I’ve started so I’ll finish… Or will I?

I am a serial starter, I always have been. As long as I can remember I’ve decided I want to do something, but then the gloss wore off and I moved onto something else. I’ve been constantly reminded of this and my business life is no different. In the last 12 months, I’ve had no end of ideas. Joined no end of online challenges and I am sat here wondering if I completed any of them?

I’ve been trying to work out why this is for years. I’ve done a few Myers Briggs tests in my time and I always come out as an ENTP. As a woman, that can mean I am a bit of a handful. Bold, competitive, argumentative and witty are words that are often bandied about for this type – but these words don’t explain why I am such a nightmare when it comes to having too much on the go. However, the more you read into it, the more it seems that it is my personality.

(these come from psychologia.co, read more here)

• ENTPs are extroverts who need lots of personal space; some even call ENTPs “introverted extroverts”.
• ENTPs have many brilliant ideas; unfortunately, they lack the patience to follow through with them.
• ENTPs get bored easily.
• ENTPs are extremely capable people, however, they lack motivation.
• While ENTPs usually appear well-read, it’s not uncommon for them to have never finished a single book.
• There are times when ENTPs seem to enjoy arguing with authority figures.

Do any of these strike you as familiar? If you get a prize for ticking all of the above, then I definitely do! But then, that somewhat annoys me as I am totally playing to type – and we ENTP women don’t do that!

So you may be intrigued as to what I’ve started but never finished, it can’t be that bad I hear you cry? Well, let’s see if I can remember it all (in no particular order)

RHS qualifications… Technically, I still need to resit one exam. I passed 7 out of 8 but have just never got around to resitting the last ones. I have a drawing board and all the tackle ready to go into garden design – it’s just that other things have genuinely got in the way of that on one!

Dressmaking… Yep, I can sew or at least I could in the early ’90s. I’ve recently (OK about a year ago!) bought some new material to make a copy of my favourite dress, the pattern is ready to go – dress sadly is not made!

Vlogging… Yes, I really want to do this. I have the Canon g7x ready to go – but just need to get my butt in gear and buy a ring light and the likes. Oh, and get some courage!

Podcasting… I have all the kit ready to go. I have a name for my podcast and a list of people I want to talk too – I just need time to do that as well!

Coaching qualifications… I really want to do this too – but we’re racking up a serious number of hours to do things here and this is the latest addition to the ever-increasing list!

Blogging… Yes, this is on the list too. I’d planned to write more, not only for this blog but also for work. Writing is part of what I do for a living so I really need to showcase that ability.

Finally, two books… I started writing two books, one for business and one a personal thing. Both of them are a fair way in, but sadly unfinished.

So that was a whistle-stop tour of the list of ongoing projects that I can remember. Pretty impressive eh? People often tell me that I take too much on, that I don’t give myself enough time. The problem is that I am easily bored. I have to be really engaged in something to carry it through to the end. I am good with things that change constantly, that keep me guessing.

I have been working on this with my wonderful coach. I am often guilty of telling myself that I’ll never finish things, when actually that may not be the case. The stories we tell ourselves can be very powerful, sometimes we need to break that cycle! By writing this down here, I hope that at least some of that juju has been broken.