Step 1 –Understand What You Want to AccomplishNot all magicians dream the same dream. Therefore, itfollows that not all magicians should set the same goals. Some people want tobecome professional magicians for the popularity or fame, others do it for thesheer pleasure of bringing joy to other people’s lives, some don’t want a nineto five office job and would much rather travel the world and call the stagetheir “office”, and others may just be in it for the money. Defining what your goals are is very important, but not asimportant as what you truly want in life.
If you set incredible attainable goalsand then achieve them, you still won’t end up where you truly want to be ifthose goals were misplaced at the start. Essentially, you’ve moved forward butstill feel unsatisfied because you’re not where you want or need to be. Inhindsight, even if you’ve accomplished much, this can ultimately be viewed aswasted time and effort or rather you’ve taken a longer road than necessary toget where you need to be.Failing to identify your true desires in more common thanone may imagine. It happens to us all because of resistance we face in ourdaily lives. It’s easy to hamper our dreaming by constraining it with doubts,fears, and expectations. As silly as it may sound, we need to retrain our wayof dreaming so that we don’t include our resisting concerns such as time,money, obligations, current education or experience.
If you live in a big citywith a disproportionately large amount of magicians (working and hobbyists) ,it may subconsciously have already realigned your dreams to be something otherthan what you truly desire. Similarly, living in a community with a smallpopulation and no other magicians to connect with may be your biggestconstraint on your dreams.According to Gallop’s World Poll1,85% of workers worldwide are unsatisfied and not engaged with their jobs. Anincredibly high number of 94% of all workers in Japan are not engaged at workcompared to 70% of American workers. What astonishes me, is the wide gapbetween the two cultures, which I can only assume has to do with the resistanceand constraints that are common or different between the two differentcountries.As mindsets change between generations, the constraints start tochange which lead to different and sometimes more precise dreams. Gallupdefines millennials as people born between 1980 and 1996 (this is where I fitin).
Baby boomers, the previous generation, had the dream of having a familywith three kids and to own a home. You’d go to university and come out having ajob that was just a job. The job was not the dream, having a family and owninga home was.
Best services for writing your paper according to Trustpilot
Millennials, conversely, regard the “job” as being equal oreven put it ahead of the “family” as their dream. They’ve prioritizedtheir dream to be focused more on work than family. To be content and livetheir dream, they need to draw more from their work environment. This is whyit’s common to find that they have their best friends at work, including bestfriends who are customers. The trend now is seeing people switch companies orjobs two or three times in their career, because their goal is having thatdream job.
Babyboomers, instead, work the same job they’ve hated for the lastthirty years, but they do it anyways because they’re only working their job fortheir family, not themselves. What I predict we will find is that more peoplewill become satisfied with their job because the family oriented Babyboomerswill be leaving the work industry and the job oriented Millenials will havetaken over. Two very different generations with two very different dreams andgoals, resulting in two very different outcomes of job satisfaction.The Babyboomers (and everyone else) that complain about hatingtheir job share the common problem of having a restrained dream which leads tounfocussed goals (if any goals for that matter). You’ve probably thought aboutquitting your job to become a full-time magician, but backed out becauserestraints killed your dream before you even got to set yourself any goals. Youhave bills to pay, a family to take care of, or need to meet your parent’sexpectations.
Concerns of a retirement fund or health benefits creep in. Whenyou stack this up on top of what you view as having to compete againstestablished working magicians in your area, it becomes easy to shrink thosedreams to only being a weekend warrior or being the guy that only takes showsat Christmas time to pay down a couple extra bills. Dreaming clearly happens when all the resistance fades awayfrom your mind and gets replaced by passion, desire, and a realization of yourstrengths, weakness, and unique abilities. Opening your mind to thesepossibilities is a liberating and scary feeling all at once because it makesyou reflect on your current life situation.
Thinking about what you could orshould be doing and then comparing it to what you currently are doing istypically an exercise in dealing with disappointment and depression. It takes abig person to give themselves an honest assessment about their life. It’s notsomething that most people are willing to admit so it goes into hiding.Sometimes it feels like putting up with our sub-par life is better, easier, andmore secure than facing a scary change that is risky, unconventional, andpossibly incredibly difficult to achieve, but that is not living life.
It’s notliving your life to your fullest and you deserve better than that. Practice dreaming without restraints and dream often. If youdo it enough, you will stumble across a dream that is so important to you thatit will become your life’s mission. It will be abundantly clear what you needto do in life, and that is the starting point of the greatest of goals.John Landis’s film, The Blues Brothers,demonstrate the power of a strong dream, even though it comes in the form ofredemption. Jake and his brother Elwood (Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi) set outon “a mission from God” to save their Catholic orphanage fromforeclosure. Their dream, their mission in life, comes to Jake as an epiphany,which is the purest form of an unrestrained dream.
Their goal is to save theorphanage by earning $5,000 to pay off their taxes. The plan is to get the bandback together and what follows is a Hollywood classic that demonstrates thepower of a fully realized dream. Step 2 – CreateRealistic, Specific, and Demanding GoalsCreating a realistic and believable goal setsyourself up for actually following through and completing them. If you’re goalis earn $250,000 a year as a magician, but last year you only earned $35,000,you’re setting yourself up for failure. Instead, if you set a goal of reaching$100,000 (breaking six figures is a big first step), you will have moremotivation to reach that goal because it’s within a closer reach.Be very specific in the wording of your goals.
Saying that youwant to make more money is a very vague and unfocussed goal, it’s not enough.Attaching a specific number to your money goal makes it more concrete, visible,and trackable. Writing down what steps you need to take to get there, knowinghow you’ll measure your steps toward completing the goal, and being able to seespecific finish lines are things that keep you focused and on track.Making goals that are unrealistically too large to complete is abad way to start because you’ll constantly see that you are failing to meetyour goal. This leads to a lack of motivation and eventually scrapping thatgoal all together. Having goals that are too easy to complete can be just asdetrimental. If we decide stay inside our comfort zone, we don’t grow. Growthhappens when we take risks and make actual changes to the way we work, live,and think.
Setting a goal that is hard to achieve, but still achievable, can bean excellent reminder that you’ll have to stick your neck out once in a whileto reach that goal.Setting a timeline for your goal is mandatory for its completion.Deadlines create results and should be utilized every chance you get. Itabolishes procrastination and reminds you that other pressing necessities inlife may not be pressing or even be a necessity.The timelines I set for my goals are broken down in threesections. My main long-term goal is set within three years.
When you set goalslonger than that, you run the risk of losing focus and ultimately nevercomplete the main goal. Short-term goals are created every three months andevery year to ensure that you are staying on track. Working backwards from yourmain goal will create a uniquely demanding timeline and almost forces you tomake a commitment that you perhaps would have shied away from otherwise. Step 3 – Write it Down”An unwritten wish is just a dream. In writing, it’s a commitment,a goal.
” – Keith FerrazziWriting goals down on paper is a crucial step in theprocess. It solidifies your goal and produces better results compared to simplyjust thinking about your goals.Dr. Gail Matthews, a psychology professor at theDominican University in California, found that you become 42% more likely to achieve your goals and dreams,simply by writing them down on a regular basis2.
What she discovered is that when we only think about our goals,we’re only accessing the creative side of the brain (right hemisphere). When you take the extra step and write it down and paper,you also tap into the power of your logic-based left hemisphere. The simple actof writing down your dreams and goals stimulates entirely new parts of your consciousness,ideas and productivity to the even more influential part that is yoursubconscious mind.This subtle change is noticeable from the time the penhits the paper to the completion of the goal. It turns an idea into an almosttangible project right from the start.After it’s on paper, make sure you can see it.
Don’thide it away in a file cabinet. Don’t just save it as a document on your computer.Don’t leave it sitting in a stack of papers. Print it out to be clear and easyto read from a distance and then post it in a location that you will see itregularly. Your goals should literally be the writing on the wall. Having thisin constant view helps keep you laser focused and on track. Step 4 – Take Action”An inch of movement will bring you closer to yourgoals than a mile of intention.
” – Steve MaraboliYou’ve written down your goal and you’ve figured outthe steps necessary to get there. Now is the biggest step you take towardsliving your dream. It’s taking action in a big way. Don’t just start slowlywith your goal; you must do far more than the average person would dounder the same or similar conditions. You need togo further than anyone would typically expect of you.This epiphany of a dream turned into a goal isyour life’s mission at this very moment. Taking action at the start of thismission is only one step.
You need to keep moving forward by making it a habitto take determined action. This will become your everyday thing. It meansraising your own personal standards, expecting more of yourself than others do,and taking ownership on all your decisions that positively and negativelyaffect the progress of completing your goal.Taking determined action will be the hardest thing youmay do in life because there is a risk of failure or being wrong. It can be ascary and overwhelming feeling, but it’s absolutely necessary if you want tosucceed…in anything! Reading this book ten times is completely useless to youradvancing career in magic if you don’t take action on what you’ve learnt.Taking ten minutes to work on achieving your goal is more beneficial thansimply knowing what to do.
When you don’t take action on your goals and implementwhat you’ve learnt, you become a self-proclaimed know-it-all that hasnever-done. The world is already full of those people. What the world needsmore of are doers. The people that set goals and then take action on them arethe ones that succeed in their industries. Succeeding in business is not abouta special secret that you don’t know.
There are already enough secrets in the worldof magic; this is not one of them. The two laws of taking action:1 – When you start tohesitate, immediately proceed with action.2 – Start learning throughaction, don’t let books be a distraction. As you complete your goals, remember to celebratewhile you mark them off as being completed. Too often we forget to celebratewhile we’re on our journey and when we finally reach our destination, we’releft with a flat feeling. The celebrating helps keep up our motivation andmarking off the short-term goals is a great visual representation of success.
This winning combination will help you cross the finish line, so embrace thevictories as they come and don’t be shy about it either. Posting about thegoals you’ve reached on social media can be a fun and uplifting thing to do.It’s your chance to shine and brag a bit, because it was hard work after alland most people never do complete their own goals. Enjoy it champ! You deserveit! 1 http://news.gallup.com/opinion/chairman/212045/world-broken-workplace.aspx?g_source=position1=related=tiles2 https://www.huffingtonpost.com/marymorrissey/the-power-of-writing-down_b_12002348.html
