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Beating the Odds

Finishing Tasks

Forty-four years years ago today, with a crowd staring from 630 feet below, welders placed the final section into the St. Louis Arch.

Their work brought a happy end to a project that took nearly three years and several million dollars. It was a dangerous job that proceeded through brutal weather extremes.

But it was finished, and today stands as an icon.

The St. Louis Arch is on my mind not just because of the anniversary but because there are too many unfinished projects in my life right now. There are rooms to be cleaned, desks to be straightened, and chapters to be written.

Helen Keller said, “I long to accomplish a great and noble task; but it is my chief duty to accomplish small tasks as if they were great and noble.”

Mariano Rivera, who will be available to pitch for the New York Yankees in Game One of the World Series,  has become a baseball legend because of his ability to finish games.

Unfinished jobs are more than just loose ends — they are a drain on your confidence.

Finishing things builds your confidence.

Not finishing things hurts it.

When you finish something, you gain an accomplishment, something you can put on your resume.

But no resume will ever include the words, “intended to,” or “planned to,” or “wanted to.”

Winners complete projects. In fact, winners win BECAUSE they complete projects.

Even practice is a project. You should never go into practice with just a series of planned actions. You must enter it with an objective, and when the practice is over, you must have reached the objective. And you must have a way of KNOWING that you reached the objective.

That‘s because accomplishing things feel good.

So make sure that, on this 44th anniversary of the day they finished the St. Louis Arch, you finish something.

Discussion

One comment for “Finishing Tasks”

  1. great post on “FINISHING”
    in basketball the term “finishing”is used to characterize players who can finish the play by convering a basket. “Can they finish” is often asked about a player’s skills around the hoop. Whatver play is run the outcome is what matters most and that is in hoops whether a not the ball goes through the basket

    Posted by kevin reilly | October 28, 2009, 10:47 am

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