Finish: Give Yourself the Gift of Done

by Jon Acuff

New contacts

Bad food avoided

Books read

Hours of TV watched

All I want you to do is pick one to three things you’ll measure. Why so few? Because when it goes well, and it will, you’ll want to measure more. I won’t even need to encourage you. You’ll just do it on your own. It’s fun to see progress and you’ll intuitively understand that if three points of progress are enjoyable to watch, maybe five would be even better.

Don’t overdo it. Perfectionism would have you measure thirty different things, weighing out the grams of vegetables on a scale to make sure you were getting exactly the right amount of potassium. Pump the brakes. Choose one to three points of data. That’s it.

Data flows in two directions, forward and backward. The list of items we just discussed are forward points of data. You’ll keep track of them going forward. Backward data is just as important, though, and is a collection of information from how things went in the past.

Why don’t we learn from the past? Perfectionism tells us this is simply one more form of cheating. We don’t need the past! That’s another crutch. Remember, perfectionism is aggressively opposed to anything that makes our goal easier, and learning from the past certainly does that.

What happened last time you attempted a goal like the one you’re planning?

If you haven’t done this goal before, what happened with a similar goal?

Who was involved last time?

How long did it take?

How much money do you need to finish it?

Was there a deadline?

Were there consequences if you didn’t finish it?

If you finished, did you get a reward?

If you didn’t finish, which part tripped you up?

If you could do it differently this time, what would you change?

The goal of asking all these questions and gathering as much information as possible is to give you the greatest shot at success.

The work is worth it, especially if you have a goal you really care about. Keep in mind that you might realize along the way that you need a new goal. The exercises we’re doing are nothing in comparison with the real work of making it through the middle of a project. All I’m asking you to create is a list of actions. If you don’t want to do that, how do you think you’ll feel when you actually have to do the actions? Writing down “Make cold calls to potential clients” is infinitely easier than actually doing it when the time rolls around.

Changing your goal here is not failure. It’s success! I’d much rather you refine your goal or pick a better one than have you limp through a process that’s difficult, with a goal that doesn’t matter to you.

So then why are people productive on planes? There are several possibilities: You can only bring a limited amount of work.

The white noise helps you focus.

The Internet connection is too weak to get distracted.

There’s a well-defined deadline.

Nobody knows you. A plane might be a great place for you to work because you’re anonymous.

This is what I call a “perfectionism pause” moment. Perfectionism loves to stop you midway through a goal. Why do 92 percent of resolutions fail? Because after doing something like gathering data, all those goal setters thought they were done. But data you collect and don’t use is useless.

What if you collected data and the results aren’t what you were hoping for? That’s why a lot of people quit. They give in to disappointment and unmet expectations. If you’re unhappy with your progress, you have three different dials you can adjust. The goal The timeline The actions

The goal is your finish line, what you set out to accomplish when you...

Perhaps the problem was that Jason wanted to lose an unreasonable forty pounds and was better off shooting for twenty. We have already discussed in length the value of cutting your goal in half.

The second dial Jason, and you, have access to is the timeline. Instead of giving himself eight weeks to see progress, he could increase that to sixteen weeks. If his goal was stretched out over time, he could greatly increase his chance of seeing the progress he wanted. We’ve covered that one already, too.

The third dial represents the actions you’re taking to get ...

When faced with disappointing results, Jason had the option to turn that dial. He could increase his actions. In addition to working with a personal trainer, he could hire a dietitian to come up with an eating plan. He could swear off caloric rich beer and win...

In personal projects it’s easier to deal with all three dials because you’re the one in charge. Instead of beating yourself up, instead of misremembering how easy it was in the past, instead of quitting, look at the three dials. Do you need to tweak your goal, your timeline, or your actions?

But do you know what I hate even more? Perfection. I hate feeling lost because I don’t know which is the best way to go. I hate living in denial. And more than anything, I hate disaster.

Don’t wait until the squirrels move in to listen to data. Data kills denial, which prevents disaster. Perfection will tell you that your data must be complicated. If you dare to gather some, it will have you tracking every ounce of water, second of time, and vowels used in the book you’re writing.

Don’t. Our goal in this chapter is to get one to three points we can use. For what? To finish, which is what we’re about to do.

Because the day before done is terrifying.

That’s how perfection feels about the day before done. You fought through the day after perfect. You cut your goal in half. You killed your cuckoos. You made sure your goal is fun. You are inches away from finished and perfectionism knows it.