Why It’s Important to Finish What You Start

Lately I’ve been struggling to love my runs.

Life has been busy with kids’ fall concerts, friend and family gatherings, tying up work projects so the holidays don’t throw me completely out of my plot lines and cause a beginning-of-the-year panic, not to mention a deadline pileup. The stress can get to me, make me feel heavy, which makes running much more difficult. It’s easy to say, I guess I’ll just cut this one short.

I don’t, though. I make sure I finish, no matter how slow I log that last mile

I learned a long time ago the importance of finishing what I start, and long-distance running reinforces that lesson every time I head out the door. It’s good practice for finishing what’s hard.

Writing is hard. Finishing my (hard) runs is good practice for finishing my (hard) writing.

If I start my run or writing session thinking, We’ll see how many miles I feel like doing or We’ll see how many words/chapters I feel like doing, I won’t do all I could have done. It’s just a fact of existence. The mind is a powerful vehicle, and if it thinks, Yeah, this is really challenging, I’m just going to give myself a little break, that’s exactly what we’ll do. We’ll give ourselves a little break.

And miss out on what’s waiting on the other side of that challenge.

What’s the big deal about finishing what you start?

Well, it turns out it’s an important practice if you want to hone your creative discipline, build your confidence as a writer, and grow both professionally and personally. And, of course, it helps us achieve our goals. Finishing what we start is an all-around important discipline because it has psychological, neurological, personal, and professional benefits.

This essay is a bit more scientific than my previous essays because (1) I love science—especially brain science—and (2) I believe that when we know the benefits of something it makes it slightly easier to make that thing a part of our lives. So bear with me.

Psychological benefits

The brain rewards completion. What this means is that any time we finish something, like a writing project, the brain releases dopamine, the hormone responsible for our feelings of pleasure and satisfaction. Dopamine comprises part of our reward center. It carves a “wow, that feels good” into our memory and boosts our motivation to repeat the action.

So our brain remembers how satisfying and pleasurable it felt when we finished that challenging, never-ending project, and it says, “Hey! Let’s do that again, because I like this feeling!”

This is something I’m constantly trying to help my ADHD kids master. The ADHD brain has a lower level of dopamine than a neurotypical brain in the first place, which makes finishing things challenging (so I do understand that some of us might be working at a disadvantage). But practice makes progress. Every time we finish what we start, we practice that discipline, and it gets a tiny little fraction easier the next time.

Other unrelated writing things (but everything’s related, isn’t it?) that boost our dopamine levels include yoga, exercise, and meditation.

The brain also craves completion, so when we mark that task off our list—whether it’s writing a chapter for the day or completing a whole book—our brain sweeps away the clutter of an unfinished task, which allows us to access our creativity more efficiently. We can think bigger and better.

Finishing what we start establishes a cycle of productivity. Guess what not finishing what we start establishes? A cycle of procrastination. And procrastination raises our stress levels, whether we notice it or not.

Stress is a universal killer of creativity.

Neurological benefits

When we finish the tasks we start on a consistent basis, our brains actually rewire into more efficient brains. This is called neuroplasticity. The brain is constantly rewiring itself, no matter our age. The more we repeat that action—finishing what we start—the stronger those new neural connections get.

We like to take the path of least resistance—quit when things get hard or when we get uncomfortable. But when we finish a creative project that demanded time and energy and so much (so much!) effort, we prove to our brain that we can handle tough challenges. Because our brains believe us, they rewire our neural connections and transform themselves into brains that are better at finishing what we start. How cool is that?

How simple and magnificent our brains are.

Personal benefits

Confidence is a huge benefit, isn’t it? Writers regularly struggle with self-doubt. Am I good enough? Can I do this? Do I have what it takes to be successful in this industry?

Seeing a project through to the end helps us overcome our persistent self-doubt. We prove that we are good enough (though that never changes; even if we don’t finish our projects, we are always good enough). We can do this. We have what it takes.

Sure, the finished project may not look quite like what we wanted and envisioned, but we persevered, and that’s what really matters—because revision is where the magic happens anyway (so be sure to start and finish that piece of the project, too). We can be proud of our efforts at whatever stage we start and finish.

Finishing our projects consistently also develops our creative discipline, which helps us overcome writing resistance. Remember the dopamine? We want to do the things that give us pleasure.

Writing is a discipline. Just like I train my body and endurance as a runner and I get out there and slog through even my unenjoyable runs, we train our minds and creativity and sharpen our writing skills by writing consistently—and seeing a project through to the end.

And lastly, finishing our projects underlines our own credibility. We can have faith in ourselves that not only can we do it, but also we will do it.

Professional benefits

Finishing our projects cultivates our professional skills and contributes to our mastery of the writing discipline. It’s an important part of putting in the work and gaining the expertise we need as writers. It gives us so many (so many!) opportunities to learn from our mistakes and make small shifts in the way we create and write.

That means the next time we sit down to write a book, we’ll do it better—because we have one, two, three, twenty-five under our belt.

We add to our overall body of work when we finish our projects. Who doesn’t desire a large body of work? A number of finished projects, in whatever stage they’re “finished” (even first drafts; we’ll count those), provides proof of our competence and dedication—we saw this many projects through to the end. How remarkable.

I have folders and folders of finished first drafts on my computer—all proving I’m working consistently at my craft and dedicated to building a volume of work. All reminding me, when I lose faith in myself, that I can do this, and I will again.

That’s the heart of it—we can do this, and we will again.

With all these benefits to finishing the projects we start, why do we still find ourselves struggling to write “The End”?

Fear

We’re afraid what we’re doing isn’t going to work or the book we’re writing isn’t good enough or everyone will wonder what it even is or people will laugh and say, You call yourself a writer? This is the worst thing I’ve ever read or that they’re all right or…

So.Many.Fears.

Solution: We have to leave our ideas of perfection behind. Our project will not be perfect, not even after the twentieth draft. It will never look exactly like the perfect idea we had in the first place. But an imperfect, finished project is better than a perfect idea that remains in our mind.

Overwhelm and creative fatigue

Maybe we’re bored or we have too much on our plates or we’re just tired. We’re only human. We can only handle so much at a time. And creative projects require a lot of energy. Finishing what we start requires a lot of energy.

Solution: Create a schedule. Break up the work. Know that progress can be made in small increments. I wrote my first published book in ten-minute windows every day for a year. It wasn’t easy to keep a narrative going in such a short time frame, but at the end of that year, the book was finished. And I had something to mold and rework. It is possible to create with whatever time you have.

New ideas

Oh, those new ideas. This one is probably the toughest one for me. A shiny new idea comes strutting onto the scene and I want nothing more than to chase it. Explore what it has to offer (because it’s probably better than the one I’m working on right now, right?).

We must resist neglecting the current project for a new and alluring one.

Solution: Write down new ideas to save for later, which lets the idea know you’re open to more information. Keep notes as more ideas for that new project come. Let them simmer and develop outside the conscious mind (the unconscious mind is pretty brilliant when we’re ignoring it). Use your conscious mind to focus on your current work in progress. And use those new shiny, wonderful, captivating ideas as a reward for finishing the current project. You can have this, brain. Just as soon as you finish what you started.

The act of finishing what we start can be an all-around transformative experience. As this year and National Novel Writing Month wind down, I hope we all find the stamina, dedication, and enthusiasm to finish our unfinished projects—and see how we might change along the way.

What do you find most challenging about finishing the writing projects you start? Are there any writing projects you’ve left half-finished? What is one step you can take today that will get you closer to the finish? What is one piece of advice you’d give to someone struggling to finish a writing project?

Rachel Toalson

Rachel Toalson writes lots of books. For lots of people–kids, teens, adults, fiction lovers, poetry lovers, essay lovers. People who adore realistic stories or magical realism or fantasy or tales that keep them up at night or make them laugh out loud. She writes the books she most wants to read, which is the best way to entertain herself and her kids and get a little peace and quiet in her excessively loud home. She’s the author of the middle grade books, The Colors of the Rain, which won the Arnold Adoff Poetry Honor Award in 2018, The Woods, and The First Magnificent Summer, among many others. She lives in San Antonio, Texas, with her husband and six children.

www.racheltoalson.com/