Embrace the Power of Luck
Ever since the dawn of time people have recognised luck as an important ally in their lives; Whether you’re simply evoking help from powerful tree Gods, by knocking on wood, or asking the Goddess Fortuna; the original “Lady Luck” daughter of Jupiter, King of the Gods, to stand at your shoulder and smile sweetly the next time you buy a lottery ticket.
What Is Luck? A Definition Rooted in Belief
The definition of luck varies across cultures and philosophies. Basically, it describes those unexpected events — good or bad — that seem to happen by chance. One person stumbles into the perfect job, another misses a bus and avoids an accident. Some call it coincidence, others fate or even the luck of the draw.
Luck then is a very powerful force, yet one of its strangest mysteries is why some people are considered to be luckier than others. They’re the ones who appear to live a charmed life where everything they do works in their favour, to their advantage, with few setbacks they seem to progress ever upwards and onwards.
The Psychology Behind a Lucky Life
It seems that the answer lies entirely within our own individual thoughts, actions and deeds. Those who are considered lucky all seem to adopt similar “open mind” principles and apply them at every opportunity throughout the whole of their lives; seizing chance opportunities; creating self-fulfilling prophecies through positive expectations; and adopting a resilient attitude that turns bad luck around.
Just for a moment, consider chance opportunities: the simple fact is, lucky people seem to have more than their fair share of such opportunities, whilst unlucky people don’t. In a recent controlled experiment, a group of people who consider themselves “lucky” and a similar number of people who believed they were “unlucky” were given a newspaper and asked to tell the experimenter exactly how many photos were inside.
The results showed that those individuals wearing their “unlucky” badge took about two minutes on average to complete the exercise; whilst the “lucky opportunists” only took a few seconds! How come, I hear you asking? Well, on the paper’s second page; in big bold type; was the message, “stop counting: there are 43 photographs in this newspaper!”
That’s it — job done — game over; the “lucky opportunists” tended to spot the message almost immediately; whilst the “unlucky” set didn’t! Even when the researcher put a second message at the midway point in the paper which said, “Stop counting, tell the experimenter you have seen this and win $250;” the “unlucky” people missed it!
The message: lucky people see what is actually there rather than just the things they’re looking for, whilst unlucky people miss many chance opportunities because they’re too busy looking for something else!
Creating Your Own Luck Through Action
In addition, many of the “lucky” participants deliberately tried hard to vary their daily routines. For example; before making important decisions, one altered his route to work; whilst another noticed that at gatherings, whether business or social, he nearly always talked to the same type of person. To change his mindset, he thought of a colour and then deliberately spoke to those people who were wearing that particular colour.
Why Change Is the Key to Finding Luck
Does “chance opportunity” actually work? Well, imagine you’re living right in the middle of an apple orchard. Your daily task is to fill a basket with apples. On day one of the basket filling season, it won’t matter where in the orchard you look for apples; they’re everywhere. However, as the days go by it becomes harder to find apples and the longer it takes to fill the basket, particularly if all you do is simply return to the same places in the orchard you’ve visited before. On the other hand, if you choose to go to new unvisited parts of the orchard, the odds of finding apples will increase significantly. It is exactly the same with luck!