Make Your Own Luck

"Shallow people believe in luck. Strong people believe in cause and effect." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

If you believe luck is some kind of magic that only favors certain people, well, today is your lucky day - here's how you go about creating your own luck.

Professor Richard Wiseman has been researching luck for more than 10 years. In his book The Luck Factor, he lists some common traits that he observed in lucky people; emulating which (he believes) can make anyone lucky.

His four tips to get lucky:

1. Listen to your gut instincts - they are normally right. Lucky people make effective decisions by listening to their intuition and gut feelings. In addition, they take steps to actively boost their intuitive abilities by, for example, meditating and clearing their mind of other thoughts.


2. Be open to new experiences and breaking your normal routine. These make you more flexible and also increase your awareness, helping you to identify opportunities that you might have otherwise missed.


3. Spend a few moments each day remembering things that went well. Unlucky people are generally more tense than lucky people, and this anxiety disrupts their ability to notice the unexpected. As a result, they miss opportunities because they are too focused on looking for something else.


4. Visualize yourself being lucky before an important meeting or telephone call. Luck is very often a self-fulfilling prophecy. Lucky people are more relaxed and open, and therefore see what is there rather than just what they are looking for.

Summary: Lucky people are skilled at creating and noticing chance opportunities, make lucky decisions by listening to their intuition, create self-fulfilling prophesies via positive expectations, and adopt a resilient attitude that transforms bad luck into good.

"Luck is believing you're lucky" - Tennessee Williams

Related » Secrets of Success
» Overcoming Failures