“Of a good beginning cometh a good end.” Chinese Proverb
Today I want to mention a Turkish proverb: “Starting a task is half of finishing.” It basically means; to initiate something is difficult, however, when you can start something you can finish it easier than you think. It is very motivational, right? The Chinese proverb I shared above is developing the idea of starting something and says that if you start a job/action well, you will succeed in the end. These two proverbs are simply mean that, if we can start a thing, a job or a task, we can reach success at the end. Especially if we had a good start. Is this really the case in life?
Let me firstly list the basic steps of the process in any kind of subject. We can simply divide it into 5 pieces; awareness (to be aware of the need), making a decision (including goal setting and planning), starting, continuing and finishing of the process. At the issues that we are already aware of, the awareness step doesn’t happen. For example; we know that for a better health condition; we should feed ourselves healthy, we should watch television less, should do sports, need to go to a check-up regularly etc. In this type of process, the process becomes 4 steps.
I agree that the starting part is very important. It’s hard to start a new thing. Sometimes we postpone new matters as much as we can and sometimes we can not even start. But still, when I look at the whole process; to me, the most important part is making decisions, targeting, and planning; and the hardest part is to continue.
It is necessary to make a decision, to set goals related to the subject and to make a simple or complex but definitely strategic plan for these goals to be realized. It is the most important step that shows if we could finish what we are going to start. On the other hand, the maintenance is the hardest part; even if we have a very good reason, good targeting, and strategy in our hands, we need to work hard and continue to face difficulties undauntedly.
You probably do not have too many examples to validate these proverbs with their basic meanings. Most of the time, starting a job/issue/anything is just the beginning of it. There is no guarantee that we can finish it. For this very reason, every issue should be considered deeply before starting. Choosing the right thing to begin, with a good strategy and also a good time planning, is vital to getting a good result.
Once you have made the right decision and planning, sustainability becomes the issue. The least liked part is this because it is the most difficult of all. Would you mind if I told you that many things in life require persistence? To learn to ride a bicycle, to learn a foreign language, to start a business, to acquire the competence you need in your business career…
What about the situations with shorter cases? Is planning necessary, even at basic issues? To read and finish a book, to make your house immaculate, to sort out unnecessary files on your computer. Have you ever start but could not finish these kinds of things? When you start reading a book you do not want to read, or join a course you believe you will not have abundant of benefit, can you continue to work it with pleasure, enthusiasm, and passion and at the end can you finish it successfully? While mentioning about finishing; I need to say that it is critical to be able to quit at the right time, of the indefinite period of time jobs. Give up but when to give up, here’s one more critical question about life! I will mention this in another article.
What I have learned from my personal mistaken choices is; even when you are deciding to read a book, you have to think about which one is the right book for that moment. The right book might be the book we want to read at the moment or a book that we have to read for educational needs. For what purpose will you read this book? Is it necessary to intensify our attention, or are we just reading it for pleasure? By asking ourselves simple questions, we can prevent to spent too much time on a topic that we don’t really get much benefit, and also we can avoid aborting any mission, so that won’t feel bad about it.
I wish you a week of making the right decisions. See you.