Commit
Welcome to the fourth and final week of Four Weeks to Rubber Soul. For the past three weeks, we have explored what it means to begin, collaborate, and experiment. Now we arrive at our final theme: Finish.
Our word for Day 22 is Commit because finishing begins with a decision. At some point, the experiment needs a commitment. Ideas become work when we commit to finishing them.
The Beatles understood that reality during the making of Rubber Soul. For all the creativity surrounding those sessions, there was also an immovable deadline. The Beatles needed to deliver a new album in time for the Christmas market. They could experiment with unusual sounds, rewrite songs, abandon takes, work through long sessions, and chase new ideas, but eventually they had to finish the record.
That deadline did not stop experimentation. It gave the experimentation somewhere to go. The ideas had to become songs, the songs had to become an album, and the album had to be finished.
I am thinking about commitment quite a bit these days. I am finishing my second book, Leadership Riffs, after months of writing, revising, questioning, discovering, and trying again. There comes a point in any creative project when the question has to change. We stop asking whether the idea could become something and start doing the work necessary to make it something.
The same is true for Four Weeks to Rubber Soul. I have made it through three weeks of daily blog posts and reels. The novelty and excitement of beginning have faded. I have experimented publicly, shared ideas that were still developing, and kept showing up even when the engagement sometimes disappointed me.
Now there are seven days remaining. This final week is less about asking, “Can I do this?” and more about saying, “I am going to see this through.”
Commitment matters because beginnings are exciting and experiments are full of possibility. Finishing asks something different from us. It asks us to keep showing up after the novelty disappears, continue when the response is quieter than we hoped, and stay with the work long enough to complete what we started.
The Beatles had a record to finish. I have a book to finish and seven more days of this creative journey to complete. You may have something waiting for your commitment too.
As we begin this final week, think about the unfinished work in your own life. What idea, project, dream, or creative pursuit deserves more than another someday? What would happen if you decided that now is the time to see it through?
That is where Finish begins. It begins with a commitment to the work and a decision to keep going until the work is complete.
Check out today’s reel:
