I am excited by new things and new projects. I think our popular culture encourages the new, the clean, and the shiny. This is particularly true of the tech industry, as well as fashion and media – but it also applies to any new endeavour.
I have started this blog up about a million times. I have started writing a book. I have started a podcast and a career in consulting. I have started all sorts of things. But once I start something, 2 questions quickly pop up:
- how do I want to keep them going? and,
- how do I want to finish them all?
Keeping them going is very tricky and smells something like hard work. There is always resistance to keeping something going. Always a need to be whipped or carroted into it. Formulating your own practice and habit and process is likely the answer. But this is easier said than done.
A less frequently discussed problem is that of finishing something well. We don’t learn often about how to best finish things off, how to put something to rest, or how to sell out or walk away for good. How to let something die.
I have finished a few relationships, a few jobs and a few sports careers successfully in my life to date. But for the really important stuff, entropy requires us to prepare for potential disorder and chaos. In practice this probably looks like a clear plan to move past the practice/habit stage and to enter the “finishing” stage. A plan with fallbacks and contingencies along the way. My finishes have been more ad hoc and improvised to date. I’d like to change that, though.
Chimpwithcans 