Authors, There Is No Path: Creativity
2 of 28 big ideas from the world of coaching to grow your author business
The second in a 28-part series on 28 big ideas from coaching for authors to coach themselves, adapted from my book, The Coach Within.
“Travelers there is no path, the path is made by walking.”
— Antonio Machado
Take just one step — physical, mental, or emotional — and you have created, added to the creation that is your author path. This is a thrilling, high-yield idea:
We are always creating.
From wherever we’re at, there’s an infinite number of next possible steps.
There is no one right path to “discover.”
Our path is rich with past, present, and future choices of direction.
Why open up a series on powerful coaching concepts for authors with creativity? Because knowing the essential power and necessity of creativity is fundamental!
But you are a creative working in a creative field. You aleady know this.
It’s possible that you need an extra twist, to expand beyond the creative wells you draw upon for writing to a larger sense of creativity.
If you’re going to coach yourself to greater effectiveness, performance, satisfaction, peace, clarity — whatever — in your author world you’re going to have to bring about something new, different, better.
As you may already have caught on, by creativity I’m not referring to writing ability or lyrical expressiveness or even out-of-the-box inventiveness. We’re talking about you as a generative source, someone who can bring things — desired outcomes, new realities, etc. — into being for yourself.
What do you want to create next for your author life or business?
A series? A book in a new genre?
A new website? A marketing funnel? An email newsletter on a schedule?
A refreshed author program? A second and third author program on new topics or for new audiences?
Supplemental income? Merch? Services you could promote at events?
Intangibles like greater peace of mind? Trust in yourself? Confidence in public? Overcoming imposter syndrome?
An increase in social media followers? Subscribers? Royalties? Media interviews? Event bookings?
Coaching is a co-creative process in which a coach helps a client through the synergy of powerful conversations and honed communication techniques to produce chosen results, futures, states of being. When coaching ourselves we can always come back to creativity…knowing that it’s there for us, that we are inherently generative, and that we can harness it to move ourselves to where we want to be.
To employ the coaching tool of creativity for your author goals, remind yourself when stuck, facing a daunting situation, or wanting to enliven your current writing, marketing, and business activities of how ridiculously useful it is:
· Through creativity I can bring about the things I desire.
· Through creativity I can imagine and better clarify what it is I want.
· Through creativity I can solve any problem I’m facing.
· Through creativity I can generate multiple options for any situation I find myself in.
Take a step, traveler.
Coaching Yourself in Action
⎕ Pick an author goal, a thorny conflict, or a marketing problem that needs some care.
⎕ Imagine the optimal end result; get lost in the gamut of possible approaches and solutions — the more fun, dramatic, beautiful, the better; sculpt the new thing, hands on, removing what shouldn’t be there — first in your mind, then in reality — bit by bit.
⎕ Here’s your first chance to use the meta tools. In a 15–30-minute meditation or walking session, immerse yourself in creating an ideal outcome for your chosen challenge. Make some notes after the session.
⎕ At the end of the session, choose one real-world creative action to bring you closer to that perfect resolution.
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Plan Ahead for 2025
All my coaching pacakges for authors will be 10% off through 11/30/2024 in anticipation of price increases in January. (Sessions can be used in 2024 and 2025.) Learn more.
In January, my new Substack Profitable Author Life subscription and community will begin for those who are committed to building an income-generating sustainable author business they love of any size. And I hope you'll strongly consider joining us.
The subscription will actively address 6 of the 7 steps of my Profitable Author framework. (Step #4, The doing of 5 things a day every day to promote your books and author business is up to you.)
It will come with a guarantee that if after two months you haven't made back the cost of the subscription that you can request a free 30-minute phone call with me to get you on track.
It will come with an additional guarantee that if you engage with the material, participate in the group, and do the basic work on behalf of your books and author business and don't at least 10x back the cost of your subscription in a year's time, you can request a full refund of the subscription cost. (I happen to think it wouldn't take much for the industrious to 100x or 500x your investment.)
It will be a group for those who:
are committed to making a profit on their author activities;
know it is possible to have the author life they desire but may not be sure how;
will actively participate, learn, and test new ideas;
want the group coaching, business education, mindset support, and networking that this vibrant group will offer; and
are ready to dive in.
Finally, among other things, it will feature a new weekly roundup, for subscribers only, of new things on my publishing and book marketing radar. That is, when I learn something new or see something new out in the book world, I will pass it on to you so you can benefit from it also.