Finish: Give Yourself the Gift of Done pdfdrive com

Who’s Afraid of the Finish Line?
Don’t dread the day before done. Fear no finish line. You’ve worked too hard to
give up now.
Does the ocean have some waves? Will there be people who don’t get your
art? Will the outcome be different from your vision? Yes. I can’t lie to you this
late in the book. But you’ll never know the unbelievable joy of keeping a
promise to yourself unless you finish.
That’s what we’re doing, keeping a commitment to ourselves and knowing
we’ve fulfilled it when we finish.
Actions:
1. Identify which of the final fears of perfectionism you struggle with the
most. (If any.)
2. Write down the name of one friend you can reach out to.
3. Answer the question, “What am I getting out of not finishing?”

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I
CONCLUSION
have a confession.
At least three times a week, I watch YouTube clips of The Voice.
And I don’t just watch the American version of the show, with Blake
Shelton, Pharrell, Gwen Stefani, and Adam Levine. I go down deep rabbit trails
that eventually find me enjoying an opera singer audition on The Voice of
Albania. Hosted by Ledion Lico, of course.
If you’ve never seen the show, it’s a singing contest similar to American
Idol.
My favorite part is the audition process. Unlike other musical programs, the
judges can’t see the contestant when they start singing. All four judges are sitting
in big chairs that look like the kind of thing a villain in a James Bond movie
would own in a volcano lair.
If they like what they hear, the judges can press a big button and spin the
chair around to see the person. Sometimes, the person looks exactly like her
voice and there’s very little surprise. But on the best auditions, the person
singing doesn’t look at all like her voice.
The judges throw up their hands in complete shock, bang the big button a
dozen times, and the audience jumps to its feet for a standing ovation.
This is why people like Susan Boyle and Paul Potts are such fun to watch.
Neither one of them looks like they’re full of talent. Both of them seem normal
and average. You’d walk past them on a street without ever noticing. But when
they open their mouths and do the thing they’re supposed to do, it’s amazing.
For every Paul Potts, though, there are a thousand people who never tried.
For every Susan Boyle, there are a thousand shower singers who didn’t think
they were good enough to even audition.
That’s ultimately the worst thing that perfectionism does.
It keeps you home. It traps you on the couch. It makes sure you never try.
It brings you to the last final exam of your six-year college career and then
persuades you to fail it on purpose.

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persuades you to fail it on purpose.
I don’t know you. We might never meet. You might never get to see that I
am really taller in real life. Like basketball tall. Google it.
But I know this, if you’ve been giving in to perfectionism, it’s enough
already.
Stop shredding.
Maybe you don’t even make it that far. Maybe you can’t even bring yourself
to drive to the store and buy painting supplies. Maybe your art doesn’t even
make it to the canvas.
I don’t know what obstacle trips you up. I don’t know which trap
perfectionism uses on you the most. I don’t know why you refuse to finish.
I just know there’s a moment I want to invite you to: that moment when the
unexpected happens, when the judge turns around in his chair and is surprised at
what you, little old you, is capable of. I might sound cheesy and not at all cool,
but sometimes cool is a form of cowardice to prevent you from admitting the
things you deeply care about.
The chair turn is one of my favorite things ever. It’s also why I believe in
finishing.
Most of us spend most of our lives wondering what if. We imagine. We
dream. We hope.
And a week turns into a month turns into a year.
The stage stays empty. The mic stays quiet. The chair won’t spin around
because no one is singing.
In moments like this, the goal doesn’t disappear. We think that perhaps the
sands of time will cover it up and we will forget all about it, but we don’t. A goal
unfulfilled may grow dim, but it never goes dark. A movie character will remind
us of the promise, a store window where a book like ours sits or an offhand
comment from a friend will stir it all back up.
Goals you refuse to chase don’t disappear—they become ghosts that haunt
you. Do you know why strangers rage at each other online and are so quick to be
angry and offended these days? Because their passion has no other outlet.
When you refuse to deal in joy, you don’t quit being emotional; you just
funnel all that fury somewhere else. Many a troll was born from the heartache of
a goal he dared not finish. Maybe a troll is just someone who lost to
perfectionism so many times that he gave up on his own goals and decided to
tear down someone else’s.
But then, we try. Then we act. Then we fail. Then we try again.
Why do I believe in finishing?
Because I believe in you.

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Because I believe in you.
I believe there’s more.
Scratch that. I believe there’s a lot more.
Why do I believe that?
Because I’ve seen it a thousand times in a thousand different people working
on a thousand different goals.
And if you try even a tenth of the things we talked about in this book, you’ll
get to see it, too.
Starting is fun, but the future belongs to finishers.
Ready to be one?

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