Completion Anxiety

From The Orga­niz­er Lady’s newslet­ter today:

COMPLETION ANXIETY

Messies often won­der at a phe­nom­e­non they see in themselves—their own reluc­tance to fin­ish projects. 

You know the sto­ry. You begin a project enthu­si­as­ti­cal­ly, work on it with vig­or, but just before it is ful­ly com­plet­ed, the air goes out of your inter­est. The mate­ri­als you are using are left sit­ting out or the papers are set aside wait­ing for your inter­est to rekin­dle. But it just does­n’t seem to hap­pen. Not only is this frus­trat­ing because the job is left hang­ing over you, but it leaves a mess behind. 

This phe­nom­e­non has been labeled com­ple­tion anxiety.

What is going on here? One idea is that if and when we com­plete a project, the result will be eval­u­at­ed either by oth­ers or by our­selves. Since we are per­fec­tion­ists, this idea of eval­u­at­ing the fin­ished project makes us very ner­vous. Not fin­ish­ing helps us to avoid that discomfort. 

Is there an answer to this prob­lem so we can move on to a more pro­duc­tive way of life, one in which we com­plete the jobs we start? The only answer is to chal­lenge the under­ly­ing per­fec­tion­ism. We do that by fac­ing our fear and doing what scares us, fin­ish­ing the job. In this case, the JUST DO IT slo­gan def­i­nite­ly applies.

That one cer­tain­ly hit me where I live!