I often feel that January is a slightly strange time of year. After all the frenzied build up to Christmas and the New Year in which most of us are caught up in a flurry of activity, both magical and family orientated, suddenly in January all we are faced with in the short term are wet, cold, dark winter days!
But January can also be a time of reflection on the year just gone and perhaps of planning for the new year ahead. Do you ever stop and look back and try to make any sort of critical assessment of the previous year? And do you then look ahead into the coming 12 months and plan how to continue any successes and put right any deficiencies?
It’s all too easy to just drift from day to day and month to month, which then of course quickly turns into year to year, and even if there are things that you are not that happy with, you never take the time to think about what you could do about it. It’s always easier to do nothing, but as the old saying goes “if you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got.”
In magic there are all sorts of plans (I don’t like to call them ‘resolutions’ as I always feel that these tend to be, by implication, things that you will soon break or drop!) that you could make.
For instance, you could decide to actually read the magic magazines that arrive every month or every two months, instead of just piling them up and promising yourself that you will get to them eventually. You could say that the evening of a particular day in every month will be your magazine catch up time. Suddenly, because it is actually scheduled, you’ll start to get a genuine benefit from the subscriptions.
Then you might decide to overhaul your children’s show and for the new year create a brand new offering. You could decide on a theme, perhaps, and then systematically search out suitable tricks from the dealers, or bring back routines that have been residing in your cupboard unused for a few years.
Perhaps you may think that it is high time you thought more carefully about your show promotion and get to grips with modern marketing. You could read some books (I would recommend my E-Book Marketing Yourself if you want to go down that route), and you could look at what you are currently spending advertising money on and analyse whether it is still a good use of your money. If not, then plan to try something new.
It could be that you feel it is time to revamp your performance clothing. Have you been wearing the same tired old jacket for more years than you care to remember? Well, it might be fun to go out to the shops and take a look at what the modern equivalent is and get yourself a new outfit. Or maybe, you could have a bespoke suit made to your exact specifications in order to create the perfect working attire.
Then again, if you are not a regular performer, you might want to start looking back through your collection of magic books and/or DVDs and spend some time mining them for new magic to try and to give you a fresh interest. Whatever direction you take, now is a great time to resolve to make those first steps.