How can I finish strong?

June 28, 2007 8:17 PM

How can I finish strong? How can I maintain the same discipline that I have at the beginning and middle of a project or goal once I start to near the end?

I tend to excel at whatever I put my mind to. The problem is that I frequently have a very difficult time putting my mind to something, especially if it involves maintaining long-term discipline, such as taking a class or training for a marathon. I think that these two examples illustrate my point:

When I was in college, I would frequently maintain very strong A's until later in the semester, when I would often slack off and not study for an exam or turn in an assignment. I never had any difficulty understanding the material, but would often compromise my grades this way. Typically, I would either slack off in the last 3/4 of the semester and either bomb an exam so bad that I needed to get straight-A's in the rest of the class to salvage a B for the course, or I would slack off enough for the final exam to bring my grade down to a B.

Another example is marathon training. I started training for a race about 4 months ago. About mid-way through, I ran a half-marathon in a very good, and completely satisfactory (to me), time. Based on that time, and where I was in my training, I think that I could have easily met my marathon goal time. However, the past few weeks I have been extremely unmotivated when it comes to training and have barely run at all. As a result, I'm sure that I'm going to get a 'B time' instead of the 'A time' that I was originally shooting for. A quote from a teacher that perfectly captures this is "You're like a bald tire on ice" (slipping).

I realize that these two examples are fairly trivial, but I raise this question because I want to learn how to address this habit before it affects something really important. I'm pretty successful career-wise and am at a point in my life where I'll soon be moving on to much larger things, both in my career and in my personal life. But I believe that I could be more effective (and happy) if I could overcome this problem.

I've thought about this quite a bit and considered that maybe I'm lazy by nature or that once I've proved to myself that I can probably do something, I lose the drive to finish it up and actually do it.

So, MeFi'ers, what do you think? What's my problem and what can I do to keep my eye on the ball going forward?

Thanks!

posted by anonymous to human relations (8 comments total)

It may help to externalize the goals you're wanting to reach. It's easier to finish something when we're accountable to something outside ourselves.

You may find it helpful to find someone who wants to accomplish the same goal as you so you can work together to reach it. If you were training for your marathon with someone else, you'd likely be able to motivate yourself by focusing on helping your partner reach their goal.

Even better, find someone who's good at finishing what they start and buy them lunch. A mentor in this area can make a big difference.

Good luck.
posted by The Beezer at 8:47 PM on June 28, 2007

I think of these sorts of problems like Chinese finger puzzles. You've got to relax a bit before you pull a little harder. Keep in mind that 90% of people don't finish college or run marathons at all. Don't be so hard on yourself.
posted by Asef Jil at 9:37 PM on June 28, 2007

I think this problem of not finishing ultimately is a question about motivation - what is motivating you to excel in the beginning? You may not have the right motivation, so to speak, if you keep seeing the problem where you're not motivated all the way thru to the end.
I dont know what the solution is except that maybe the underlying question you can think or talk about is the question about motivation and whether you feel you have the right motivations when you DO excel. Do you excel simply because you're talented and its easy for you to excel? Do you excel for short term rewards like glory or money or attention, and you're not really taking up these projects for themselves?
Are you losing drive because of laziness? It seems to me its not really laziness because you do get off your ass in the beginning of the project. if you were truly lazy, you wouldnt even do that much.
Is it fear of failure (rather than love of the project) that motivates you?
Or -- is it fear of success that prevents you from finishing? After all, success can be every bit as traumatic as failure - in the sense that it can change your context and your environment, and if you're not ready for that change, then you would not welcome success.
Is it a rebellion against authority or imagined authority? After all, most authority and institutional figures would reward you for success.
Etc. Some more clarity on your motivations might help clarify and focus the question at hand.
posted by jak68 at 9:46 PM on June 28, 2007

This may sound weird, but allow yourself to hate it for the last stretch, while keeping in mind how good it will feel to have actually followed through with something to the end -- despite how much you hated it. In other words, shift your focus from proving that you can accomplish x to proving that you can finish strong.
posted by treepour at 11:16 PM on June 28, 2007

Is it a fear of failure? I mean, if you train or work hard right until the end, the result you wind up getting is the result you earn or deserve. If you slack off near the end, you're able to tell yourself 'well, had I worked/trained harder, I would have got that top end result that I'm capable of getting.' Slacking off means that you know that you're going to fall short and, as a result, it means you're able to avoid falling short of what you're really capable of doing. I've seen this in a few people, but don't know if it applies to your situation.
posted by lumiere at 1:19 AM on June 29, 2007

This is not a direct anser to your question. However The Dip by Seth Godin may offer you some insight into why you start out strong and then give up.
posted by studentbaker at 2:35 AM on June 29, 2007 [2 favorites]

Well there's this sense that once you know you can do something then it becomes not worth doing. This is especially true of education where the total lack of challenge and the forced nature of it can make the entire endeavor a big, long, tedious slog. There are various little strategies you might use for overcoming such feelings of bored, false accomplishment but I think (re)establishing a strong sense of progress, a feeling that you are indeed moving forward, is the core idea. You might try really visualizing your goal, writing it down as a story about yourself, a periodic reward system for working on the goal, documenting your progress, and doing "sprints," periods of fast, intense work on the project. As a last resort you can ask your mother to nag you and continually remind you that you don't want to end up one of those sad, old people who spend their last days drowning in regret because they never finished anything, not realizing that anything worth doing is worth doing 100% and so they phoned in and half-assed their whole life. (Hopefully you can appreciate the value of such a mother!)
posted by nixerman at 5:14 AM on June 29, 2007

Is it a perfectionist thing? Like, you skip running for a day or two, then your training is "ruined" so you don't run for three weeks, because what's the point? I know that my long-term projects tend to fall apart for that reason, even when they were so promising initially.

I've found the best solution is to just keep moving forward. Even if I feel hopelessly behind, even if I've made a big mistake, even if I really don't want to, I just make myself keep moving toward the goal. Don't want to run? Well, put on your running clothes anyway and take a walk. And maybe once you're outside in your running clothes you decide to actually go for a run. Don't want to finish a project? It doesn't matter, sit down in a quiet room, pick an easy piece, and do it.
posted by robinpME at 6:44 AM on June 29, 2007