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Transcript

Bring Your "B" Game · The Daily Writer

• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Daily Rider Podcast, where we bring you tips and inspiration each day to help you build habits for writing success.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: For more resources, including your free Daily Rider Starter Kit, visit DailyRiderLife.com.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: Do you struggle with being a perfectionist?
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: If so, let's talk about a strategy that can help you overcome it immediately.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: But first, let's deal with the question: what is perfectionism to begin with?
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: Well, perfectionism is the tendency to get paralyzed by the idea that your work is never good enough.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: Perfectionists imagine that there's a standard out there and they can never reach it.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: They've convinced themselves that they will be an utter failure unless they reach that impossibly high standard.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: Therefore, they never take action and instead live in this perpetual state of anxiety and frustration.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: So that's how I look at what perfectionism is.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: Now, let me give you a strategy to help you overcome perfectionism.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: And this has worked really, really well for me.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: I am a notorious perfectionist, by the way.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: You can just ask anybody who knows me really well, including my family, who knows me, of course, the best.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I've struggled with perfectionism my whole life, but there's been something I've been doing the last few years that's been a massive help to me.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: Let me share with you what that is.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: So here's the deal: if you think of yourself as a perfectionist, you're always shooting for doing A-level work.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: Now, the problem is that your definition of an A is so far above everybody else's definition of an A that it's really, really unreachable.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: So the key here is to have more realistic standards for yourself, particularly when you're writing a first draft of something.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: That's really what I'm talking about here is doing a first draft.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: Now, when you're doing book publishing or you're doing cover design or editing or those things, you've got to have a granular level of detail and it needs to be as excellent as you can make it.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: But really what we're talking about here is when you're working on a first draft.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: So I want to encourage you to adjust your standard of perfectionism so that you're shooting for doing B-level work, maybe a B plus at best.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: Now you might think of this as lowering your standards, but remember that if you're a perfectionist, your standards are so unrealistically elevated that your B is still everybody else's A.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: So make it your goal to do B level writing in your first draft.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: Most of us don't have the capacity to be objective about our work anyway, so you've got to trust that your B is truly an A in everybody else's eyes.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: And when you shoot for a B, you can get work done way faster.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: You can move on, and it can still be considered excellent in most people's eyes.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: Plus, you can always improve your writing and the editing process and revisions and proofreading and all those kinds of things.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: But the key here is just to get the first draft done as fast as you possibly can.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: You know, make it good.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: Don't make it garbage, obviously.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: But if you're a perfectionist, it is you don't have the capacity to create garbage because perfectionists always are reaching for this unrealistic high standard.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: So if you think of yourself as a perfectionist, it's really, really hard for you to create stuff that's bad.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: But I would encourage you to lower your standards a little bit and just shoot for doing B-level work, particularly when you're working on that first draft.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: You know, a lot of great writers have been sidelined because their standards were so high that they never actually finished that first draft.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't want that to happen to you.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: So here's my challenge to you today.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: How could adopting a strategy of doing B level work help you to get your first draft done?
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: Think about that.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: And hey, I'd love to hear how this strategy actually helps you.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: By the way, you can always shoot me an email at Kent at DailyRiderLife.com.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: I would love to hear from you.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: I love hearing from podcast listeners and email subscribers and anybody who wants to chat.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: I am pretty much an open book.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: I always respond to my emails personally and I try to do it quickly.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: So I'd love to hear from you how this strategy has helped you in getting a first draft of something done.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: All right, my friend.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: As always, thanks for listening, and I'll see you next time.