‘Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?’
‘That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,’ said the Cat.
‘I don’t much care where –’ said Alice.
‘Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,’ said the Cat.
~ Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
Knowing what your goals are is imperative to achieve success in any endeavor. If you don’t know what you are trying to achieve, when you are confronted with options you have nothing to help you make decisions accept for what your temperament of the moment desires. When you go to a place like Atlantic City or Las Vegas, you are going to be confronted with a LOT of options in a fast-paced and somewhat chaotic environment. There will be bells and whistles, flashing lights, free alcoholic drinks, and all sorts of other attractions and distractions bombarding your senses. Without a simple set of goals of where you want to get to, you can quickly end up somewhere you didn’t want to be.
On a recent trip to Atlantic City, I made just this mistake. The first day there I bounced between tables of roulette, blackjack, craps, and slot machines without any real idea of what I was trying to achieve–just hoping to “get lucky” while not turning down any free cocktails. The result: I hit the target I wanted to lose for the whole weekend in about 2 hours.
The next day I realized I needed a new approach. I immediately fell back on the method I use everyday back in the real world: defining some goals. It was pretty easy once I thought about it. I had two goals: 1) to have fun 2) to not lose money. Notice how my second goal is NOT “to win money”. When you set goals, you have to be realistic. Don’t make unattainable goals. Winning money would be a goal that is almost entirely dependent on luck and very arbitrary.