You Start – Read This Next

Last night I started writing a story on the couch. Like working out, writing isn’t easy. It’s not easy to get yourself to start, and it’s not easy to finish what you start. But I vowed to finish that story and post it on my blog. I said to myself:

“It doesn’t have to be perfect. It doesn’t have to be good. But you do have to finish what you start.”

Another example: The kids didn’t sleep all that well last week, so I was pretty tired at the gym. I’ve also been taking part in Kettlebell Maximum, and as anybody who’s in that will tell you, it’s far from easy. So about halfway through one of the workouts, I wanted to go home. I wanted to stop. I reminded myself:

“It doesn’t have to be perfect. It doesn’t have to be good. But you do have to finish what you start.” And I finished it.

When I say it doesn’t have to be perfect, that drops the impossible hurdle people set for themselves–a hurdle that stops people from finishing (when it hasn’t already stopped them from starting).

And when I say it doesn’t have to be good, that lowers the barrier even further. I’m not encouraging sloppy work; I’m saying you need to get out of your own way. Obviously you want to do the best you can. But you also need to stop worrying and get on with your work. You can always revise, later.

Not finishing means always starting over. It means losing instead of winning. But when you finish, that’s winning, even when you finish in last place. Because the person who finishes in last place is still ahead of the person who never finishes, at all.

So you finish, then you finish better next time.

Either way, it starts with finishing.

– Pat

PS – Strong ON! is a great place to start finishing.

https://www.chroniclesofstrength.com/strongon

The Pat Flynn Show

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Comments

  1. Hello Pat,

    great advice! I’ve found that it’s also much easier and faster when I’m just starting to work without thinking about the perfect end result.

    Meanwhile, it takes me longer to edit than it took to create. And that’s a good thing. 🙂

    It’s not that easy for me to not do everything one-to-one with training, but it gets better.

    Not perfecting everything is another skill that I have to practice on a daily basis, I think. 🙂

    Thank you for your work,
    Sebastian

  2. Awesome words. Exactly what I needed. Saving it to read the next time I need encouragement to START and FINISH something I’m dragging my feet on.