Finishing Well!

We spend our lives reaching for goals and trying to accomplish our personal dreams. Often we get sidetracked along the way and we settle for less than we had planned. We look for success and have to understand that as the late great speaker Earl Nightingale once stated “success is the progressive realization of a worthy ideal.” One of the key words in the definition is progressive! We can’t get it all done at once. No matter what happens along the way the key is finishing well.

It almost goes without saying that to finish well one of the keys is getting off to a good start. Starting slow or poorly means we have to make up the ground we’ve lost and play catch up with others or other organizations that did get going well. We need to decide what we really want to do and then plan the steps necessary to get what sports calls “momentum.” There are times when there are “great comebacks” but most of the time starting well precedes finishing well!

Next, as Stephen Covey wrote, we not only “Begin with the end in mind’’ but keep the end in mind! Distractions and roadblocks will come along as we progress toward the goal so we must make adjustments that will get us on track during the journey. Seldom, if ever does a plan work exactly the way we envisioned it to work so we need to be flexible and adjust our plan to keep it moving. Often in sports two halves of a game look completely different because one team makes the adjustments to finish well and win the game.

Another important aspect of finishing well is staying the course. Losing focus and ultimately being distracted loses time and makes our chosen end more difficult. Even when there are times we can only make small amounts of progress it is important to stay on course. Procrastination can cause our getting off course for a while and can sabotage the whole plan. The Nike motto “Just do it.” is important and can help in staying the course.

When we finish well and achieve the goal we will have the opportunity to “enjoy the fruits.” The first fruit is that of accomplishment, the satisfaction of success. Other fruits depend upon the goal but could be income, more family time, a better retirement, a nicer home, an almost limitless list of possibilities that come from “finishing well.”