Persistence Pays: Learning to Finish What You Start
Last time, you discovered how you can meet pretty much any goal with persistence. Today, you’ll learn 10 specific strategies for helping you finish tasks or projects.
When it comes to completing a job, task, or project, have you ever choked under the pressure and wondered if you would finish? If this has happened to you, you might have ended up feeling guilty and profoundly disappointed in your own abilities.
Even though your desire for an end result is high, the difficulty level or time required to complete the task could make you want to give up.
Where do you stand when it comes to persevering until a job is complete? How can you persist when you’re challenged in meeting your goals?
If you struggle to complete what you start, these strategies are for you:
1.Visualize the expected result. Constantly remind yourself how great you’ll feel when you’re done. Make note of all the benefits you’re receive.
2.Be consistent. Sometimes, it feels like you’ll never get there. When you feel that way, remind yourself you must simply keep on keeping on. If you stay with working consistently toward your goal, chances are good you’ll eventually accomplish it.
3.Notice what you’ve done so far. When you can see some fruits of your labors, you’ll get another burst of motivation to keep going. Maybe you completed 10% of the project last week. That’s 10% less than you have to do to finish. Have acute awareness of what you’ve already completed as well as what you have left to do.
4.Maintain a positive outlook. Whenever you stay focused on the positive, it just makes it easier to continue plodding forward. Being positive is a choice, so take advantage of it.
5.Have realistic expectations. If you didn’t start playing piano at a young age and practiced for several thousand hours already, it’s unlikely you’ll ever reach the level of a world-class pianist. This is especially true if you’re 48 years old and only have 30 minutes a day to practice.
○While it’s admirable to strive for perfection, be careful. You’ll always quit if perfection is the only acceptable outcome. Have realistic expectations for your situation.
6.Avoid under-estimating what it will take to finish. We’ve all had the experience of thinking we know how long we will spend to complete a particular task, only to find it takes much longer. If you must make a ball-park guess as to how much time you’ll need, it’s better to over-estimate.
7.Make a personal vow to finish what you’ve started. Staying conscious of what you want to do and why you want to do it, and then vowing to finish, will serve as motivation to help you keep your nose to the grindstone. Promise yourself you’ll persist until you prevail. Then do it.
8.Recognize when you must tweak your results. There may be times when you wish to slightly alter your end goal. After all, situations and people change. Particularly for long-term projects and goals, stay focused so that you’ll identify when it’s time to make alterations.
○If what you want has changed, it’s okay. Just revisit the goal, tweak it, and keep moving forward.
9.Consider setting mini-goals. If you need some extra motivation along the way, you might benefit from setting interim goals that you can easily accomplish. It feels good to see that you’re achieving your mini-goals. The momentum you gain is remarkable.
○Consider this example about losing weight: Maybe you want to lose 50 pounds. When you face that fact, it’s overwhelming and you feel like you can’t do it. It’s difficult to get started. But what if you were to set a goal to lose just five pounds?
○Chances are pretty good that you’ll be successful. And when you are, you can rejoice in the moment and set another mini-goal to lose five more pounds.
○Try setting mini-goals to keep momentum going and ensure you continue forward to the task’s end.
10.Get better at finishing the small tasks in your life. If you’re washing the dishes, avoid leaving that greasy, disgusting pan until morning. Fold all the clothes rather than leaving some of them for later. Clean the entire room. Pay all of the bills. Run the full 3 miles you planned to run.
○Finishing is a habit. Get in the habit of finishing all of the tasks in your life.
Being persistent can be a challenge that’s well worth conquering. Be consistent and take note of what you’ve done so far. Stay as positive as you can and avoid under-estimating the time it will take for job completion. Vow to finish and stay aware of what you’re doing so you can adjust your goal if you need to. Finally, consider setting mini-goals to persist until you finish the task.
Your persistence will pay off!
If you tend to quit a project or task when you feel challenged by it, you’ll love the next lesson! In this lesson, you’ll learn some techniques you can use to determine if you should quit or if forging on will work better for you.
Here’s what you need to do today:
What project or goal have you started on, but are having challenges with finishing? Use these tips to finish that project. If it’s a long one, divide it into mini goals and complete one of your incremental goals.