I have trouble finishing the things that I start. I’ve mentioned that I often drift from project to project. I like to try new ways of expressing my creativity. This means that I don’t usually give myself the chance to practice my skills into mastery.
About a year ago, I decided to become a more disciplined person. This decision came after I had already committed to doing whatever it took to earn my black belt in karate. It came after I had already been practicing self-discipline by showing up in class week after week. It came after I had started and grown a small business of my own. After I had bought a planner and began using it consistently. After I began to wake up early and practice several other new habits, which I began to track using the designated pages of the aforementioned planner. The decision to become more disciplined came after already having made a number of choices that a disciplined person would make.
You see, I’d been learning how to make hard choices easier by turning them into habits. And I was seeing results. My morning habits now currently include at least 20 minutes of exercise–these days I’m on a yoga streak. I have added reading, journaling, meditation and art.
The thing about the art, though, was that on most days, the box on that line of my habit tracker stayed empty. Because there wasn’t always room in my morning for it. Like a lot of folks, I had this idea that creativity required a large investment of time and a number of messy tools. I was blocking my flow with my story that cleaning up from making art would take more time and effort than it was worth. I thought that I had to produce something amazing in order for it to “count” toward my habit goals.
Then I woke up to the fact that I was the only one who was invested in this behavior, and I was the one setting the standard. I, alone, was stuck in this story. Would someone else really come along and page through my planner and point out the fact that I put a whole X through the box on September 23rd when I only colored in a coloring book that day? No. I get to decide if producing something would be enough. Coloring could totally count.
So I turned back to my small sketchbook, which I had been reaching for here and there over the last couple of years. I placed it on the top of the stack that I work my way through each morning: my planner, my journal, my book. I gave myself permission to draw or paint in my sketchbook as part of my creativity habit. Sometimes, it was just a mark. A scribble, or a hint of an idea. Because sometimes, I truly didn’t have much time to spend. Other times, I started something one day and added to it the next day and the next. I began to experience more moments of creative flow. My writing improved. My thoughts became clearer. Expressing myself visually in the morning was doing a similar thing in me that journaling has done. Setting myself up to create first thing in the morning helped me to BE creative throughout my day. Art stopped being something that I was hoping I’d get to eventually. Something I would try to “squeeze in.” And like my other morning habits, this one became essential.
Today I finished a drawing on the last page of that little sketchbook. And as I looked back through the pages, I noticed that a lot of what I put in there was crap. Maybe not crap, but among the more polished pages that I’m really proud of, there are many, many pages that I wouldn’t even show as an example of how to be bad at art. And I’m really, really proud of those pages, too.
As I flipped through this little sketchbook, it occurred to me that I may not actually have the trouble I claimed to have at the beginning of this post. I have trouble finishing things? I finished this. I’ve finished filling up four entire journals and nine whole months of planner pages. I’ve earned two college degrees and a black belt. I’ve been podcasting for a year. I’ve read a ton of books all the way to the end. I’ve created and finished some actual amazing pieces of art. I DO finish things.
I had trouble believing that I could ever finish something because I had told the same story for a long time. When I start something, I get bored and don’t finish because I get excited about starting something new. That’s the old story. The new story is that I get to choose what counts. I get to focus on the growth and success that I create for myself. I get to give myself permission to start as many things as I want, while also making sure that it’s something that fits with my purpose, values, mission and goals enough to keep me consistent. And I get to decide what that looks like.
As a child, I always hesitated to use new things. Toys, art supplies, etc. I think it had something to do with a fear of loss. Like if I used my nice pencils too much, they would be gone and I wouldn’t have them anymore to use someday. I still remember a nightmare I had when I was very young. I dreamed that my favorite doll was in the garbage. I was so sad. Learning to finish things is very much part of my journey of learning to let things go.
In high school and college, I bought so many blank books. I would tell myself that it was for a specific reason or purpose. I sometimes filled a couple of pages, even occasionally writing in more than half the book. I have a whole tub of books from that season of my life that have no ending. And I wonder now if part of the reason I never finished them was because I didn’t want to let them go. There is certainly an element of grief that comes from the closing of a book. Whether I’m reading it or writing it. There is sadness that it’s over, even if it wasn’t a particularly good book, because coming to the end untethers me. I enter an in-between state of not knowing exactly what comes next. Perhaps this feeling was what I resisted for so long. If I always have a million projects going, then I never have to think strategically or sit in the discomfort of dreaming or planning for what’s next.
Because there’s always a part of me that fears I’ll run out of ideas. That maybe nothing comes next.
Maybe you don’t struggle with finishing what you start. Maybe you go the other direction and can’t move onto something new unless the first thing is done. That story can hold you back, too, in a different way. I can’t imagine how much of what I’ve done would have never happened if I’d had to wait for completion of the thing before. And I’m starting to deeply value the practice of using what’s in front of me to practice moving forward and letting go. To learn more about myself in the process of this practice. To understand that I’m so much more than the stories I tell about any of it.
As we enter the last month of the year, what is something you’re in the process of finishing? Will you allow yourself to close the book on this chapter and hang out with me for a moment in that in-between unknowing before we see what’s next? If you need some guidance on how to finish, how to start, how to embrace something new or let go of what doesn’t serve, call me.
