How the Book “Finish What You Start” by Peter Hollins Impacted My Life.

We live in a very fast-paced world where a lot of things can be happening. This leads to very overwhelming situations where we start doing things but we never really finish them. We tend to forget that to achieve success, we need to continuously do the things we need to do till finish.

Here is the book summary for the book Finish What You Start.

Finish what you start teaches the techniques the tips to follow through with your work, taking action, executing and self-discipline. Most of us have the habit to start things out but we never think how important it is to finish it because the reward will be numerous but it will always be at the finish line.

We now live in a society where grit is becoming rare. We always see other things fascinating to try, but a just few down the road, we just tend to just give up easily.

I mean why is this happening? Well we all know that to be successful, we have to stay consistent. Whether it is for your career, personal improvement, business or whatever it is. Perseverance will always be an integral key to success.

Finish What you Start Book Summary and Review

After reading this book and its explanation on why we do this, it gave me light to see what can I do. Finish what you start explains why this happens and what can we do to arm ourselves with knowledge in order to face these challenging problems.

Big Idea: Stop Thinking, Just Execute

This idea has a very big impact and I fully relate to this problem. Before doing something, such as exercising, I always think of other ways to get out of it.

Some things like: Oh, I just want to stay in bed. or I am busy today so I have no time to exercise.

The longer you let yourself think, the more you will find a way to get out of it. So the first big lesson this book has given me is to just execute and do things. This means that everyday once waking up, I need to quickly jump out my bed to exercise. Just do it.

When I started writing this script for this video, I kept thinking how to procrastinate doing this. I mean my brain keeps tells me that I don’t need to do this today. There is no deadline to finish. But what did I do? I started to just write things out.

Remember that this is a practice. A habit that you need to form. The longer you do this practice, the easier it will be in the future.

This goes with a lot of things, whether you are starting a business, exercising, writing, reading. Everything applies to it. Whether you succumb to your brain telling you to not do it, or to form a habit of just doing things is completely up to you.

A Big Impact Quote from the Book

If there is a finish what you start quote that got my full attention on the facts of life, it is this: “Anything we want to accomplish has an associated opportunity cost.”

Whether positive or negative, this applies to all. This means If we decided to exercise each morning, we are sacrificing our comfortable time in bed. If we are reading books at night, we are sacrificing our time to watch TV on our couch. This could also be reverse. You can be sacrificing your health by eating junk foods instead of healthy ones. Or you can be sacrificing your own life by just browsing social media feeds instead of reading learning from a course or reading books.

Big Idea: The Amazing Power of Three

While you can do a lot of things for self improvement. Such as: Reading, Mindfulness, Exercising, Working, Journaling even Intermittent Fasting, we are just human. We really can’t just wake up one day and do it all at the same time forever. Our motivation and willpower is very limited. If you’ve experienced this (which I did) I gave up immediately at day 3.

So one of the big points this book has thought me is to just start with 3. Sometimes even 1, or 2 but the maximum is three. This makes it easier. And do not forget that even small things done over time will produce amazing results.

For me, I started with 2. Which are reflection and learning. I never let a day go by without doing these things. After a few weeks these 2 things already became a habit. because of that, I started to do exercises next. It doesn’t really need to be instant. Just do it slowly but surely.

Doing a lot of tasks all at the same time will instantly deplete your willpower. It will surely tire you out. We can adopt as humans but not at that pace. That is why this book thought us that we only need to do 3 things “maximum”. Once things become easy, maybe you can add another. Then another. Until you’re satisfied with the results.

The Emergency Button

This book thought me that I should always execute and not think. However, there are times where we just can’t help it. We think, that makes us human. Is there a solution to this? Gladly, this book has.

Gladly this book has something what I call the rule of 10.

The rule of 10 is simple. if you can’t help but think, then we just give our brain something to think about. Think of the future. If you do this, what will it be 10 minutes from now, 10 hours from how or 10 days from now. Ask yourself, is it going to be worth it skipping tasks? is it worth it not doing your work? Are there any consequences in the future? You might even go farther, what if you didn’t follow your dreams what will it be 10 years from now?

Other amazing lessons Finish what you start book can teach us about life.

There are a lot more good points the book can teach us. One of which I can share with you right now is to star Start Easy and Small.

Starting easy and small goes hand in hand with the rule of three. Making it small and easy makes you think less and thus execute faster. Tasks usually gets easier over time and the more momentum you have, the easier it will be in the future.

Another great point in the books is temptation bundling. It is sad news but most things that makes us better are not pleasurable. Like me, I really hate exercising. But I love coffee. So after exercising, I make myself a good cup of coffee. This makes me do tasks with less effort.

But my favorite among them all that had a big impact in my life is actually the single tasking.

So what is single tasking, it basically teaches us to do one thing at a time. It is funny right? We like to multitask but we are not really good at it. I find that if I do things one at a time, I finish them a lot faster and the outcome is a lot better.

For me, this means not putting my phone to my workplace when I write articles such as this script. This makes my work faster than what I thought it would be, thus I can finish a lot and do other things that needed my attention. Focus is a really powerful tool. For me, it is our superpower that once we get to this mode, our brain become so efficient that tasks become easier than usual. I love being what others call in the zone. It gives me happiness especially when I finally achieve the end.

This book gave amazing tips on boosting your productivity, lessening procrastination, mindsets and so much more. What is more amazing is that I am still using the concepts of this book as I am writing this article. With these in mind, I hope you can arm yourself with these lessons and I hope you one day achieve your goals.