“Only one who devotes himself to a cause with his whole strength and soul can be a true master. For this reason mastery demands all of a person.” — Albert Einstein
Have you ever been to Home Depot on an early Saturday morning? I’m sure you have. If so, you will see the beginning of hundreds of projects getting ready to take place. People gather supplies and talk with the staff there to get their game plans in order. Week after week this same scenario plays out. Based on sales, it would appear that these weekend warriors will soon beautify and improve the entire planet!! I can tell you in the landscape construction world, I have done hundreds of consultations where I showed up to a project the clients started what they thought was a good DIY idea project, only to be partially way through and they just didn’t have the time or resources to finish it through.
Reality and results tell another story entirely. A quick look through the garages(that can now no longer fit a vehicle due to the project materials) and basements of many of these great starters would likely reveal the truth about completion: the final few percent, for many people, is virtually uncharted territory – meaning they never get there!
Carry the accumulation of half-demolished rooms in the house, clogged and hardened caulk guns, and piles of debris into the business world, and it’s no different.
The pattern for success is to recognize an unsatisfied need, innovate to find and provide a solution, then to expand and repeat the process. Somewhere between the innovation and delivery, we find the no-man’s land zone known as “completion”.
I see people on my social feeds all the time that post pictures of their new DIY project they are undertaking, but ironically I rarely see pictures of the completed job. Let me ask you this. What do you think makes completion such a challenge?
Completion forces us to step forward — For many people, the thought of completing a goal is kind of unsettling – even when the task at hand is an unpleasant one. No matter how much of a pain in the butt or annoying a project has become, at least it’s a pain that is familiar to us. We know that upon completion, we must choose something new again. We question whether we’ve got the goods needed to accomplish the next challenge we are going to face!
Completion forces us to step up — Concluding the current initiative inevitably moves us to a point of “what next?” For success-minded, personal growth focused people, the answer to that question always comes in the form of raising the bar. Knowing that an even greater challenge lies ahead can make incompletion almost addicting. We know that each completion is followed by a call for even more. We wonder how we will bear up as the stakes are raised.
Completion forces us to step out — Whether the task at hand is pleasant or not, we become attached to it. No matter how hard it seemed as we first put our hands to the project, it is now within our comfort zone. It is familiar, and it seems manageable. People generally fear change. We convince ourselves that survival depends on staying inside our circle of competency. Completion represents a “not-comfortable” nudge out of that circle.
For many people, incompletion and lack of full commitment has just become a way of life. It takes the form of procrastination, loss of interest, confusion, and frustration. By remaining at the “almost” complete mark, we reap the benefits of security, mediocrity, and familiarity. This is why as leaders we must be wise with our time and what we commit ourselves to so that we finish what we started. Otherwise we will find ourselves with a bunch of “half-baked” projects on our hands. Maybe not in the form of a knocked down wall, but maybe in the form of a half-read book, a partially completed growth project with your Team, or to be blunt, even some half-ass relationships!