If you start something but don’t finish it, how should you feel about that?

• a banana – this is no big deal, but ideally you don’t want to waste food.
• a shower – you should have finished. It’s not a good idea to leave suds and stinky stuff behind.
• High School – you really should have finished. You should be bummed enough to at least go for your GED when you can.
• a movie – who cares. Why should you beat yourself up over missing the end of Deep Blue Sea?
• a book – Some people are going to make you feel bad for not finishing 1984. And you really should finish it because it’s a very important book and the end is super critical to it’s impact. But it’s just a book.
• Your exercise routine – Once? No big deal. Twice? It’s not a great idea to let this slip, but twice is not so bad. Regularly? It will impact your health. You should care.
• Your “event” – This is the one I struggle with.

I didn’t finish the GDMBR, or at least the part I set out to finish. I only got about half way through. I didn’t do the Retreat Double, even though it was my intention to do so. I didn’t finish my ride a week ago. I felt weak and asked Laury to help me home. They all feel weird. They feel like failure, even though I know in my heart, mind, somewhere, that they’re just rides. In the grand scheme of things, how bad can that be?

I have an answer for that. They are not bad. But the feeling that they’re bad can be good. They make us want to do better. To overcome that goal at some point in the future. Sometimes this can backfire on us, as anyone who’s every been on a diet well knows. We can feel like we’re failures and just give up. Feeling that not finishing is bad can sometimes lead to actions that are worse.

It can be hard to tell which way we’re going to react. Do we get a push to do better next time, or a feeling of despair? Is not finishing good or bad emotionally? For that I ask you, do you really want to be the person who plans to fail, or would you rather be the person who plans to succeed next time? You might go either way, you really might, but I think planning for success will give you a better chance of achieving it.