Do you find it easier to start something than to finish it? Don’t worry, you’re not alone. Many people are chronic starters who struggle to see things through to completion. In Jon Acuff’s Finish: Give Yourself The Gift Of Done, this bestselling author explains why it’s so hard to complete what we’ve started and how to become consistent finishers instead. In this free version of the Jon Acuff Finish summary, we’ll outline the key factors behind successfully completing your plans and achieving real results.
In his book Start (2013), Acuff focused on helping people move past their fears and begin working toward their goals. However, he later realized that while starting is difficult, finishing is even harder. Acuff developed an online video course—the 30 Days of Hustle challenge—to guide people toward their ultimate goal of completion.
Through his own observations and research conducted by the University of Memphis, Acuff discovered that the secret to finishing isn’t working harder—it’s overcoming perfectionism. It’s about overcoming perfectionism, which causes unrealistic expectations, magnifies mistakes, diminishes achievements, complicates progress, and causes premature quitting. Instead, Acuff emphasizes imperfect progress and breaking goals down into actionable steps that create a steady path to a positive outcome.
Finishing what you’ve started
We’ll now briefly explain how perfectionist tendencies can get in the way of your goals, and how to overcome them to reach the finish line. In a nutshell, the key ideas are:
- Embracing imperfection
- Halving your goals
- Deliberately choosing what to Drop
- Have fun!
- Removing self-made obstacles
- Using data to stay on-track
- Overcoming your hidden rules
- Finishing strong
We’ll explain 2 of these points in greater detail is this article You can get a copy of our full 12-page Finish summary for more details on the remaining tips.
EMBRACE IMPERFECTION
Perfectionism is not the same as excellence—it is often the true enemy of success because it sets unrealistic goals and results in an all-or-nothing mindset. Instead of striving for perfect execution, perfectionists reject mistakes and imperfections, which leads to quitting at the first sign of trouble.
Many self-help books focus on starting strong. While planning is important, trying to create a flawless plan is counterproductive. Imagine you set a goal to exercise for 30 minutes daily but miss a day after a week. A perfectionist might abandon the goal entirely because their smooth sailing streak has been broken. Likewise, if you’re hitting your sales targets but fall short for two months, you may feel like you’ve failed beyond recovery.
Many people won’t even start on a goal if they think it isn’t ideal. In fact, more than 97% of respondents in an online poll admitted to not writing down ideas because they didn’t seem good enough. But waiting for the perfect goal means you may never start at all. Instead, it’s better to begin with an imperfect goal and refine it along the way, setting realistic expectations for yourself.
Let go of perfectionism and develop a tolerance for imperfection instead. Mistakes and setbacks are inevitable, but they don’t define your progress. If you quit every time something isn’t perfect, you risk becoming a chronic quitter, never making any actual progress.
Beware of the might-as-well trap, the thought process that says, “Since I’ve already slipped up, I might as well stop altogether.” By focusing on making goals enjoyable and celebrating incremental progress, you’ll be more likely to push through obstacles and reach the finish line.
HALVE YOUR GOALS
Perfectionism prompts us to over-stretch. We believe that we must “go big or go home” and feel bad about setting small goals. Once you’ve set an overly-ambitious goal, your perfectionist tendency kicks in and tells you to quit if you can’t do it properly. You tell yourself that it’s better to stop now rather than waste all the time/energy and still fail later.
The planning fallacy refers to the human tendency to consistently under-estimate the amount of time needed to complete a future task. Thinking of a big goal can be exciting at the beginning. However, the bigger the goal, the worse the planning fallacy and the more insurmountable it’d seem halfway into the process.
The solution is to:
- Cut your goals by 50%. This is not the same as doing half the work. In fact, halving your goals will actually encourage you to do more because when you reduce your goals, (i) they seem more attainable, and (ii) each time you complete a goal, you feel more motivated to keep going.
- And if your goal can’t be halved, then double the timeframe allotted to achieving it. Ask yourself: what’s the worst thing that can happen if you halve the goal or double the duration. Chances are, the real reason behind your ambitious goal is that perfectionist streak telling you to do everything now and to do it perfectly.
GETTING TO THE FINISH LINE
Get a copy of our complete Finish summary to get other insights on why/how to:
- Choose the goals to focus on and choose the goals to give up;
- Motivate yourself (by leveraging on your desires vs fears) and make your goals FUN;
- Eliminate your self-made obstacles (including your hiding places and noble excuses for avoiding what needs to be done), and turn your distractions into motivators.
- Become aware of your own hidden rules and limiting beliefs that are sabotaging your success, and overcome them with 3 steps and 6 questions (elaborated on the 12-page version of our Finish summary).
- Use data to see your real progress objectively, learn from mistakes and ensure you’re on the right track.
- Finish strong by overcoming the 3 fears of finishing
Getting the Most from Finish
In this free Jon Acuff Summary, we’ve briefly outlined some of the key insights and strategies you can use to achieve desired change. For more examples, details, and actionable tips to apply these strategies, do get our complete Finish summary bundle which includes an infographic, 12-page text summary, and a 23-minute audio summary.
This is a lively, easy-to-read book full of humorous examples and anecdotes. At the end of each chapter, Acuff also summarizes the action steps you can take for each of the success principles above. For more details, you can purchase the book here, or check out more resources/details at https://acuff.me/.
About the Author of Finish
Finish: Give Yourself The Gift Of Done is written by Jon Acuff–an American author and speaker. He has published several books, written for several major media companies (including Reader’s Digest, Fast Company, The Harvard Business Review and Time Magazine), and also runs the blog StuffChristiansLike.net. Acuff is one of INC’s Top 100 Leadership Speakers.
Finish Quotes
“Starting is fun, but the future belongs to finishers.”
“Accomplishing a goal is a lot less like taking a train across country and a lot more like driving a bumper car.”
“Perfectionism magnifies your mistakes and minimizes your progress.”
“Goals are a marathon, not a sprint.”
“Make sure that what you’re chasing is actually what you want to catch.”
“If you pursue the right goal in the wrong way, you still end up in the wrong place.”
Click here to download the Finish book summary & infographic
