Attention & Focus · “You Become What You Hold”
Idealize the Process
Stop manifesting only the end-result and instead idealize the whole sequence of doing — examination, plan, and execution — by mentally completing and testing each step before you act, so the process itself, not just the goal, is made perfect.
Don’t just picture the result — idealize the process.
(1) Examine every factor fully (thing, time, conditions, people, self).
(2) Build a complete plan in your mind.
(3) Rehearse yourself doing each step, eyes closed, until you can’t make a mistake.
(4) Stress-test every factor with vivid sense-images — find the break before reality does.
(5) Then act: “balance mind action by doing.”
What it is
Landone’s most distinctive contribution, and the engine of The Success Process (1920). Most New Thought visualizes the result — the new house, the larger income. Landone says that is not enough, and may even mislead: “Idealizing the process is more than mere thinking-out the process.” You must idealize the doing — make the ideal of how the thing gets done complete in your mind before you do it.
He grades four levels of action — mere doing (mechanical), purposeful doing (idea + desire, no plan), planned doing (thought-out but un-idealized), and idealized doing — and only the last “guarantees” success in his system.
Crucially he splits idealizing into three objects: idealize the examination, idealize the plan, idealize the doing — “successful examination, successful planning, successful doing, all three mean but one and the same thing — idealized examination, idealized planning, idealized doing.” It lives in attention focus because the act is directing complete, sense-tested attention onto each phase of the process rather than basking in the outcome.
The Method
- Idealize the examination — survey every factor, completely. Before planning, idealize your examination of “all factors” — Landone lists thing, time, conditions, people, self. Look at each fully and perfectly in mind, missing none. A faulty survey dooms everything downstream.
- Idealize the plan itself. Make “the ideal of doing the thing complete in your mind before actually doing it.” Not a rough outline — a perfected plan, imaged in full.
- Idealize the doing — rehearse the execution. Picture yourself performing each step before you perform it (his eyes-closed method): “I closed my eyes to visualize… I pictured myself on the cars, changing where… changes must be made… After this, it was impossible to be confused; impossible to make a mistake.”
- Test every factor by idealized sense images. Expert calculation alone fails (he cites the Quebec Bridge collapse). So “test every factor of the plan by idealized sense images” — run each part as a vivid scene and watch where it breaks. This is a premortem in 1920s language.
- Balance mind-action with doing. “Balance mind action by doing!” — “worlds of ideas, idealized and imaged and visioned, lead but to failure unless they are put into action.” Idealizing the process is the preparation; execution is mandatory.
- Re-idealize before each new phase. Treat examination, plan, and doing as one unified thing held to the same standard; before a fresh stage, idealize it again rather than improvising. (Sourcing note: “Idealizing the process is more than mere thinking-out the process,” “to idealize the process — making the ideal of doing the thing complete in your mind before actually doing it,” the examination/planning/doing unity quote, “test every factor of the plan by idealized sense images,” and “Balance mind action by doing!” are verbatim from The Success Process. Step order is an attributed paraphrase.)
Source & Lineage
Brown Landone (1847–1944), The Success Process: A Means Which Guarantees Success (1920). The book’s central claim — idealize the process, not only the result — is what sets Landone apart from the result-visualizing mainstream of New Thought. → (landone brown).
Common refinements
Idealizing the result, not the process. The whole point: picture how it gets done, step by step, not just the trophy.
- A vague plan. “Complete in your mind” means complete — image each phase fully.
- Skipping the stress-test. Don’t trust expert calculation alone (Quebec Bridge); run each factor as a sense-image and look for the break.
- Over-planning / never acting. The failure mode on this side is paralysis — “balance mind action by doing.” Set a point where idealizing stops and execution begins.
- Examining people/conditions carelessly. His factor list (thing, time, conditions, people, self) is deliberate; a perfect plan built on a sloppy survey still fails.