Finish by Jon Acuff: Issue 43 | October 2017

One thing I love most about this book is its applicability to all of us. Have you ever started something, and then didn’t finish the job? Maybe it was a chore, or a project, or a business idea, or maybe something else. I think we can all honestly say “yes!” to that question.

We’ve all been excited about a thing, eagerly started it, and then, somewhere along the line, lost what it is that inspired us to start it in the first place. The end result is always an incomplete project. It’s the same as if you never start anything at all, if you think about it. Something that’s 95 percent complete (or 0 percent complete) is 0 percent complete to the end user.

Jon’s book, Finish, (Amazon link) guides us in following through on our ideas, and finally finishing them. By sharing his insights into why people don’t finish, I learned that it’s not always because we don’t know what the next steps are. As Jon says, “people give up on projects when they fail to live up to their own high expectations and decide that if they can’t do something perfectly they won’t do it at all.” [Full Disclosure: As an affiliate, I receive compensation if you purchase through this link.]

Raise your hand if you can relate. I sure can!

Finish is also about denouncing perfectionism. It’s about saying “no!” to the wild expectations we set for ourselves. Those are the expectations that keep us from the finish line. Intermingled throughout these awesome lessons, Jon shares relatable, inspiring stories that feature specific actions you can take to get things done by, as Jon states, “cutting a goal in half,” and “choosing what to bomb.”

If you like to laugh, this book is also for you. I laughed throughout the book. Jon’s writing style is perfectly suited for teaching because it’s not just informational; it’s highly entertaining! I totally shed a few tears from laughter during certain parts, which doesn’t happen very often. It happens more often when I read fiction. But this was a nonfiction book that kept me inspired and laughing all the way through.

I . . . dare I say . . . was able to FINISH it.

Sorry. Dad jokes just sort of come out of me without even knowing it sometimes now.

If I am going to call out a favorite part of the book (which is hard to do because there’s so much to love), it would have to be the chapter, “Get Rid of Your Secret Rules.” In this chapter, Jon talks about how we all make up these rules for things in life that truly hold us back. Jon’s examples were things like, “If it’s not easy, it’s not worth doing,” and “If you have to learn something new, you’re failing.”

Defining the “rules” that we create for ourselves can be liberating because once you see them written down, they become almost silly with that new shift in perspective. Do we really live by those ridiculous standards? Once you see it from that angle, it’s much easier to banish them!

I remember a rule I created for myself back in 2013, which stopped me from producing blog posts consistently for months. That rule was:

Every blog post must be better than the previous. Every written piece must be EPIC.

Once I realized this was the wrong approach, and how much that rule was actually holding me back, I finally started to produce again. Although some pieces I’ve written over the years are not really “epic,” once I was able to let go of that expectation, I was able to focus on producing epic content when the time called for it.

As I said up top, I feel like this book is relevant for EVERYONE. I know typically you’re supposed to niche down in your audience, but the beauty of this book is that the stories, the lessons, and the fear/guilt/shame in not finishing our projects is there for everyone. We all have started something, and did not follow through. But, like with anything, the better you can understand your enemy, the more likely you are to demolish it.

With Jon Acuff’s Finish, you will demolish it—and finish it!

I hope you like the book as much as I did!

Buy the Book on Amazon