Greetings, beautiful souls. Greetings and welcome. Welcome back to the sweet spot. It is Finish Strong Friday. Can you believe it? Already Friday, and you're in it. You've been in a series with me called Living in Alignment. I'm Dr. Derek Sweet. I'm your host here on The Sweet Spot. As you know, I'm a born certified psychiatrist. I work with high performance individuals, and more than that, I enjoy sitting with you and discussing how do we live the best life we ever can live while we're on this side of eternity. Beautiful souls. Let's talk about how we finish things. Not how we start, not how we plan, not about setting intentions, but how do we carry something all the way through? You know, most of us are pretty good at beginnings. We open the document, we start the project, we have the conversation, we make the plan, we take the first step. But following things through can sometimes feel a little bit heavier than it should. And we usually tell ourselves it's a motivation problem or a discipline problem or a focus problem or a fatigue problem. A lot of times it's none of those. A lot of times, Loki is an alignment problem. Yeah. When something feels out of sync with who you are, where you are, or what you care about, your system can be very quiet about resisting it, and it will. Not in a dramatic way, but in a tired way, in an avoiding way, a distracted way, a let's do it later kind of way. Now, don't get me wrong, this is not because you're lazy or because something's wrong with you or you're broken or something like that. It's not even because you don't care. From a scientific psychological perspective, it could be that your nervous system feels pressure instead of purpose. And when a task feels forced, rushed, disconnected from meaning or emotionally heavy, your body reads it as stress. And stressed-out systems don't like to move, they don't move forward too easily, they tighten up. Stressed-out systems hesitate, they're looking for relief, they're looking for comfort. That's why you end up with certain kinds of habits when you're under stress. Because getting to the finish line can feel exhausting, not because the task is hard, but because your system hasn't settled down yet. So when something feels aligned, it's completely different, right? The finishing is different when you have the alignment. Everything feels calmer, clearer, more natural, more doable. Yeah, not necessarily easy, but steady, not rushed. Because the system isn't fighting the action when it's aligned. The ancient wisdom always understood this. Things are completed through steadiness in the ancient wisdom, not pressure, through presence and not force when you study the ancient wisdom, through meaning, not urgency. Beloved, I give you rest. So let's make this come home. Let's make this land for us today for a second. Think about one small thing you've been carrying this week or maybe this month that hasn't been finished yet. Nothing overwhelming, nothing dramatic, just something unfinished that's been sitting quietly in the background of your mind. For me, it's the book that I'm writing that seems to be taking forever, right? Notice what happens in your body when you think about it. Not when, not what you think about it, but but when you think about it, what happens? Whether or not there's a contention, a tightness, a heaviness, a resistance, a fatigue, something that comes up. And then you have to ask yourself, well, huh. Is this hard because it's difficult? Or is it hard because I'm sort of out of alignment? Sometimes we don't finish because we're overwhelmed. Sometimes it's because we're tired. Other times it's because the meaning is sort of gone. Sometimes it's because the task itself no longer fits with our values because we're carrying emotional weight and not task weight, if that makes sense. And sometimes what we really need isn't more of a push. We need to step back and get aligned again. So today, Finish Strong Friday isn't about forcing you to produce, isn't about forcing me to write another chapter. It's about clearing the list and trying to find a way not to prove anything, but to do one tiny thing, one small step, one action that moves me into alignment that's honest and not forced, steady and not rushed. Not to impress anyone, not to just say that I finished it, but to give my system the experience of completing something small. One thing without all that stress. Because finishing isn't really about productivity, it's about closure, it's about peace, it's about relief, it's about integrity, it's even about letting your mind rest so you can finish. It's about relaxing your shoulders so you can finish. Maybe taking a deep breath so that you can finish. It's about not carrying the unfinished energy and the judgment and the self-criticism into everything. And when you get aligned, things become possible. So don't just try to finish everything today just to see how I finished it. Finish one thing in the direction of what you have to get done in a way that feels kind to your system. Let your body feel what it's like to complete something without pressure. Let your mind feel what it's like to close the loop without stress, without judgment. Let your spirit feel what it's like to follow through without force. That's a finished strong Friday. Not grinding, not hustling, not pressure hustling. Just aligning so that you can be complete. So think about the one small thing you can finish today, one small thing that would let you breathe a little easier tonight and this weekend. And then come back tomorrow, self-care Saturday, and we'll talk all about it. I'm Dr. Derek Sweet. You've been listening to The Sweet Spot. This is Finish Strong Friday. It's all about alignment. Please share this with somebody you care about, somebody who needs to hear this. And if you haven't signed up or subscribed, it's free. Do it today. Love and blessings, and I'll see you for self care saturda tomorrow. Don't miss it!