Now Clean Up Your Plate!
If your Mom was like mine, an evening ritual included her directive, “Now clean up your plate or you don’t get any desert!” Most of the time I complied, but when we had green peas for supper…well that was another story.
How about you? Do you sometimes have trouble finishing what you start?
Coach Dailey has a solution…listen up!
My favorite fundamental for achieving business success is “Finish Relentlessly”. Why is it my favorite? Because it is the simplest way to assure dominant gain over most any business adversary. It’s not that I’m hyper-competitive or anything. Let’s face it, business success is about getting a customer before someone else and keeping them longer than someone else. By default we are in a competitive position. And the most competitive business wins.
So here’s what I know: most people are poor finishers and if you can simply learn how to finish what you start, you will become world class in virtually anything you apply effort.
To master finishing relentlessly, you must first recognize that starting is not finishing. Now I know this seems incredibly fundamental but hear me out. I can tell you that the most talented business people and entrepreneurs I know are phenomenal starters – and most struggle with finishing…that is until they figure out a way to keep the things they start in front of their face until their done and discipline themselves not to start more than they can finish in the first place.
How to do you get really good at finishing? Here’s four tips:
- When you set a goal – also define a vivid picture of what it looks like when you are done: how it feels, what will change in your life or the life of others, what sort of rewards it will bring – the whole Technicolor picture.
- Next, resist the temptation to start new things just for the sake of adrenaline. If you are looking for a thrill, look for it at the finish line and realize that only being excited about starting is like getting excited about walking into your favorite restaurant and ordering but never eating. The real deal is in following through.
- Third, only count what is real. If you count what you expect or count what you predict or count what you hope for…you are counting the proverbial sheep. Fictitious counting is detrimental to your character and your completion. Only count what’s done.
- And finally – set a gratifying reward to indulge in after you have achieved your current goal. Don’t be duped into thinking that when you achieve the goal that will be reward enough. It won’t. Unless you have something beyond the goal that you can look forward to that you will do for yourself or give yourself permission to indulge in – you’ll find that the goal will remain illusive indefinitely.
Put those things in place and you’ll learn to finish relentlessly and become a world class goal achiever.
