There is a lot of tosh talked about luck. “There is no such thing as luck” is an often heard refrain in the world of the motivational guru.
Cobblers!
Random chance is all around us, from the toss of a coin to the flight of the balls in one of the lottery machines. These are under no ones control. There are also the things that are not random but are nevertheless not under our control so they might as well be thought of as random events.
Then there is the thing that is often referred to as luck. In his book “Did you see the gorilla” Richard Wiseman identifies that people who regard themselves as lucky tend to do several things that “unlucky” people don’t.
They instinctively look at things from different perspectives.
They have a primed mind, open to new ideas.
Not only that, but they have a good sense of humour.
In general in order to be “lucky” you can do 4 things:
Choose your battles. It makes sense that going for things that are more likely to succeed will increase your chances of success.
You have to be in it to win it. If there is little or no downside to failure then keep repeating. The more opportunities to win the more likely you will. Don’t be afraid of failing if it just brings success closer.
Open up the opportunities. There is a part of the brain that sifts through all the data flowing in and highlights all the bits it thinks is important. So if you are concentrating on a solution you are more likely to find one than if you are concentrating on the problem. Sometimes this can work like magic and it’s why books like “The Secret” do so well.
Finally having a positive outlook helps. This has two effects, first you are more likely to notice opportunities (see above) and secondly if you tend to ignore the losses and celebrate the wins you will feel happier than someone with the same track record who does the reverse and concentrates on the things that didn’t go well.