Why don’t we finish goals? Jon Acuff, best-selling author and motivational speaker, says we often focus on the wrong thing when we talk about our goals. It’s kind of like a marathon, he describes. Everyone cheers you on at the beginning and the end, but no one’s there in the middle – and that is the toughest part.
“Most people think a goal is like this,” Acuff explains. “If you have 30 days, the beginning will be days 0 through 10. The middle will be days 11 through 20. And the finish will be days 21 through 30. That feels right mathematically; unfortunately, that’s not how it goes. Usually, the beginning is day one, the middle is days 2 through 29. And the finish is day 30.”
There’s a lot of middle to every goal. That’s why he says our focus should be on finishing, not starting. He wanted to dig into this topic more and commissioned a research study with a Ph.D. student at the University of Memphis. They studied 900 people for six months who were working on a variety of goals to see if people could go from being chronic starters into consistent finishers.
Speaker: Jon Acuff, author and leadership expert
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