On finishing

Some time ago I almost left self-employment and home working and returned to being employed outside the home.  As soon as I'd agreed to do it I knew I'd made a mistake.  That's a story for another post, but today's post is about finishing things.

One of the many reasons I realised that employment away from home was not for me at that time was that the position concerned was a management one and involved very little opportunity for finishing things.  I would have spent most of my days in meetings, staff supervision and budget reviews, and very little time on writing, research and practical work.

It matters to me, at the end of a day, a week or a month, to be able to stop, reflect and say, "I did this."  I wrote this, I baked this, I made this.  For me (though probably not for everyone), being able to say, "I talked about this" does not bring with it the same sense of achievement.

Today, I finished a piece of work which has occupied my time, on and off, for a couple of months.  It may not be perfect - nobody's perfect - but it's finished.  I planned it, thought long and hard about it, and wrote it in the very best way I could.  What a sense of achievement.

Running my own business means everything falls to me - but it gives an awful lot of opportunities to say, "I finished!  I created this."