At the high school where I teach we finished our third quarter this week. Many students worked hard to complete all their assignments, but some didn’t and missed the opportunity to reap the full advantage of their education. It’s important to follow through with what you start and finish strong. My daughters have learned on their own to follow through. However, my teenage son struggles with following through on various tasks and goals. Like many of my students, he’s smart and capable. He has sincere intent, but needs to improve his execution. Perhaps the same is true for you. Fortunately, following through can be developed with practice and exercising the frontal lobe of the brain which controls decision making, thinking, and attention. Here are some thoughts on following through.
Why Follow Through
Finishing well what you start helps you mature as a person and strengthens your relationships with others. Following through shows that you have integrity, that your word is valuable, that you are reliable, hard working, self-directed, and trustworthy. Be someone people can count on, by doing what you say you will. Start doing so now and it will benefit you and others throughout your life.
How to Follow Through
Following through involves practical steps, some of which you may already be doing and some of which you may need to improve.
- Value completion. Take ownership of following through. Embrace the pressure to finish what you start. Consider how it benefits you and others. Acknowledge its importance.
- Listen. Understand what needs to be done so you can complete it on time and with excellence.
- Plan and organize. Break more complicated endeavors into smaller phases with deadlines. This will help you visualize dependencies, impediments, proper sequence, and any potential for multitasking. Be realistic in setting your deadlines. Utilize strategies to track your progress like a to do list, a calendar, a timer, or an accountability partner. Reward yourself in small ways as phases are completed.
- Manage your resources. Analyze and prioritize what materials, skills, knowledge, people, finances, and time you have, then use them wisely. Focus and remove potential distractions like noise, notifications, interruptions, phone calls, or email and text messages.
- Communicate with clarity and precision. Respond promptly.Ask and answer questions. Confirm details. This will reduce misunderstandings, ambiguity, and the need to redo work.
- Meet your deadlines. Diligently march toward your goal. Don’t get sidetracked. Don’t procrastinate. Don’t excuse yourself. Work around obstacles. Just do the next right thing required again and again until you finish that phase.
- Check and correct. Review your work for errors or shortcomings. Get other people’s feedback. Receive constructive criticism. Then revise as necessary in order to improve.
Divine Help Is Available
The steps I just mentioned will help you follow through, but don’t feel like you have to go it alone to work excellently, fulfill your commitments, and to model integrity. In whatever you do, you will experience some success from diligence and determination. However, you can go much higher and farther by relying on God. God wants to help you mature in this area and to become all you were meant to be in Jesus. He created you and loves you. He desires for you to develop the same virtuous character he has. Ultimately, following through is about loving and serving well. You can grow in love because God loved you first. You can joyfully serve because God served you first. You can do what’s right and good because God does what is right and good. You can follow through because God always follows through for you. You can count on God. He delivers on every promise he makes.
God’s greatest promises are fulfilled in Jesus. Jesus is God the Son who became a man, lived rightly among us, died an innocent death to pay the penalty for our transgressions, and rose again to give us victory over wrongdoing and death. If you trust and obey Jesus, you receive forgiveness for your wrongdoing and you experience new, abundant, everlasting life with God. Jesus gives you his power to live rightly and to follow through in the tasks, responsibilities, and service he entrusts to you. Jesus taught that, like a branch severed from the life-giving vine, apart from him you can do nothing of significance (John 15:1-8). Yet with him and through him you can accomplish whatever God calls you to do. Through adversity or prosperity, inward struggle or outward trial, he empowers you to prevail (Philippians 4:13).
Conclusion
One of the promises Jesus made is that he is coming back to follow through with the establishment of his righteous rule on earth. When he returns to consummate his kingdom he will reward believers, judge unbelievers, restore creation, and vanquish evil and Satan. If you have placed your faith in Jesus, that will be a blessed time. As you await his return represent him well by obeying his word and keeping your word. Be someone people can count on. Do what you say you will do. By God’s grace and power, joyfully love and serve him and others. Consistently follow through in big things and small things to bring God glory.