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Say you’re using magick to predict some 50/50 event. What emotional energy signature your partner picked. How a coin flip will turn up. Whatever.
You practice a bunch of times, and eventually you get 4 in a row correct. You’re done, right?
No.
If you practice until you get 4 in a row correct, you will always succeed. Usually after just 30 trials. Then you’ll think you’ve learned a skill, only it won’t work later on when you need it.
That’s why you need to structure your tests to avoid coincidence. Here’s how.
Avoiding Coincidence in Tests
Instead of practicing until you succeed, separate your session into two parts: Practice and testing.
During practice, just learn the skill. Focus on technique, and practice until you are comfortable. If this takes 20, 30, 40 tries, that’s fine. Just practice until you get it.
When you think you’ve got it, go to testing. The testing section is a whole new set of trials, so getting 4 in a row means you’re 4 for 4, which is a big deal.
Handling Multiple Tests
When you test, you have to include all of the trials in the testing section. So if you do 10 trials, only succeed on 2 of the first 6, then succeed on 4 in a row, your total record is 6/10, which is about average luck for a 50/50 event.
But what if you do a lot of rounds of testing? You’ve learned between them, so you don’t want to add up all the trials. But won’t you eventually get lucky on one of the tests?
Yes, you will. The solution is to double up on the test: After succeeding on a test, do another test right away. It’s extremely unlikely you’ll succeed on the second test due to coincidence. By doubling up on the tests, you can have confidence in the results, even if it takes you more than a few practice-test iterations to learn the skill.
Real Testing is Scary
If you practice until you get 4 in a row, you know you’ll succeed, even if you didn’t really learn the skill.
But if you structure your tests properly, you won’t succeed until you learn the skill. Which might not happen right away. That’s scary.
I sometimes put projects off because, unconsciously, I’m afraid of failing. But the weeks when I give in to that fear are usually wasted. Instead of failing on Monday and learning something worthwhile by Friday, I don’t do anything worthwhile all week.
So set a hard goal. Test is rigorously. Once you learn it, you’ll be sure you can do it. That’s the reward for facing your fear of failure.
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