Magic spells

You can change your life in an instant

A friend of mine has a concept called “magic spells”.

Sometimes you’re blocked on something, you can unlock it with a specific string of words – a magic spell. Saying it is simple, but rarely easy, which is why you haven’t said it yet.

His example: a friend on a retreat was interested in someone but couldn’t quite get their attention, wasn’t sure how to move things forward. The location was already pretty romantic – a big house in the countryside surrounded by woods. He suggested the following magic spell: “want to go for a walk with me?”

It worked, eventually, though it wasn’t straightforward (such things rarely are). In one sentence he signalled his interest, put his intention out into the world.

The words alone don’t solve your problem. But once they’re out there in the world, you’ve set the points, like a switch on a railway line, and your life now defaults to running down a different track.

In the past I’ve set aside an hour to find magic spells. Get angry, feel the irritation bubble up inside you at how things are so suboptimal. There’s a better life out there, one that brings you joy and ease, if only you were bold enough to reach for it.

Then write the list. What things can I do now that will improve my life, that will put me on a better path?

Three things stand out as substantially changing the direction of my life:

• Messaging the person who ran the group house I was looking at to say I wanted to take the room there. This put me in a much happier and healthier place, in a wonderful community. It led to me hosting parties, starting a new relationship, making new friends, making some amazing memories.

• Texting my then-girlfriend to say we need to talk about our relationship – taking a hint from Cate Hall about not living in movie logic, where you don’t even need to be able to precisely say what the problem is as long as you can say that there is a problem. The difficult conversation had been coming for a long time but neither of us could summon the courage. Once the words were said, we were on a path to talking about it.

• Signing up to Fight Wise, a course on how to be less non-confrontational. One I’d signed up, the default thing was to do the course, however uncomfortable it was. Ultimately being more assertive led to a bunch of downstream changes, including getting out a toxic job that was making me miserable.

Each of these took, what, a minute? Note that none of them fixed the problem – I still had to move my stuff, have the hard conversation, quit my job. But each was a commitment of a sort, and after saying the words the better outcome was the default rather than something I had to use willpower to choose.

So set aside an hour, get angry, write the list. What’s on yours?