Finishing

Is your tendency to start new things or finish what’s already on your plate? Mine is definitely to start. 

For me, starting fills me with hope. The tantalizing taste of novelty and exploration pulls me in like a siren song. 

And while my love of starting has certainly helped me a lot, at times, it can become by achilles heel. 

When this happens my life starts to mimic a really cluttered browser with hundreds of open but abandoned tabs, each one a harsh reminder of the things I once wanted to do – half finished books, courses I’ve started and not finished, a craft project I gave up on when I failed to pick the additional materials I needed. The list goes on and on. 

And then it hit me, sometimes the hardest thing to do is get started…..and sometimes it’s the exact opposite: finishing what we started.

When there are too many tabs open in the browser of life, finishing is the thing I’m most in need of. So earlier this week, I wrote down all the projects (big and small) that remained unfinished and I went through them one-by-one. For several projects, I decided to recommit and made a plan for how I was going to finish. But in most instances (about 60% really), I decided to just let go of the project entirely (which I would argue is a form of a finishing.) 

So what are you most in need of right now? Do you need to get started? Or do you need to finish? 

If it turns out that finishing is what you need, here are some questions I found helpful to ask myself: 

• What does finishing look like? 

• What needs to change in order for me to finish? Do I need to find the time? Do I need to change how I’m doing something? 

• Do I just not want to do this anymore? (and if the answer is yes, that’s totally cool too) 

Happy finishing! 

[P.S. If you want some tips on starting, I wrote about that topic earlier]