Easy to Start, Hard to Finish

Each New Year resolutions are made with high hopes and firm resolve. By the year’s end, these well-intended resolutions will have been abandoned.

In January and February, fitness centers are packed with men and women working fiercely to lose weight. A few months later, the majority have gone back to couch potato living.

Too often basketball players dribble the length of the court sashaying through defenders only to chuck up a missed lay-up. Finishing the play with a basket is hard.

Coaches plan practices knowing games are lost in the last two minutes of a game. Finishing is more important than the start.

Unwise business leaders start a venture without counting the cost to finish the project. Finish happens when quitting is not an option.

Growing up is less difficult than growing old. Living becomes very hard when an illness is present. To finish life to the last breath with excellence is a worthy ambition.

Practical ideas to develop the habit of finishing a task:

1. Do little things to completion. Put things back where they belong.

2. Finish the task now, don’t procrastinate.

3. Write realistic goals down. Finish them.

4. Recognize it is hard to finish. Challenge yourself to finish.

5. Develop self-discipline. Learn a foreign language, run a marathon, learn a musical instrument, or learn a new skill. Appreciate denying self. Say no to lazy thinking and lazy living.