“That’s just my luck!” – a common wail when things haven’t gone to plan. Whether we’ve missed out on a space in a crowded car park, got caught in the rain, or been made redundant; it all gets blamed on being an unlucky person.
Do you ever feel this way? Does good fortune seem to come easily to others – to those lucky ones? What if I told you that there are no such things as lucky people; only people who work at being lucky? If you get stuck in a “I am always unlucky” mindset, then guess what? You will be unlucky.
Try these four ways to increase your luck:
- Do things. Seek out new experiences, meet new people. Be proactive. Opportunities don’t come knocking at your door, you have to hunt them down. If this makes you feel slightly awkward, then good! It means you are expanding your comfort zone.
- Listen to your instinct. Learn to be quiet and really listen to what your subconscious is trying to tell you. This is a skill that becomes easier with practice, so keep at it.
- Expect to be lucky. Lucky people expect to succeed at things they try, so you need to get a slice of that way of thinking. Running through a situation before it occurs, in effect having a rehearsal, will dramatically improve the way you behave during the real thing. Try this Neuro Linguistic Programming technique to see what I mean.
- Flip bad luck into good. Bad things happen to everyone, so don’t dwell on them. Find out what you can learn from the experience and be grateful for that lesson. Sometimes, we can learn more from when things go wrong than from when they go right.
Luck is an attitude
Several years ago, I heard an interview on the radio with a young woman who had been injured by the Bali nightclub bomb in 2002 and, just a few months later, caught up in another bombing in Casablanca. How unlucky was she to have been in two terrorist attacks? On the contrary – she felt she was incredibly lucky. Incredibly lucky to have survived both. She is a prime example of having a lucky approach to life.
If you would like to find out how to become more lucky, read ‘The Luck Factor’ by Richard Wiseman.