I am an amazing starter! Back in the day when I only had one kid, I loved the fabric store. I mean honestly, there are very few things more fun than finding a cool pattern or the perfect fabric for new curtains, or some home décor project. I LOVED envisioning the project and making the initial decisions. I enjoyed the first 25% of the work. I endured the middle 50% of the work, and I despised the last 25%! I was a great starter. Finishing was another story and as a result I had a chest full of started projects. At one point I started a quilt made from our old denim. I moved that unfinished quilt to 3 different houses before it mysteriously disappeared! It’s annoying in my crafting, it’s downright detrimental in my business!
I see this behavior all of the time in certain clients. This may or may not ring true for you. But even if you are an awesome finisher, at some point, you will get a starter on your team. I’ll even take it a step further to say that if you are a finisher, you should look for a starter to be on your team! Starters are visionaries, innovators, creative thinkers, and problem solvers. They are genius in these areas. However, their vision for what they are creating is so strong, that they feel the sense of accomplishment well before the task is finished and they mentally and emotionally move on. Then the drive they felt to start the project disappears, and the discipline to finish the project can be a challenge. Sometimes it is a big challenge!
You may be a starter if… (Read this in your best Jeff Foxworthy voice)
You have 10 different products and programs to sell, but your business sales are struggling.- You’ve been working on your book for more than a year.
- You are on revision number 52 of your website, but it still hasn’t launched.
- You never seem to get around to your marketing implementation because you are still working on the master plan, which by the way will change lives and probably the world because it is so amazing.
- You LOVE meeting new people and talking with perspective clients, but have to staple your head to the phone in order to accomplish any follow up.
Does this sound familiar? If you are a starter, here are 5 simple tips to increase your ability to finish. And if you are a finisher, going crazy trying to lead a starter, you may want to forward this message on!
- Stop beating yourself up for starting things and not finishing. Honor the creative genius you are and take inventory of all of the amazing things you have created.
- Make friends with discipline. He’s not a bad guy that makes you do things you don’t want to do. He is your really muscular best friend that is on your team to do your bidding and make all your dreams come true. Try some declarations to support this new belief.
- Get some finishers on your team. Some people love nothing more than finishing projects. And they struggle to create the vision so celebrate your perfect pairing.
- Plan awesome rewards. Knowing you have something to celebrate at the end of the completion of the project can pull even the most distracted starter through. We are good visualizers, so we can spend our creative energy visualizing the reward, which keeps the passion for the project alive.
- Keep an idea folder. I have a page in my personal tracker just for creative ideas. I choose when to implement them. But until it’s time and my team and I have the capacity to accomplish that idea, it gets to hang out in the big ideas page!
Starters, it’s time to grow some grit. Stop letting yourself off the hook and just hang in there to see it through. Nothing is more frustrating to a starter than looking around their life and realizing that what they envision is nowhere to be seen because they haven’t acted on their creative ideas. That does not have to be your story. Your vision is too amazing not to happen. See more...!