Finishing Things Off

Have you ever thought of having therapy or coaching to help you get things done? Perhaps you’ve considered if counselling will help you work out why you get distracted from projects and goals that once stirred you?

I’ve long known that my strengths lie in coming up with ideas and getting things going. I am an expert planner and, additionally, I love this part of the work. For those of you with a little Myers Briggs knowledge, I am an N – a big picture thinker.  This is ideal in business on many occasions. When you are coming up with your vision. Or when you are getting others excited about supporting you.

However, it does have its downfall. I am not a great Completer Finisher.  Belbin created the Completer Finisher profile. He suggested every team should have one on it. Not easy, when you run a one woman business. Often I run out of steam towards the end. Or I get distracted by something else. That bright shiny thing always looks much more attractive.

In Positive Psychology in particular there is a lot of emphasis on playing to your strengths and working on those rather than worrying too much about your weaknesses. However, there are times when you need to draw on those weaker areas. and that’s something therapy can help with.  Changing my own patterns of behaviour was something I had to address when studying for my Masters. Additionally, again when doing my psychotherapy training. Both of these were long tests of my endurance.

The best way to do this is a combination of practical approaches, with a deeper look at your own patterns of behaviour. Here are some ideas for the former. Meanwhile, I’d love to work with you on changing those patterns. You can book a call with me to chat about that here if it’s something that might be useful.

If this is open to you, this is probably the simplest one. Pass it on to someone that enjoys the detail and revels in finishing things off.

We are told to celebrate what we’ve achieved, but sometimes this can have a negative reaction. You may bathe in the glory and smugness of your achievements so far, taking the edge off getting to grips with what’s left. Keep your eye on what’s to do will help you regain your focus. In short, lose the habit of congratulating yourself for a job that’s only half done.

Tell that client you will have it done and dusted by a certain date, ask a friend to look over the draft of a novel at a certain time. Besides, many of us are motivated by deadlines so use them.

Tell yourself that you can book yourself a massage, have that evening out, or weekend away when and only when this is done.

Find people who have projects they want to finish off and buddy up to support each other and check in on how it’s going (this is one of the reasons group pogrammes work). Alternatively, you could all put a tenner in and the first person to finish gets the lot!

Eat the frog refers to getting the task done first thing in the morning, to get your most challenging work over and done with. This could mean focusing on the whole task. If it is an ongoing project, use your first hour to concentrate on it. Studies show that self-discipline slowly ebbs away throughout the day as you draw upon it. Making your biggest withdrawal first thing in the morning makes sense.

You can encourage your own completer-finisher to grow by bringing it into all aspects of your (no, not necessarily finishing that chocolate bar!).  Finish the whole session at the gym rather than slack off ten minutes early. Read the whole report rather skipping to the executive summary and scanning through. These are small things but done often they will impact on your habits, self-discipline overall and your approach to difficult tasks.

Don’t forget, you can book a call with me to learn about how therapy can help you with changing your own personal behaviours.