The Power of Completion | Jack Canfield

If you're like most people these days, I'm sure you're more than ready to say goodbye to 2020 and all of the craziness we've had to endure this year. But before we get to the end of the year, though, I want to encourage you to put the power of one of the most powerful success habits to work in your life. Now, this habit of success will help you start 2021 with a clean slate and the energy and the motivation you need to accomplish incredible and extraordinary things in the years to come. The success habit I'm talking about is utilizing the power of completion, or as I refer to it in my book, the Success Principles Clean up your messes and incompletes. Now, this might not sound like the sexiest or the most exciting of the success habits I teach, but I promise you it will have a profound impact on your life in the year ahead. Now, with the pandemic and the extra time I've been having at home, I have been applying this principle a lot. As a result of all the books I've written more than 200 and all the copies of translations I've had, and some of those books have been translated into 47 languages and all the books I have help people write and promote in our Bestseller Blueprint program and all the books people have sent me because my books inspire them to write a book. I have well over 4,000 books in my house in my office which is on the same property as my house and I have books piled up every everywhere and getting them organized and decluttering my office had become a huge incomplete for me. So I recently did a massive reorganization of all my books, including moving many of them to my garage which I had converted into a library which has floor to ceiling shelves. And I also gave away a ton of books, donating them to local correctional facilities and libraries. And I also did a major overhaul of my clothes closets, another huge incomplete I I gotten to the point where I couldn't squeeze another shirt or another pair of pants into my clothes closets. And with the pandemic, I've literally only worn a couple of pair of jeans most days and no one sees my pants on a zoom call or a virtual training when I'm sitting in front of my computer and I've been pretty much wearing the same 10 shirts over and over for the last seven months. And like a lot of people during the pandemic, I've come to see how many things I own that I don't really need. I've also begun to complete three three books I had been working on before the lockdown that had been hanging over me as a huge incomplete for the past seven months. And finally, I've been clearing up incompletes with lots of friends and business partners and co authors, things that got put on hold during the first few months of the lockdown as we pivoted everything we were doing as live seminars to online courses and coaching programs and mastermind groups. And as a result I feel a lot lighter. Life is simpler and and there's more room to create, which is great as we head into the New year. That's what I want for you. So let's take a deeper look at what I mean when I say clean up your messes and incompletes. It includes several things. First, it's all of the items on the to do list that you have that you've been avoiding or resisting dealing with. And this could be important tasks related to your business, such as doing paperwork that's piling up or incorporating a new and much needed piece of technology into your daily operations. Or maybe you've been stalling on introducing a new inventory system or a better project management system for your team. Or maybe you've been dragging your heels on that marketing campaign you've been thinking about launching. Maybe your mess isn't incomplete or things you know you need to address in your personal life. Or maybe you need to fix the broken cupboard door in your kitchen, or organize your desk and your closets like I did. Maybe you need to fix part of your backyard fence that's falling down. Or maybe there's something you need to fix in your relationships. Think about it. Is there an important conversation you've been avoiding? Is there someone or something you need to forgive or something you need to ask forgiveness for? Well, now's the time to do it. And the best way to move on from this crazy year is to do as much as you can to ensure that your outstanding 2020 incompletes and unfinished items on your to do list do not follow you into 2021. Because the cleaner your slate is as you enter into the New year, and the more energy and the more focus you'll have to dedicate to the goals you really want to accomplish in the months ahead. This is one of the most important success habits you will ever learn. You've got to get rid of the old to make way for the new. So how exactly do you do that? Well, sometime in the next few days, and research shows that if you don't do it in the next 72 hours, you probably won't do it at all. I encourage you to sit down and create a list with three main subheadings. Work, Home, and Relationships. And then I encourage you to write down all of the tasks you've been procrastinating on completing in each of these categories. You might even want to walk through your house room by room and identify everything you'd like to change, fix or that needs handled. And then do the same for your work environment and work projects, and then for all your relationships. And once you've compiled your list, there's one more critical step you have to take. You have to write down a specific completion date for each task and then do what is ever necessary to complete the task by the scheduled date. But make sure you set realistic completion dates for yourself, because the whole point of this exercise is to actually finish those tasks by the date you set and not just simply overwhelm yourself with another impossible to do list and schedule that you can't possibly keep up with. Now, if you have some long term tasks that are physically impossible for you to finish before the end of the year, it's okay. Just write down a realistic completion date by when you can do it in the new year and add it into your schedule for 2021. But for all the things that you can physically accomplish before the end of the year, I encourage you to make them a priority. And here's why. All of the unfinished tasks on your to do list are huge energy stealers that rob you of the motivation and the drive you need to show up as your best self and get the important outcomes you want in life. All those unfinished tasks and to dos become constant irritants that can instill a sense of guilt self condemnation every time you think of them. And as a result they cause you to think more negatively of yourself because they contribute to your self image as someone who doesn't live up to the commitments, who doesn't complete things. And when this is how you see yourself, it can become a self fulfilling prophecy. Now fortunately, the opposite is also true. When you develop the habit of crossing items off your to do list, no matter how small they happen to be, you start to see yourself as an achiever, someone who gets things done and produces results. And the more you see yourself as that kind of person, the more you will actually become that kind of person. And that will set you up for a much higher level of success in the year ahead. There's one more thing that's important to understand as you begin to ignore the things that you're not completing. Like maybe fixing something that needs to be fixed and walking past that crack in the wall that needs repaired, or not cleaning the carpet that needs to be cleaned, not filing that pile of unfiled papers on your desk or worse that's piled on the floor, not decluttering your office or your bedroom. You have to numb out your awareness. And when you numb out your awareness about that thing, you start numbing it out about everything, everywhere. And that'll make you less effective in every area of your life. And that's why Harnessing the Power of Completion is one of my most powerful and effective success habits that I want you to put into your life. So this month, before you get too caught up in planning for the holidays, I encourage you to create your goodbye 2020 to do list and cross off as many items as you can off that list before the end of the year. And remember, it's okay to start small. Small steps taken consistently can have big results. Just make sure you see each task through to completion by the scheduled date. And here's another thing. It's okay to delegate some of these tasks to others. And if you have the resources, you can actually hire people to help you. I promise you it'll be worth the investment because there's truly magic in completion. It will boost your self esteem, your self image and your self confidence. And it'll create more inner peace which will free up more of your creative energy. And most importantly, it will create a powerful sense of momentum that will carry you forward into 2021, which will help you accomplish great things and make it a truly amazing year for yourself. And here's one last suggestion. As soon as you finish watching this schedule into your calendar two hours to make your goodbye 2020 to do list. Now before you leave, if you're feeling so inspired, please also take a minute to leave a comment below letting me know about when and how you plan to use the power of completion to launch you into greater success in 2021. And research shows that when you make a public statement of intention, you're actually more likely to follow through on your goals. Thanks again for watching. Now, if you found this video helpful, please make sure you like it, share it with a friend who may need it, and subscribe to my channel for more videos like this one, and for some additional success habits you can use to improve your life and results. Take the time to Visit this website, Success Principlesworkbook.com and pick up a copy of this powerful workbook that I published this year. Get some great free bonuses while you're there.