‘A Terrible Completer-Finisher’

…….is not a phrase that is said too often. It is something that is usually viewed as an asset to any team or project.

As a completer-finisher I (& those who know, love or work with me!), know only too well that there are downsides to this trait.

Firstly, because I have no intention of leaving a job less-than-perfect, or even worse, half undone, I can procrastinate and put off big or ‘frightening’ jobs almost endlessly…. This does not serve me! Much better on the whole to make a start, and to learn what’s really involved, instead of running scenarios of what it could entail around my tired brain…..
The other extreme is to refuse to quit a job, a painting, a relationship or qualification that I have plainly outgrown in one way or another….. Why is this?  because to quit screams ‘failure’ at me.
Those around me can tell me I ‘don’t need to do it any more’  until they are blue in the face, but it has to be me that decides that the cost of continuing is too high. This cost to be presented to me when I am receptive and has to be very cognisant of not pushing the failure button! I really will resist if you persist!
What can we completer-finishers do about this pattern? Probably merely learn to recognise it earlier….. With age, wisdom and much practise, we can learn to notice the signals that we are either resisting making a beginning or indeed bringing something redundant to a close. To do so before it harms us physically or risks our professional or emotional wellbeing is the real skill. To be tenacious ‘as is appropriate’ as opposed to applying it to every project, all of the time. We completer-finishers may always live a little close to the edge, but to only resisting going right over can we be of real value in this world!

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