How to conclude what you have started

It would be good if everything was so easy to end up as a Netflix chapter of one of your favorite series. However, the truth is that we begin something with a lot of euphoria and motivation, but afterwards we lose that and we cannot finish what we started. In this post, I will show you the cause and the solution to this problem. So, are you going to read or you will leave it unfinished?

What causes this effect is called law of diminishing marginal utility, and what it says is that the more you consume a good or use a service, the less satisfied you will be with each successive consumption. For example when you are very hungry, is not the same to eat the first slice of the pizza than the sixth, because your appetite was bigger before you started eating. As you eat them, each slice decrease the utility of the next one.

The same happens when you start a new project or you set a new task. We are very excited and motivated at the beginning, but when we find a problem or it does not go like we imagined, we give up it.

The reason of falling in this mentioned law, is that we base our behavior depending on motivation. And motivation is not bad, the opposite, when you are motivated to do something, you do not need willpower to conclude something, because finishing the task is not a problem for you.
But the problem with depending on it is that motivation is volatile, it depends on our mood. So, what is the solution?

When you are not motivated, you have to replace that vacuum with discipline. But how do you become a disciplined person?

1. Determine which tasks are important and which are not. Focusing on things that does not matter, wont allow you to be disciplined, because you know that they are not important.

2. Focus on the important tasks, and set short goals in order to accomplish them. Many times we set very big and difficult goals, but when we notice that they are far away, we give up. That´s the reason that short goals are more effective.
   

The last advice that I want to give you here is: Studying in short periods with breaks means working more efficient. What is useful for me is working some periods of thirty minutes with 3 minutes of break for each one. And in that break, I recompense myself. I do this with the intention of tricking my brain; For example, after finishing the established period, I eat a chocolate. That gives me the motivation for being focus during that term.

To conclude, I want to tell you that maybe other methods can be more effective to you, the mentioned are which worked for me. But is your job to find those which allows you to finish your task.

Congrats, you finished this article! Now is time to start applying this techniques in order to complete all the tasks that are important to you. I hope the best to you doing that!