Setting Goals

Most people do not know how to properly set goals.  Their goals are all over the place and very vague.  They will have goals like to be rich, to be stronger, to be smarter, be the best I can be, to be confident, goto college, get a great job, etc.  All the things they reference to are to be better than they presently are.   In magic these goals are vague.  You need to be specific and go in steps.  Usually baby steps.  

There are three versions of you in the future.  One who is closer to their goals and becomes better, one who stays the same and one who is worse off.  Imagine these three versions of you exist in the future.  Which one do you want to be?  Most would say the better version of themselves.  Problem is that our goals are not very clear.  We have goals of either I get it or I don’t and that is not good for our minds.  For instance a goal of being smart does not do anything.  You could be smart in certain situations and not others.  You could be having a bad day that makes you feel less smart.  Or a goal of being rich.  Rich in what or doing what?  My point is we have to be clear.  

First thing we need to know is where do I stand today?  Who are you now?  This will work with anything in life.  If your goal is to become a professional athlete or own your own business, you have to know where you are at this time in this journey.  Are you starting or sitting the bench right now? Are you playing for a high level team?   Are you in the type of business you want working for someone else right now?  Are you in management or ground floor employee?  These are the questions you need to ask yourself, so you pinpoint where you are right now.  If you are not a starter on your team your goal should be the next step of becoming a starter.  If you are an entry level employee, your goal should be the next step in that company, whatever it may be.  It is nice to have the ultimate goal in mind, but we self sabotage when we don’t focus on the next step.  You can not climb a ladder without going to the next step up.  It is very easy to fall into the trap of skipping steps.  When you improve and get better your chances of achieving your ultimate goal improve. 

This will go with anything you want to do.  You want to be more confident.  We usually think we have confidence or we don’t.  You have confidence, just not in everything you do.  There are things you are confident in doing and other things you are not confident in doing.  In getting smarter.  You are smart in certain things in your life, but there are others things in life you’re not particularly smart at, but you have intelligence.  There are several ways of measuring intelligence.  Whether it’s taking tests or quizzes on a subject or being smart in certain situations.  My point is if you are always looking at where you are going and never looking at how far you have come and what you have accomplished then your mind will always think its missing something.  You will fill empty causing your confidence, focus and well being will be low.  Recognize where you are, where you are heading and bring the goal closer to you so it’s achievable.   That way you can look back and see what you have done.  You have done all this and  you have learned all this.  Even if you have made mistakes or things didn’t go as planned, that is a lesson in its self.  

Have mini targets.  Just saying I want to be a professional, a CEO or rich is like saying I want to win the lottery.  Magic is not about being perfect its all about making progress.  I tell my daughter in soccer to focus on being one percent better today than you were yesterday.  One percent is the difference in making that pass or goal and not making it.  One percent is the whole difference in everything in life.  The difference in getting the job or not, the difference in getting a friend or lover or not, the difference in passing the test or not, etc.  One percent is the difference in having one thousand people try the same thing as you and you get it or they pick someone else.  Just getting one percent better everyday keeps you thinking about your goal, but it also gets you to focus on what you can control.  

In life there are things you can control and things you can’t control.  The ancients symbolized this with a triangle  ⃤ for things you can change and control and a square  ⃞  for things you can’t change or control.  My daughter will say she wants to score twenty goals in a season, but she does not have control over that.  She controls part of it, but others are involved with getting her the ball with a good pass or the defenders may be very good and competitive and want to stop her.  She can not control them.  What she can control is her daily practice.  She can do specific shooting and finishing exercises or drills that she makes sure she completes before she is done for the day.  Do the specific things that you can control to make you better and get closer to your goal.   Your diet, your sleep and practicing to make yourself better.  Focus on the things you can control.  Have mini goals and write them down.  Then ask at the end of the day if you have done them.  The mini goals are either you do it or you don’t do it.  There are no excuses because you can control whether you do them or not.  Most people don’t achieve their goals, not because they are not good enough, it’s because they quit doing what they said they were going to do.  I can’t promise you that magic will make you rich or powerful and make all your dreams come true, but what I can promise you is that it will help you take that next step to get what you want.  Keep working at it and you will keep going up the ladder.  

People who are going to school and having to study, do assignments and take tests it’s the same thing.  Passing tests or exams do not depend totally on you, but if you know you read the chapter, reviewed material and reviewed your questions, you know that will increase your chances of getting a better score.  This goes for anything.  My goal is for you to be able to look back at all you have achieved then look in the mirror and say, “I did that”.  People helped you and guided you, but you did the work.  It works for not achieving what you wanted.  You can look at yourself and say, “I did it to myself.  I didn’t put the work in”.  Magic is about accepting responsibility for yourself.  That is missing in today’s world.  We live in a blame and victim culture.  Take responsibility for what you have or have not accomplished.  It is no one’s fault but your own.  

Confidence starts with doing those small things.  Confidence is standing on the basis of hard work and doing the things you said you would do.  What matters most is that when you go after what you want you can go into your mind and say to yourself, “I have done everything I could have to get myself here”.  That is how you start building confidence.  You can sit there and imagine all you want but if you don’t do the work, you will ultimately not be that good at what you are trying to accomplish and it will hurt your confidence.  

We all have a comfort zone.  Humans stay in their comfort zone because it means they are safe.  This is normal.  Our mind just wants to keep us safe and alive.  We have to recognize this and get out of our comfort zone a little bit.   The problem is that we have a tendency to go way out of our comfort zone which causes us to self sabotage.   When you stretch yourself too far out of your comfort zone, you break.  Again we need to take baby steps.  Put yourself just outside of your comfort zone.  When you get too far you will self sabotage.  Here is an example:  Let’s just say a professional team asked my daughter to try out.  If she made it she would be playing with all the big names in Women’s Soccer, Alex Morgan, Tobin Heath, Marta, Rapinoe, etc.  That would be a huge step outside of most 14 year olds comfort zone no matter how good they are.  She would probably get there and most of the time would be messing up because it’s too far of a step.  It would make her nervous and effect her confidence. The idea is to slowly build up by just stepping outside of your comfort zone and getting comfortable with being uncomfortable.  The idea of pushing yourself is too far is dangerous mentally and physically. 

People think they have to grind all the time.  That will burn you out.  This is why you make mini goals that you can almost reach.  Then one day you reach it, so you make another mini goal.  People think they have to push push push and if you don’t you’re a loser.  That is not right.  Rest is an important component of growth.  People also say that you should avoid stress, which is wrong.  Again too much stress is bad, but small amounts of stress then resting is how a muscle grows.  It is the same for the mind.  Muscles and minds grow when you are resting if you put in the work.  Your goal is to take baby steps towards your goal.  In everything.  Intense training then rest is how we grow.  

People ask me, “Why don’t you write a book?”   I like being interactive with people.  It’s why I like coaching.  Once someone reads a book they put it down.  It’s over.  Books give us the illusion that we have achieved something when in reality you just read a book.  The challenging part of magic is that you have to take action.  Many books don’t show you how they are just inspirational.  That is good but very hard to put into practice.  Growing up playing basketball and baseball I was never going to be good enough to play in the NBA or MLB, but I will argue there is no one better at teaching the mind aspect of sports or life.  With all I have learned from my experiences in sports I can guide my daughter and her friends to be the best player they can be.  Teaching my readers magic I can guide them to be the best Witch or Wizard they can be.  You might top out at a certain level, but you can look in the mirror and say, “I did everything I could”.  That is what it’s about.  Living up to your potential.  Ask yourself before you go to bed, “Am I better today than when I woke up?”  If my answer to myself is no, I know I need to work more tomorrow.  That is magic.