Finish Strong

Finish Strong

“We must all suffer from one of two pains: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret. The difference is discipline weighs ounces while regret weighs tons.” ~Jim Rohn

The earth shook beside me as the enemy missiles exploded just a few yards away from me. I leaped for cover, only to discover that I was hiding in plain sight. It took everything I had to get to this point, and now I found myself struggling just to survive.

This sounds like my own little version of World War III, except instead of missiles their weapon of choice was Midterms, and instead of digging trenches, I was digging my way out of piles of books by studying 16 hours a day. ‘Welcome to first semester of Dental School, please fasten your seat belts — you’re going to need them.’

If I was to make it out of WWIII alive (or see the end of this semester, let alone graduate NYU Dental School), I knew I needed to have the right soldiers fighting with me by my side. I pick my friends using a very scientific technique that I have formulated after 25 years of experimentation. I pick friends based on who I respect and admire.

One such friend that I respect and admire is Nick Levintov, and I found his continuous encouragement during all the trials and tribulations of semester-one to be a mantra for the way I focused my brain to study, which of course metastasized into other areas of my life.

When I couldn’t keep my eyes open anymore and didn’t care which artery supplies which body part, or which enzyme catalyzes which reaction, Nick was there to say “Finish Strong!” I think he must have gotten this philosophy from his days as a disciplined competitive swimmer, but it’s easy to see that these two simple words can change the paradigm of any activity.

For me it was crunching out another 6 hours of mental repetition at the end of a long day. For you it might be doing those extra 15 minutes on the treadmill, another few reps of your weight set, or perhaps just going through your ordinary day in an extraordinary way.

The main lesson that I took out of ‘Finish Strong’ is that we should consistently give our 100% in every thought and action that we undertake, so that tomorrow our capacity to think, move, and love is larger than it is today. Our capacity to receive self-satisfaction and enjoyment in life will also increase if we just remember that whatever task we thought was worth undertaking is worth finishing strong.

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Posted by in Personal Development | December 27, 2009 | Digg | Del.icio.us | Stumble | Print | 11 comments

  • http://www.wakeupcloud.com/ Henri @ Wake Up Cloud

    Giving your best and doing it consistently leads to great things. Unfortunately, many believe that they aren’t capable of this. I’ve found that when I work hard and get things done I feel great, but sometimes I just cannot muster up energy to do stuff. That’s when I take a break and enjoy my rest completely.

  • http://www.babystepstofluency.com Fiona @ BSF

    Great post! I have a habit of not finishing strong… I’ll do my best to finish strong. ;)

    Good luck with school, it’s a killer!

  • http://www.caradvice.in/ fas

    Very well said, but the motivation just goes away right before the finish line,

  • http://www.motivatedsista.com Prosechild

    I can so relate to your WW3. My personal WW3 was law school… that grueling first semester… ahhh brings back memories :-)

    Finishing strong is so important. Its funny, I always thought the desire to quit would come in the middle of an endeavor, but strangely the urge to give up comes 3/4 of the way or near the end. I read somewhere that most people quit right before success… not only finishing, but finishing strong is essential to that success we seek.

  • http://mindofchampions.com/ Shawn

    Love the introductory quote by Jim Rohn. Alex, your post is a great reminder that anyone can start strong, but it takes an altogether different mindset to continue and push on to the very end. Thanks for the reminder! Shawn @ mindOfChampions

  • http://bystander.homestead.com Francis Chin

    Finish strong. What a memorable phrase. Thanks!

  • http://www.timelessinformation.com Armen Shirvanian

    Hey Alex.

    There is a strong message here. That quote by Jim Rohn connects quite a bit with my motto I have been using lately which is “self-discipline, and ignore everybody”. I don’t want to have that pain of regret later. I would rather have the effort-based output version of it at the current time.

    Finishing strong sure does show others that we mean business. If we don’t do this, people sometimes think our original was much smaller than it actually was.

    To more practical personal development in 2010~

  • http://www.personal-success-factors.com Steve-Personal Success Factors

    Alex, great information and inspiration. I am curious how you are doing with keeping up with this blog, now that you are in dental school. Have you found it more challenging, or is it a type of therapeutic outlet? I am just curious.

  • http://StanleyBronstein.com Stanley Bronstein

    As Freidrich Nietzsche said:

    That which does not kill us makes us stronger.

    Dental school is making you stronger. Hang in there. If you need something to think about, check out my daily meditation series.

    Take care.

    Stanley Bronstein
    StanleyBronstein.com

  • http://tomaszgorecki.com/blog/2010/01/12/the-easy-way-out/ The easy way out

    [...] nothing is actually stopping me from doing that, but I chose not to. I chose to keep going [...]

  • http://justiceanimale.wordpress.com Louche

    This article is short and sweet and just what I need right now. Thanks. :)