“Without ambition, one
starts nothing. Without work, one finishes nothing. The prize will not be sent
to you. You have to win it.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Irrespective
of how great the start is—whatever it is you are working on—know that the main
thing lies in how you finish.
Therefore,
I ask: Are you going to finish strong?
In the
book, ‘Good to Great,’ Jim Collins profiled a high school cross country running
team that had won two consecutive state championships. He narrated that in a
moment of reflection, one of the coaches asked the head coach the following
straightforward question:
“Why are
we so successful, when we are not necessarily working harder than the other
teams?”
The answer
from the head coach was simple but powerful. He replied: “The reason for our
success is that we run best at the end of races; we run best at the end of the
season.”
They won
because they performed most excellently, not at the beginning but at the end of
their games. Evidently, spectacular success is largely about finishing strong!
If for any
reason you've been trampled by the inexorable stride of time, this short piece
is meant to inspire you to finish strong nonetheless.
Be
reminded that the ultimate human weakness is the tendency to put things off,
especially when we feel the need to ease up a bit, during the course of our
hunt.
But now is
not the time to ease off a bit. This is the time of vigorous attack. Therefore,
fight off laziness with a blast of constructive self-talk. Instead of saying,
‘I am too tired now, moreover I can get to it later,’ say, ‘I will do it now and
relax later,’ or ‘I will pay my full due now and play better later.’
Or imagine
the great rewards awaiting you after completing a demanding project.
Think
ahead to visualize how your life will change for the better if you persevere to
follow through till the end.
To apply
this for real, remember the words of Hal Higdon, the four-time winner of World
Masters Championships who said: “The pride in finishing a marathon is much greater
than all the pain endured during the marathon.”
It Is Not Over Until It
Is Over
In sports
as in life, fabulous prizes are never awarded at the beginning. The biggest rewards
are delayed till the very end.
You see, it
is not those who start great that get the windfalls of life but those who
finish; the most valuable rewards go to the courageous few who choose to complete
what they started.
So, I
challenge you to bring forth your best at this stage of your game; this is how
to join the ranks of the accomplished. Now ponder over what the great American
inventor, Thomas Edison has to teach us in this regards. He said:
“Many of
life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success
when they gave up.” To finish strong, you need to keep this in mind.
Know that
if you don’t induce yourself to finish what you started, you won’t experience
the rich rewards of an all-out commitment: the bliss of seeing the fruits of
your toil.
There are
millions of starters in this life but it is the few who have the courage to
finish that history will honour. This is
what took a motivational author, Eric Thomas a while to discover. He said: “I
realized the secret to success is finishing! And not just finishing, but
finishing strong!”
Again, it
doesn't matter what has happened before. It matters what you'll do now. And the
better you get at finishing things, the more confidence you'll earn, the more
skills you will develop, the more opportunities you’ll have.
Therefore,
renew your decision to overcome your struggles. Allow yourself to sprint
powerfully across the finish line. Finish with class, finish with guts. Keep
going and finish strong!
Finally, to
make this important lesson a lifelong habit, I enjoin you to always keep the
words of John Heywood, on top of your mind: “All's well that ends well.”
