Book Summary: Finish What You Start: The Art of Following Through, Taking Action, Executing, & Self-Discipline

Finish what you Start with Peter Hollins.

• Book -Finish What you Start (The Art of Following Through)

• Author -Peter Hollins

• Genre - self-help

• Published in 2018

About the Book

Finish What You Start is a book written to explain why we don't finish many of the things we start. We are the obstacles we face, and the majority of them can be avoided by knowing how we work and what inspires us to act. This book is divided into eight chapters, each of which explains our incapacity to follow through and how to overcome it in order to achieve any goal we set for ourselves.

Introduction

Most of the time, we have the desire and want to begin a task, a business, studies, or any other activity that we believe would best suit our needs and be what we truly desire. As much as we battle to go where we want to be, we often find solace in giving up and suffocating the aspirations we've buried deep within our hearts. For the past 6 to 7 months, I've been feeling off track. The finest thing that ever happened to me was stumbling across this book. Peter Hollins, Author, and Researcher at petehollins.com wrote this book. This synopsis is taken directly from his book.

CHAPTER 1: Stop Thinking just Execute

Following through is a skill that allows you to create the life you truly desire rather than settle for the one you now have. Peter has divided following through in four perspectives.

Focus

He believes that focus leads your activities toward achieving your goals and guides your thinking in figuring out how to go about it.

Self-Discipline

This allows you to keep your head down and work even if you don't want to when you need to (Ability to control yourself to retain focus)

Action

It is to prioritize execution and simple motion

Persistence

This is the act of fiercely clinging to something for a long time, even when things try to pull you away from it.

Why Don't we Follow up

1: Setting Bad Goals

This occurs when a person sets unrealistic goals in an emotional state and finds it too overwhelming to act on them as soon as the initial excitement wears off.

2: Productive Procrastination

This is when we are so preoccupied with preparing and setting up things to start working that we mistakenly believe we are making progress while unknowingly procrastinating on the job that has to be done.

3: Temptations and Destructions

Temptations and distractions are inevitable in our daily lives; however, we can avoid them by strategically avoiding them and using them in moderation.

4: Fear of Judgement, Rejection, and Failure

We cancel and eliminate the possibility of producing any output that might be evaluated or judged by abstaining from action.

CHAPTER 2: Staying Hungry

When we aren't linked with our reasons and fail to foresee negatives before starting and expect to be prepared for them, we lose concentration.

Ways to Define the Concept of Motivations

1: External Motivators

External motivators are accountable partners, groups, putting money down, and self-bribery. Accountability is the key factor in following through.

2: Internal Motivators

These are what we want as opposed to avoiding a negative consequence or punishment. Internal motivators are like:-

• what are you getting out of this

• How will your life change or benefit

• How will your family benefit

• What impact will you have on others

• What positive emotions will you get

• How will your action lead you to your long and short-term goal

3: Understand Opportunity cost

Finishing what you start will always require 'Sacrifice,' such as giving up time, spending money, or increasing effort that could be spent on activities you enjoy. Everything in life is an opportunity cost, which means that whatever you choose to achieve in life requires some effort from you.

4: Keep Your Motivations in Mind

External and internal motivators are effective in increasing productivity and dedication, but they are ineffective if they are out of sight and out of mind.

CHAPTER 3: Create Manifesto

We are always governed by protocols and it is crucial for each individual to have these protocols in order to reduce making a number of decisions on a daily basis. Having a set of rules helps in saving energy to focus on things that matter.

Ways to create Manifesto(Rules of Manifestation)

• Rule 1: Evaluate yourself -> Before giving up consider if it is fear or laziness that is holding you back from actions

• Rule 2: Three Task Minimum -> Consider the difference between essential and urgent tasks. Put important tasks on the top three list, rather than urgent, ones because urgent tasks are rarely significant.

• Rule 3: Create Limitations and Requirements -> Limitations are restrictions on temptations while requirements are things one must do on a daily basis. Each individual is encouraged to have a limit of five requirements and limitations. Also, they are to make a clear statement on what you cannot and must do.

• Rule 4: Re-affirm your intentions -> This rule seeks to give you thought about your intentions as to why you decide to follow through or not by reminding yourself what they are and why you want to achieve them. This rule also tries to eliminate the vulgar feeling of quitting by asking yourself the following

  • I Want -> State your end goal and how you will benefit from it.

  • I Will -> How you will reach your end goal and all the work to be done in order for you to reach there.

  • I Won't -> State what you shouldn't do because it will impede your progress toward your end goal things like (Distractions, Temptations, Lack of discipline, and Procrastination)

• Rule 5: Think in terms of 10-10-10 -> For Every action and temptation you are about to take think in an interval of 10-10-10 that is in 10 minutes,10 hours, and 10 days how will I feel from now what impact will it inject in me. This rule forces one to think of his future self and see the effect of his or her actions.

• Rule 6: Just 10 minutes -> Whenever you feel like you are losing the focus of following through wait for 10 minutes before giving up, this leaves no room for debate or excuses.

CHAPTER 4: FOLLOW-THROUGH MINDSET

Mindset is a way to visualize and approach situations and problems

Mindset rules

Mindset 1: It's Worthwhile

• Believe in yourself and that you are as good as anyone else.

• Believe in your abilities and trust in your opportunities. -Don't create self-limiting beliefs that hold you back.

• Know that what you are doing is valuable and relevant to your goals.

Mindset 2: Comfort with discomfort

• Always believe that a journey to success is not a comfortable zone and in that case, be comfortable with discomfort.

• To be successful and never give up you should be positive in all uncomfortable situations by getting immune to the sense of discomfort.

Mindset 3: Allow Learning

• By learning you are equally testing and scoring yourself based on your progress.

• Giving up is an automatic failure.

Mindset 4 De-stress

• Stress all of your willpower and self-control, when you are stressed you get to do little than expected.

• If you fail to take care of your mental health, your discipline and willpower it quickly deteriorate. All these are prevented by introducing stress-reducing habits in your life.

• Each day spend at least 30 minutes doing relaxing activities

  • Meet with friends

  • Read book

  • Listen to music

  • Take a walk in the wood

  • Meditate

  • Exercise

  • cuddle

It is important to relax.

CHAPTER 5: The Science of Smashing Procrastination

Procrastination is the most and biggest enemy in following up. The issue is typified by time inconsistency, in which we are divided into two selves with opposing needs - one seeks fulfillment in the future, while the other wants it now. These are the ways to get over procrastination.

• Temptation bundling is a powerful tool for overcoming procrastination. It entails pairing your unpleasant chores with something enjoyable. This works primarily because you're dealing with time inconsistencies and giving both selves what they want at the same time. Start small and easy.

• Inertia is the lifeblood of procrastination. As a result, you must make motion and activity as simple as possible. Then you can gain momentum, which is the polar opposite of inertia.

• Sometimes all it takes is a good kick in the pants to get rid of procrastination. Fear and productive paranoia may do that to you - if you're afraid of the negative consequences, you'll be motivated to act. However, this is not a technique to employ on a regular basis.

CHAPTER 6: NO - DESTRUCTION ZONE

• Reduce the number of distractions in your area. With distractions, it turns out that out of sight is out of mind, so don't keep anything engaging near your desk if you don't want your willpower to dwindle.

• Wherever feasible, create default actions. This is when the road with the least amount of resistance for you is the one you want to take. This can also be accomplished through curating and constructing a productive workplace.

• Single-tasking is a crucial idea since it clearly demonstrates the drawbacks of multitasking. When you go from one task to the next, you leave a trail of attention residue behind. This means that even if you are already accustomed to a task, it will take some time for you to adjust to it. Single tasking and batching, which is when you tackle all comparable types of work at the same time to maximize your brain efficiency, can help you avoid this.

• Because we are rarely told what to ignore, a don't-do list can be just as effective as a to-do list. As a result, these time-suckers or diversions might infiltrate our space without our even realizing it. Include any tasks on which you are unable to progress, make progress, or assist.

• When you use the 40–70 rule, you can overcome inaction by increasing the amount of information you seek. Don't take action if you have less than 40%. However, if you have 70%, you must act. You'll never have 100%, and chances are, 70% will be more than plenty - the rest you'll pick up along the way.

• Finally, you may wish to do nothing now and then. This is a time for rest and relaxation, but it's also a time for mental recuperation. Between races or matches, what does an athlete do? You guessed it: they recover in order to be ready to work again when needed.

CHAPTER 7: DEADLY PITFALLS

• False hope syndrome occurs when you have unreasonable expectations of your ability to change for the better. When you fail to accomplish this goal, you experience a powerful backlash that makes you even less driven and disciplined than you were before.

• To overcome this, understand the difference between goals and expectations and build reasonable expectations based on your background.

• Overthinking is deceptive since it appears to be active and even constructive. However, this is not the case. When you obsess about something and can't seem to take the initial step toward action, you're overthinking. You'll feel far more clarity if you focus on the aspects that matter and dismiss everything else.

• Worrying occurs when you become fixated on something and begin to imagine the worst-case situations and hazards. Worrying, on the other hand, is when you focus on things you can't control while disregarding what you can - the present. Focus on what you can do right now, and just right now, as a solution.

• Do you know who you are? So, how about productivity and how you work and generate the finest results? Consider the time of day, the environment, the setting, and so on. However, you should keep in mind that understanding yourself also entails being able to look in the mirror and comprehend why you may have failed or fallen short. It's the ability to self-diagnose and recognize oneself.

CHAPTER 8: DAILY SYSTEM FOR SUCCESS

• Systems are collections of daily actions. It doesn't have to be any more complicated. Goals differ from systems in that goals are one-time accomplishments, but systems stress consistency and long-term success.

• Keep track of everything, big and little, on a scoreboard. This keeps you driven to continue growing and progressing.

• Understand how long tasks will take in reality and account for your own peculiarities and inefficiencies to better manage your time.

• Reduce transaction costs by making undesired actions inconvenient and difficult to manage while making desirable behaviors simple and straightforward.

• Before you begin, gather all of the information and supplies you'll need all at once. This allows you to work uninterrupted and capture precious moments.