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Keep Your Eyes On What You Want

Keep Your Eyes On What You Want

Last updated on: February 2, 2025 at 3:00 am by John Beckett

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Keep Your Eyes On What You Want 2025-01-31T20:09:04-06:00 John Beckett

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One of the core principles of operative magic (i.e. – magic to get stuff done) is to always state your goals in the positive. Work magic to bring what you want, not to avoid what you don’t want.

Magic is one part energy manipulation, one part intercession of spirits, and one part psychological programming. The people who talk incessantly about “manifesting” and “intention” dangerously oversimplify magic (and undervalue the importance of circumstances and especially of taking action) but they’re not entirely wrong. We know from ordinary psychology that what you pay attention to grows in your life.

A good magical target statement is clear, positive, present-tense, and literal. If what you really want is to be rid of something, structure your spellwork to replace it or crowd it out with something better.

Keep your focus on what you want, not on what you don’t want.

Look at the route around the obstacle

A similar principle exists in bicycling. Even small obstacles in your path can be dangerous, especially if you’re riding a skinny-tire road bike. Hitting a rock that you’d never notice in a car can send a bike careening off course and into traffic, or onto the pavement.

The trick is to notice the obstacles but to not look directly at them. If you concentrate on the rock in the road your body will naturally follow your eyes and you’ll steer into the rock. Instead, concentrate on the space to the side of the rock. You know the rock is there, so you focus on the open space a few inches away from it. Your body follows your eyes and guides the bike through the opening.

Keep your eyes on what you want, not on what you don’t want.

We can “just do things” too

Dave Troy is a political analyst I read regularly. I don’t always agree with him, but he always makes sense, and he’s dead-on with this piece from last week titled Now, we rebuild: Why ‘defending democracy’ hasn’t worked. The subtitle provides a good summary: “Defending democracy failed because it also required defending the status quo. Now we are called to create a future worth fighting for.”

The essay is not long and it’s well worth your time to read. While Troy does not propose an ideal future to fight for, he does point out a very helpful approach for us as individuals:

Today’s authoritarians and autocrats maximize their own agency by coupling their unparalleled wealth and power with a total disregard for laws, norms, and precedents. The ersatz-transgressive phrase, “you can just do things,” has become a mantra for them and their sycophants. But there’s really nothing transgressive about it.

We all are empowered to simply do things, and it’s ridiculous to even imply otherwise. The only constraints most of us face are existing frames of reference and constant bombardment with “bad news” and worry. Cultivating imagination and executing on it is the most powerful weapon we all possess. Make choices that maximize your agency. [emphasis mine]

“Make choices that maximize your agency” sounds a lot like “reclaim your sovereignty.”

Which is not to say that just doing things is quick, easy, without risk, or without trade-offs. It isn’t, particularly for those of us without “unparalleled wealth and power.” But just doing things is far more likely to create the kind of life you want than counting on politicians to enable it for you.

And if enough of us “just do things” that are in alignment with our values, we can change the culture, which will change the politics, which will change the world.

The trainwreck is real – keep your eyes on what you want anyway

It’s hard not to be overwhelmed by the trainwreck that is American politics – and really, world politics – at the moment. Much of this is by design – the “shock and awe” we’ve discussed before, designed to demoralize those of us opposed to the MAGA / Project 2025 agenda. While we owe it to our communities, our values, and ourselves to not disengage – and especially to not comply in advance – if we’re constantly fixated on Trump and his agenda of chaos, we’re focusing on what we don’t want.

We’re focused on preserving a status quo that was never meant to be a final state, only a step toward something better.

We’re giving our energy to people who are working against us.

We’re steering our bicycle into the rock in the road and not through the space around the rock.

We have to acknowledge reality: the rock in the road is there, it’s not going away, and we can’t make it go away.

So we keep our eyes on what we want instead.

What do you want?

Last summer we talked about The Rising of the Star. Tower Time is not over, but it’s time for us to start thinking about what comes next. If Trump is going to burn it all down, what we can we build from the rubble?

It’s good to think big.

It’s better to think local.

At this moment, it’s best to think individually. What do you want? Not what kind of utopia do you want to see manifest with no tangible effort, but what do you yourself want to do right now? What do you want to be? How do you want to spend your days, and your nights?

What’s your vision for your ideal life?

That – not anything Donald Trump does or says – is what you need to keep in front of you.

A process to refine your focus

As with so much I post here, I’m writing this first for myself. I’ve always said that if you don’t know exactly what you want, start moving in the direction of what you think you want. As you get closer, either you like where you’re going and you increase your efforts, or you don’t like it and you decide to try something else.

I’ve been on this current path for a long time now and I like it. Last year I started a process to further refine my focus, not just for when I can retire from my regular job but also for here and now. I have more years behind me than I have left in front of me – I don’t want to waste any of them.

My specifics are highly personal and I will not share them (though you can probably guess about 80% of them from what I write). But the process is something that you or anyone can adapt to your own goals, dreams, and circumstances.

What does a good life look like and feel like?

Spend some time in active meditation. Imagine your ideal life. What does it look like? What does it feel like? What do you do on a daily, weekly, and seasonal basis? Write it down. This is about you, not about the world at large. This is not the time to censor yourself – if you want it, it goes on the list, no matter how “unrealistic” it may be. Keep your list simple – one or two words for each item, not long sentences. You’re looking for qualities, not a job description.

When you’re done – when you have a nice list of six or eight or thirteen qualities – set it aside. Come back in a day or two and look it over again. Does something else need to go on the list? Does something need to come off?

Do some visualization – imagine yourself doing and being all these things. How does it feel? Is this what you want? When I did this for myself, I wrote in my journal “thinking about this makes me smile. And I don’t need a new house to do any of it.”

Keep looking at your list until you’re sure (reasonably sure, not absolutely convinced) it doesn’t need any more additions or deletions.

A list and a sigil

Now it’s time to turn your list of images, concepts, and feelings into a sigil. Not the kind of Chaos Magic sigils I usually use (although those may be helpful later in the process) but the kind of Sigil Witchery that Laura Tempest Zakroff teaches. When the sigil looks and feels right, draw it on cardstock or heavy paper and set it some place you’ll see it regularly.

And also, keep your list in front of you. I have mine at the top of my personal journal text file, so I see it every time I open the file.

At some point – fairly early in the process – the list and the sigil need to be turned into specific goals and detailed plans to achieve them. Which must be followed by both tangible actions and magical workings. “Vision boards” are a good place to start, but they’re only a start. If you don’t follow them up with plans and actions, they’ll remain nothing more than pretty pictures and pretty words.

But that’s another rant for another time.

The core principles of all this are 1) be yourself, 2) don’t be afraid to change, and especially don’t cling to who you used to be, and 3) plan out what you want to be and do and then start doing it.

Keep your eyes on what you want

None of this will stop bad people from doing bad things. It’s not a substitute for being an engaged citizen and participating in the democratic process. We still need to build strong communities, support each other, and look out for the most vulnerable among us.

But it can stop a trainwreck from dominating your life. It can help keep you from becoming so outraged and so discouraged you’re no use to yourself or anyone else. It will help you build a better life, not just for the future but also here and now.

Keep your eyes on the route, not on the obstacle.

Make choices that maximize your agency – reclaim your sovereignty.

Just do things.

Keep your eyes on what you want.

Spiritual Practice

Dave Troy

Laura Tempest Zakroff

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