Why You Should Read: The Luck Factor
How To Attract More Luck in Your Life?
As a psychologist, Dr. Richard Wiseman is intrigued by how much luck affects people’s lives. From his observation, people who are lucky seem to experience luck multiple times in their life. On the other hand, people who think of themselves as unlucky experience unfortunate events one after another.
Wiseman conducts a couple of research with groups of people who identify themselves as lucky and unlucky. In his book, The Luck Factor, he shares the interesting results of his research and writes ways to boost your luck.
Personally, I don’t believe in luck all that much. However, that doesn’t stop me from taking positive input from this book :)
According to The Luck Factor, there are 4 main principles of luck:
1. Lucky people have a more relaxed attitude.
They are less anxious compared to people who are unlucky. The idea is that when you are more relaxed, you tend to notice things or opportunities present in your peripheral vision better.
For example, when you are relaxed and not stressed, you are more likely to notice the $100 note on the ground compared to a harried, stressed person next to you.
On the other hand, unlucky people are more anxious and have a lot going on in their heads. They love routines, plan extensively to avoid risk, and execute plans to a T. While this is a good behavior to have, it makes people less open to trying out new things when the opportunities arrive.
2. Lucky people follow their intuition
Intuition is the feeling in your tummy that tells you to do or avoid certain things. It can be a powerful guide to being luckier. The majority of people who claimed themselves as lucky tend to follow their intuition compared to unlucky people.
This is related to the way that unlucky people tend to follow routines and plans, as stated above. Sometimes, things turn out differently from what you expect. In these situations, you might need to rely on your quick thinking and intuition to solve the issue. Unlucky people tend to ignore their intuition in favor of sticking to the rules and plans.
3. Lucky people are optimists and have high expectations of the outcomes of what they do
Have you heard of self-fulfilling prophecies? This is kind of similar to that; the phenomenon in which people tend to rise to the expectations of themselves. It is also called the Pygmalion Effect.
An experiment conducted a few years back reflects this interesting phenomenon. When teachers tell their students that they are expected to do well, the latter rise to the expectation and perform well in their studies. On the other hand, students who are told that they will get low scores no matter hard they study, actually obtain low marks on their exams.
4. Lucky people are more resilient and take things that happen to them in stride
People who deemed themselves lucky tend to bounce back stronger from setbacks and even have a positive attitude to bad things that occur. They believe that the universe is not out to get them and they can learn something from things that happened.
For example, a lucky man who is involved in a car accident will view the accident positively. He might say that at least the injuries are minor and he’s not dead, instead of complaining and feeling bad that he gets hit by a car.
Amazing, right?
Just a change in perspective can make us feel and become luckier.
Practical Tips to Boost Your Luck:
Now that you know these principles of luck, what can you do to boost your luck? The Luck Factor lays out a useful few tips to increase luck in your day-to-day life:
1. Own a luck diary or luck journal
Write down the lucky things you experience, and the best things that happen to you in the last 24 hours (or whatever period you select). The idea behind this is that when you write them down, you will notice what actually happened when you got lucky and what things preceded the occurrence. It will lead you to think about ways to make the lucky occurrence happen again.
If you already own a gratitude journal, simply incorporate your lucky occurrences in this journal.
2. Maximize networking opportunities and build a network of luck
I vomited a bit in my mouth when writing the sentence above because I am an introvert, especially in business settings. For me, the sheer effort required to network can be rather annoying. However, according to Dr. Wiseman, a lot of lucky breaks come simply from being friendlier and networking more.
When in coffee shops or while waiting for your turn in a queue, try to strike up a small conversation with the person next to you. Who knows if the person next to you in the coffee shop is actually a business owner that you can collaborate with?
In The Luck Factor, the author suggests 2 very good tips to boost your networking luck. The first one is Connect Four. The idea is for you to speak to four people at work every week. Reach out to different people you see in the office, be it the leader of a different team or the janitor.
The second tip is Contact Game. Make a conscious effort to contact your old friends and colleagues. This will help you to maintain and nurture your existing relationships. It’s easy to forget and let go of existing relationships in your busy life. However, a lot of benefits come from maintaining good relationships.
(These two tips might seem very intense at first, so tweak them according to your comfort level. Maybe you can try connecting to 1 person each week instead of four.)
3. Be more approachable
People who consider themselves lucky are friendlier and happier. Their body language is approachable; they open their arms and are not stuck to their phones all the time.
Generally, when you are warm and approachable, there is a higher chance that people would want to talk to you. This might lead to more lucky opportunities on the basis of networking.
4. Set optimistic goals
Setting goals is great and having more ambitious goals is better than having conservative, pessimistic goals. This is because ambitious goals push you to become better at achieving them and become more adventurous to explore ways to obtain those goals. On the other hand, having conservative goals can make you stay in your comfort zone.
The author interviews a few people who always win lucky draws and contests (I’m definitely not one of these people, haha). These lucky people said that the number one tip that leads them to win prizes and competitions is simply to join more of those. They don’t enter a single competition and hope that they will win; instead, they increase their chances by entering a lot of contests using different approaches.
Who Doesn’t Like Being Lucky, Right?
Everyone does. Maybe the tips above can help you to become luckier in life, maybe not. But they are certainly worth trying. Having a more positive mindset towards life is always good no matter what the actual results and experiences would be.
In general, luckier people have a more positive attitude, have lower expectations, are less anxious, and are more open to experiencing new things in their life.
Those are good behavior and mindset to have, even if you are not pursuing luck necessarily :)
Hope it’s not too late to wish you guys a happy new year :) Thank you for reading as always and have a good weekend!
Ristina xx
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