Estimated reading time: 6 minutes

Unfinished Work: The Truth About What I Didn’t Finish

James Clear posted a quote on Instagram. Before I start, I adore his work. Atomic Habits changed how I think about discipline and daily choices. He’s the king of consistency, the master of habit, the man who built a movement on stacking wins. The quote said:

“You have to finish things. that’s what you learn from, you learn by finishing things.”

Less than an hour later, it vanished. No explanation, comment, just poof, gone! What the heck?

But I saw it, and I ended up thinking about it all morning. I didn’t think it was wrong; it just didn’t tell the whole story. It didn’t speak to the reality of unfinished work: what it demands, what it reveals, and what it teaches.

The cost of finishing the wrong thing

At first, it sounded noble. It was the kind of slick one-liner people post with a bicep emoji. But the more I sat with it, the more I realized it was missing something. It was missing the blood, the breakdown, the tension in your chest when something isn’t working but you’re still gripping it with white knuckles. It was missing the truth about what it costs to finish the wrong thing.

I have lived through more unfinished work and chapters than I have closed, but I did not come out empty. I came out different, sharper and wiser and I may have been bruised, but I wasn’t broken. Finishing is not the only way you learn. Sometimes, it is not even the best way.

We grow up hearing things like “quitters never win” and “you started it, now finish it.” But what if finishing just to finish means forcing yourself to carry what’s no longer yours? Some things aren’t meant to be completed, they’re meant to teach you where the line is.

Unfinished work and the workouts that break you

Ask any CrossFitter about their most unforgettable workout. It probably wasn’t the one they dominated. It was the one that wrecked them; the one that made them scale, made them quit, made them walk outside and cry in the parking lot. It’s the one that brought them face to face with fear, with shame, with the hard truth that they weren’t who they thought they were that day. That is the one that leaves a mark; just like every piece of unfinished work that asks more of you than a finished one would.

I have had workouts that stopped me mid-lift, mid-rep, and mid-sob. I have dropped the bar, sat down, and tapped out. Not because I did not care, but because my body said no. In those moments, soaked in sweat, I learned something I could not get from crossing a finish line. I learned that ego lifts nothing. We act like quitting is weakness, like the only badge of honor is grinding to the end. But sometimes, the strongest move you can make is setting the bar down before it crushes you. Not every rep needs your pride.

The unseen battle of weight loss

It sounds harmless at first. “Finish what’s on your plate.” It’s something we say without thinking. But when you look closer, it doesn’t always make sense. Sometimes finishing means overriding your body, your hunger cues, your well-being, just to check a box. What if the win isn’t in finishing the plate, but in learning to stop when you’ve had enough? We could apply this to everything.

People celebrate the before and after. But no one sticks around for the “again.” No one asks what happens when the jeans stop fitting, when the old patterns sneak back in like they never left. The goal weight didn’t teach me anything lasting. Regaining and rebuilding did. Falling apart in private and still showing up anyway; that’s where I learned how to fight for my life. In truth, the hardest part of weight loss is the unfinished work; the unraveling that no one puts on a progress chart but where you learn the most – the unfinished middle. 

When the book isn’t ready (and neither are you)

I have finished a book. I have held it in my hands, signed it, sold it, and shared the story. But my second book, Waitless, has been a different kind of lesson. I had it done nearly a year ago, but I have walked away from it multiple times. The first book came after years of reflection. I had a lifetime to process what I wanted to say. I could soften the sharp edges because the pain had already passed.

But this new chapter of my life was still raw. I would read and reread sections and feel the hostilities still sitting under the surface, and that was not the message I wanted to carry forward. Choosing to leave it unfinished, at least for now, was hard. But it was right. Not every book is ready to be born. Some stories are still doing their unfinished work on you before you can ever release them into the world. Sometimes the brave thing is not pushing through. Sometimes it is pulling back long enough to ask, “What is this really saying, and who is it really for?”

This is still learning

So do we learn by finishing things? Sometimes, yes absolutely! Finishing has value. It builds staying power. It trains your grit and gives you that quiet, bone-deep satisfaction that only comes from seeing something all the way through.

But it is not the whole story.

“Don’t leave things unfinished.” That’s what we’re taught. But what if leaving things unfinished is what sets you free? You also learn when you walk away. That might be a job that drains the hell out of you, a relationship that erodes your peace, or a project you started that sounded good but no longer aligns with who you are or what you want to do. You learn when you pause a business idea that looks good on paper but feels wrong in your gut. Maybe it’s when you scale the weight on the barbell or decide it’s best not to the work because today’s victory is rest. You learn when you question what you used to believe and allow new truth to grow roots. You’re allowed to change your mind and become someone new, explore a new idea.

You do not just learn by finishing.

Let that line breathe because it’s the truth.

You learn by paying attention to what the unfinished thing was trying to show you. Sometimes the most life-changing lessons come from the things you never saw all the way through. And those things you never saw through? You felt them, you listened and you grew from them.

Sometimes those unfinished things will take you farther than any finish line ever could.