Thoughts on – Finish: Give Yourself the Gift of Done

Posted February 27, 2020

Today is Episode 70, which means – every 10th episode, I share a mentor, or teacher, or book, that resonated with me. So today I want to talk about Jon Acuﬀ. Acuﬀ has multiple New York Times bestsellers, but today I want to discuss his Wall Street Journal #1 Best Seller Finish: Give yourself the gift of done.

I think many of us are great at having ideas, and starting goals, but do you always ﬁnish them is the question?

In this book, he talks about how, according to studies, 92% of New Year’s resolutions, for example, fail. He discusses the sneakiest of obstacles for completing goals – and its not being lazy.

In fact – it’s quite diﬀerent – its the idea of perfectionism. So listen up my people-pleasing perfectionist friends.

IN THIS EPISODE:

Jon Acuﬀ – Finish – Give Yourself the Gift of Done
Idea babies
The lies of perfectionism
Being a big enough goal
Cutting your goal in half
Choose what to let go of
Making it hard
Having fun

Work with me: https://michellebourquecoaching.com/work-with-me/

Download free worksheet: https://mailchi.mp/michellebourquecoaching.com/70

TRANSCRIPT

Hello hello hello
How is everyone doing today?
Hopefully – amazing
We are on a roll today friends
I am batching a couple of podcasts for you
Because I have more travel coming up
And I want to be sure we are set
And – I think I told you about my latest time management class
Well this is part of how Im working with it

Batching – getting more done at one time
Getting
After
It
And after I kinda tweak the ideas in the class
and see how it works for me
Well then
Of course I will share it with you
Thats how we roll over here
What my coach calls idea babies
We take an idea from one person
Combine it with another
And make our own idea babies
You guys could totally do the same
In your life
I might not have those germy screaming kind of babies
lol.
But I am having more and more idea babies every day
And I am having so much fun
Ok – do you know what today is friends?
Episode 70
Which means –
I share a mentor
or teacher
or book
That has resonated for me
And I would encourage you to check out

So today I want to talk about Jon Acuﬀ
He has multiple New York Times best sellers
But today I want to discuss his most recent
Wall Street Journal #1 Best Seller
Finish: Give yourself the gift of done
I think many of us are great at having ideas
And starting goals
But do you always ﬁnish them is the question?
And in the book he talks about how
According to studies
92% of New Years resolutions for example fail
He discuses how the sneakiest of obstacles for completing goals
And its not being lazy
In fact –
It’s quite diﬀerent
Its the idea of perfectionism
So listen up my friends
Because I know there are a lot of you out that
Perfectionists
Especially perfectionists that are struggling
With having time to do what you want
This is for you
The ideas he shares will give you more time in your life

Now ﬁrst oﬀ – he starts by letting you know the lie perfectionism tells you
That if if isn’t perfect you should quit
So think about a goal
Maybe its to lose weight

Or hit your revenue goals for the year
But then you maybe eat oﬀ plan
Or don’t hit the ﬁrst quarter
Or – let me stop for a second
Maybe you don’t even write down the goal
Because you don’t think its ‘big enough”
Or maybe you do write the goal but you don’t believe you will be perfect
So you just don’t start
Because that way you won’t fail
But really what you are doing is
Failing in advance
But lets go back to yes
You do have the goals
So lets say weight loss
For this example
And then you have a day of not eating great
Do you say things like
I got oﬀ track
Or my diet was derailed
You guys
He makes such a great point
A train derailment is pretty signiﬁcant
Lots of people might die
Fixing it takes weeks
You eating some extra cookies and wine
One day is not a derailment
And by the way

There is also not wagon to fall oﬀ of
See how our brains like to tell us this stuﬀ?
And the other part I loved
Is where he talks about how the phrase
“might as well”
Is never really used for positive things
Like you don’t go around saying
Might as well rescue all those dogs
Might as well donate to the children foundation
No
We usually say it like
I had too much wine last night
Might as well eat whatever I want today
I’m already oﬀ track
Isn’t it funny the stories we tell ourselves
And you guys
This may not sound so signiﬁcant as I chuckle
But it really makes a diﬀerence
Because the time you waste in your head
Beating yourself up
Is not useful
So instead of thinking about failing
It’s just another opportunity to try again
See perfectionism masquerades
As excellence
And so we think failing is the opposite
But its not

The opposite of perfections
Is ﬁnished
Think about how terrible it feels to not complete a goal
And remember podcast 68 where I talked about the relationship you
Have with yourself
This is that again
Its setting a goal
Which is like a promise to yourself
And ﬁnishing it
Showing yourself you have your back
And will do what you say
Perfectionism magniﬁes your mistakes
And minimizes your achievements
Lets stick with the weight loss goal
I just use that because I think a lot of people can relate
But if you are listening to this and have a goal in mind all of the same
Concepts can be applies
So lets say you have a goal to lose s10 pounds
And you lose 6
What do you focus on?
You focus on the 4 you have left
Not the 6 you already lost right?
And the other thing perfectionism does
Is ﬁll you with doubt
Which for sure does not help
Build the relationship you have with yourself
So if you can handle being a little uncomfortable

As you let go of the need to be perfect
You will learn to keep your word to yourself
And you will ﬁnish
So lets dive into some of his strategies
1. Cut the goal in half
What?
This goes against a lot of ideas right?
And honestly I go back and forth
I love to say dream big
Set impossible goals
But in order to help the brain release
The idea of having to be perfect
I think this makes sense
And it kinda goes in line with
The idea of the compound eﬀect
Small changes over time
As you cut the goal in half
You start to see progress
And your brain believes the goal is attainable
So even with the example above
Maybe you say the goal to start is lose 5 pounds
How much diﬀerent does it feel as you get closer to the 6 lbs down
Vs
Having the goal of 10 and losing 6
Now you might even keep going after 5 and up it to 10
But here’s the thing
You can either cut it in half

Or quit because it was too big of a goal
Which one is more useful?
And here’s another question to ask yourself
If you don’t feel comfortable with the idea of cutting it in half
Ask yourself
Whats the worst thing that could happen?
Now another lie he talks about
Is the idea that you can do it all
Friends
I think we know deep down
We can’t
Do it all
But we get to choose what we want to do
So you can either keep trying to do it all
And feel terrible when you don’t
Or
You can decide the goals that matter
And let go of the rest
And here’s the tip
Say no to shame
A great way to do that
And what I’ve talked about here before
Is planning in advance
So when you plan to have family time
And plan on purpose and in advance
You don’t have to shame yourself
For not doing work things you should be doing

no
You planned family time
That’s what you are doing
That’s what you should be doing
And you don’t have to think otherwise
Because you choose in advance
To do the family time
And if you can’t let some things go
Can you simplify?
I know for us one area which helped
We started using a meal delivery service
So it comes all the items packaged and recipe
No need to think – what do you want for dinner
I don’t know what do you want
I don’t know
What should I get at the store
Really

All that wasted time and brain power
And now honestly
A lot of days
We just do salads ..lol..
Its so easy
And again – its because
I don’t make food my joy in life
I’ve been ﬁnding other fun ways
So the food really is just fuel

Most days..lol.
Ok – and the last one I’m going to share with you today
Is the importance of making it fun
Now he has a lot more in this book
He talks about noble obstacles
Your secret rules
Celebrating you imperfect progress
And the day before done
So if this is resonating I highly recommend you check it out
But I’m going to ﬁnish with fun today
Because
Well why not?
A lot of times we think it needs to be hard
In order to count
So if we are having fun
It doesn’t count
Thats such a lie
Think about how some people lay out goals
They are SMART goals right?
Smart – not fun
We must be serious
lol..
What if that wasn’t true?
What if we started to decide how to make our goals fun?
I’m not saying ﬁnd something fun to do
I’m saying ask yourself
How to make your goal fun
This doesn’t sound like

work, hustle or discipline right?
So your perfectionist brain might be exploding
But when you can ﬁnd ways to make it fun
You save so much time
And you get to ﬁnish way more
Motivate from reward instead of fear
So maybe as you go along
You recognize the little goals you accomplish
It’s a diﬀerent way of thinking
And that kills the perfectionist brain
Because perfectionism
Is all about conforming
And often times
You perfectionists
Are also people pleasers
And we like to twist ourselves
Into setting some imaginary
Standard that’s impossible to hit
So stop that
lol..
Now ask yourself how fun the goal is that you are thinking of?
And next – pick 3 small points of fun you can add to that goal.
This question – how can I make this fun – is such a great question.
And I just want to show you something
Let’s go back to the goal I mentioned at the start of this podcast
Losing weight
A lot of times we ask ourselves

Why can’t I lose this weight?
And you know what our brain does
It tells us all the ways we can’t lose the weight
Which is not helpful
What opens up for you when you ask yourself
How can I make losing this weight fun?
Such a better question

ahhh,.,,
You guys
I always have so much fun with you
And if you are ready to ﬁnish some new goals
And want to take this even deeper with one on one coaching
Lets get on a call
We can chat about where you are at
What you want to do
And what would need to be done to get there
Hop over to michellebourquecoaching.com and hit the
Work with me page
Remember – Bourque is spelled Bourque
Not like it sounds
And
I also developed a new worksheet for you around this topic
To help you get thinking about the changes you can make
To ﬁnish a speciﬁc goal
I’ll put the link in the show notes
Ok

That’s what I have for you today
Let’s circle back next week
But for now
Make it a great day
Take care