Are there loose ends surrounding the completion of writing your book or dissertation? If your project is hanging in limbo, it’s a much bigger deal than you realize. This unfinished business is impacting your whole life. As the guys on the reality shows say, “That’s facts!”
Part 1:
How Not Finishing Your Writing Project Makes You “Sick”
In my former career, I worked for a church. Because we were a spiritual community, all the staff members, about 15 of us, gathered in the chapel each morning for a time of focus and reflection, which we called “devotion.” Staff members would alternate in leading the daily devotions so that everyone had an opportunity.
One day, a young lady from Chicago led the devotion, and her topic that day would impact my life forever. The Bible verse she used as her focus was Proverbs 13:12, which said, Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.
I had never heard of this scripture before that day, but I would never forget it thereafter. It helped me understand an essential principle about life that extended even beyond a religious application: when you don’t finish something that you desperately long to accomplish, you experience hope deferred, which has a detrimental impact on your life… on your very heart.
I’m not talking about your literal, physical heart here (although it, too, can be affected by the enduring stress of leaving things unfinished over time); I’m talking about the immaterial place within you that is the seat of your desires and emotions. The place that is the center of who you are and that drives everything about you. The heart is the place where your conscience dwells, the place that drives how you operate, how you interpret and respond to the world, the decisions you make. It shapes the overall essence of your life.
It is this heart that grows sick (literally translated as ‘grieved,’ ‘sorry,’ ‘diseased,’ ‘sore,’ or ‘wounded’) because of the compromise you allow when you do not complete something you began and truly desired to accomplish. This is especially true when you know without a shadow of a doubt that you should be getting it done. Leaving loose ends dangling in the wind has a negative psychological impact on you at the very core of who you are!
Why does unfinished business make your heart sick? Because in your heart of hearts, you know you should have finished that thing. You know that it’s been in limbo too long and you should be finished by now. You also know you could have been finished by now. You know you have everything it takes to have completed what you began… but you allowed yourself to be stopped by obstacles, whether internal or external.
(Interested in more? Be sure to read the next post in this series!)
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SHANNON WILLIAMS, PH.D., is the Founder and Chief Executive Nerd of Geniuscribes, Nerds with Pens. For more than a decade, she has helped doctoral students complete their dissertations and aspiring writers complete their books. She is a nerdy, fun-loving, dog-obsessed foodie who loves Jesus, unpretentious people, sunshine, and coffee. She is a die-hard Houstonian and Texas Longhorn living in Atlanta, where Chick-Fil-A sells collard greens and macaroni, and the tea is as sweet as the people, much to her delight. You can reach her through her team at support@geniuscribes.com if you like. Or not. Whatever butters your biscuit! Oh yeah… she loves those, too.