10 Tips for Improving Your Luck
These ten tips for improving your luck will help you achieve your professional and personal goals — and have more fun with your life!
Before the tips, a quip from Lucille Ball:
“Luck? I don’t know anything about luck. I’ve never banked on it, and I’m afraid of people who do. Luck to me is something else: Hard work – and realizing what is opportunity and what isn’t.”
Ball – like many people – isn’t a big believers in luck. But, there’s no denying that achieving your goals requires a bit of “good timing” and “being in the right place at the right time.” To learn how to increase your chances of success, click on Luck: The Essential Guide by Deborah Aaronson and Kevin Kwan. And, read on for ten tips for improving your luck…
10 Tips for Improving Your Luck
1. Take risks. The more healthy, calculated risks you take, the more likely you’ll be to achieve your goals and improve your luck. What’s a healthy, calculated risk? Go on blind dates – but only with men that friends and family set you up with. Apply to universities and colleges that you actually have a chance of getting into (I applied to several graduate schools, but was “unlucky” because I didn’t stand a chance of meeting their admission requirements!).
2. Act on opportunities. Keep your eyes open for possible open doors. For instance, if you hear that Microsoft or Google is hiring, then pick up the phone to find out more. To improve your luck, open your eyes to the possibilities that surround you — and follow up on them!
3. Listen to your gut. To improve your luck, tune in to your instincts. Do you feel compelled to talk to that person, take a different route home, or invest in a specific mutual fund or stock? Your mind, emotions, and body picks up on signals in your environment – so to be “lucky”, you need to listen to your gut.
4. Keep your receipts. One of my favorite television shows is The People’s Court with Judge Marilyn Milian. The “lucky” people in her courtroom are those who have all their documents ready, get all their agreements in writing, and keep all their receipts. Getting organized and reducing clutter is a practical, effective tip for improving your luck and achieving your goals.
5. Imagine how things could be worse. When life takes a downward turn or you are hit with bad luck, you can improve your situation by visualizing how events could be worse. Picturing the worse case scenario (and how lucky you really are) will increase your feelings of gratitude, which will keep you cheerful and optimistic — which will help you get what you want out of life.
6. Get savvy with self-fulfilling prophecies. In psychology, a “self-fulfilling prophecy” is “a false definition of situation evoking a new behavior which makes the original false conception come true.” In other words, what you believe will come true because you will subconsciously and consciously act in ways that cause the event to happen. Self fulfilling prophecies are very powerful and real. To improve your luck, try believing that you’re a lucky person.
7. Be a “Boy Scout”. Prepare for all eventualities! The luckiest employees – perhaps the ones who get promoted at work most often - are those who actually prepare for meetings and projects. The luckiest couples are those who actually work on their relationships.
8. Let go of your expectations. Don’t tie yourself down to a particular outcome: a perfect family, the best job in the city, or the lowest weight on the scale in your gym. To improve your luck, be open to all possible outcomes – some of which could be different and even better than the ones you originally wanted!
9. Take control of your life. The least empowering thing you can do is think or say, “There’s nothing I can do.” While it’s true that you can’t change a cancer diagnosis or cheating spouse – you can change how you cope your problems. When you feel powerless, find ways to cope. To improve your luck, form a support network. Find people who believe in you, create ways to help others so you can help yourself, and focus on the things that make you feel good about yourself.
10. Diversify! This isn’t just a good investment tip, it can actually improve your luck as well. Diversifying in life means exploring many different paths to one destination. For instance, if I want to be a successful freelance writer, I need to cultivate relationships with editors and publishers. If I want to meet a great guy and get married, I need to meet men at church, through my friends, through my family members, in community classes, and traveling. To achieve your goals, explore all the possible different path to a single destination.
Two final quips on luck:
- “Luck occurs when preparedness meets opportunity.” – unknown.
- “I am a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it.” - Thomas Jefferson.
What are your thoughts on these tips for improving your luck? Comment below!
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Comment by Laurie PK on 4 February 2009:
The February 2009 issue of Oprah Magazine features a fantastic article on “How to Make Your Own Luck” — it’s almost as good as this one!
Are some people really luckier than others? NO — though it seems that way.
“Luck is not a magical ability or gift from the gods,” writes Richard Wiseman in The Luck Factor. “Instead, it is a way of thinking and behaving.”
More tips for improving your luck:
- widen your circle of friends and acquaintances (so you encounter more opportunities)
- prepare your mind to achieve your goals (sort of like visualizing your success)
- relax, because anxious, stressed, or preoccupied people don’t notice good things or follow up on possible opportunities
- stay connected to people (especially the lucky, successful ones!)
Source: “How to Make Your Own Luck” by Ben Sherwood, in the Feb 2009 issue of O magazine.
Comment by Laurie PK on 4 July 2009:
According to Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers, there are many factors that contribute to success, such as family, socioeconomic status, geography, and the decade in which you’re born.
So you can be lucky, but luck alone won’t take you all the way.