Authors, Chase Perfection to Catch Excellence: Idealizing
16 of 28 big ideas from the world of coaching to grow your author business
The sixteenth in a 28-part series on 28 big ideas from coaching for authors to coach themselves, adapted from my book, The Coach Within.“The possible’s slow fuse is lit by imagination.”
“Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection we can catch excellence.”
— Vince Lombardi
“It is never too late to be who you might have been.”
— George Elliot
Idealizing should not be confused with the psychological term idealization (of self, others, relationships), which may come with some baggage and negative complications. For our purposes, idealizing simply means considering what’s ideal for ourselves — in things small and large, in all areas of our life, as writers and as those with author businesses.
Very much like the second interpretation of possibility thinking, big idea 15 of 28, idealizing is considering and picturing what we want most in any situation, in all the detail we can supply, as grand as we can conjure.
It’s for the lighter things: While selecting food and drink for a book party…How can I make this event truly special? While getting dressed for an author talk…How can I be comfortable and what is the vibe I’m going for?
And the weightier matters: Before talking to your family about their lack of support for your business…What does this conversation need to be? What do I hope to accomplish? Before parting ways with a longtime co-author…What all do I want to say — how do I want to be?
And the different aspects of an author life: What is the ideal way I accomplish my various writing, publishing, and business tasks? What do I want the thrust of my new marketing campaign to be? How can I make the best use of a part-time assistant?
While idealizing may seem like fantasizing and wishful thinking, a lot more is going on. It’s creating clarity, focusing our energies, forming a blueprint for the future. It’s building awareness of our deepest longings and acknowledging them. It’s stretching ourselves to think bigger and play bigger. It’s permitting ourselves to be, do, and have more, beginning with creating that in our mind’s eye.
In addition to the mental component, there’s a physical/emotional piece to idealizing. As you envision your ideals, try embodying them, creating in your body what those ideals feel like. Add sensory details. Bring these perfect templates as fully to life as possible.
Allow yourself the indulgence of conjuring what’s ideal for you in any and all situations, without false limits, engaging your heart and mind. Seek your truths and be fearless in evoking them, removed from the judgments of others and your own inner critic. Just be with your ideals free from guilt, obligations, and abnegation (review being not doing, big idea 14). When you encounter resistance points in yourself, let them exist without heaving additional attention their way. Counter their stickiness with a generous, smiling, inward yes to your ideals, making space in your belief system for their possibility. You don’t even have to try to manifest — or to force — your idealizing into existence. Just begin by allowing your ideals their own vivid reality on the plane of imagination.
Coaching Yourself In Action
⎕ Idealize on the fly today, wherever and whenever you can. Before getting out of bed: What do I want today to be like? At breakfast: What can I do first to get this day off to the right start? At work: How can this meeting go swimmingly? What would the just-right version of this media pitch look like? What is the perfect tone for sales call I’m about to make? You get the idea. How effective is idealizing for you even if it’s just a few moments of mental prep work? Even on day one without lots of practice under your belt?
⎕ Create an idealizing section in your journal, with one page for each area of your author life, each relationship, each goal, and each project you’d like to improve upon. Make some initial notes on every page about what ideal looks like for that thing. Return over time to add details and create a more complete and lucid picture on every page..
Dear Author…
The introduction from my new book.
Thanks for picking up this book and welcome to a new adventure you may or may not be sure you want to be on! That is, book marketing, book selling, and otherwise monetizing your authorship. Taking the necessary steps to make sure your books are sold and readers read your work are overwhelming prospects, and for many, things they’d rather avoid entirely.
Why can’t you just write, right?
Perhaps you’ve written one book on your area of expertise or passion and don’t want to learn a whole new world of book publishing and marketing to get your book into people’s hands.
Perhaps you’re a traditionally published author, more than a little curious to know if you could make it as a self-published author—with your big fan base and email list, but without your agent and a contract.
This book is for all kinds of authors with all kinds of motivations and all kinds of disinclinations. What I share in the following pages will give you a roadmap and its justifications for your best opportunity to keep on writing and living the author life you want (with compensation and other rewards!). And, it will expand your ideas of what is possible for you and increase your chances of experiencing “the good life” through your author activities. Read the rest of the Introduction here.
