Four Easy Ways to Get Lucky

The definition of luck is, “success or failure apparently brought by chance rather than through one’s own actions.”

It’s easy to look at somebody’s life, their belongings, and their achievements and attribute it all to luck. It’s easy to look at your own life, the belongings you don’t have, and the goals you didn’t reach and chalk it up to being unlucky. Luck is the easiest and laziest thing to attribute one’s successes and failures to. 

When you think of luck, what do you think of? I think of a casino. Gambling. Is it realistic to believe that the people you view as lucky have been gambling their whole life, or has it been a set of circumstances and choices that have brought them to where they are? 

A psychology professor, Richard Wiseman, discovered that self-proclaimed lucky people are extroverted, smile often, and engage in eye contact. Unlucky people are often neurotic and suffer from anxiety. Unlucky people can miss opportunities because they are too focused on one thing, whereas lucky people tend to be more open to experiences and opportunities. Lucky people are also more positive about situations while unlucky people might only see the negative. 

Luck is a term often used in sports, which is rather unfitting. In sport, positive outcomes are typically due to the studying and training put in. While we can’t control our opponents or environmental conditions, we can control our own actions and take the steps necessary to put us in a position where a positive outcome is in our favor. 

Luck lies within the decisions you make and the actions you take. If you want to increase your luck, try these four things: 

1. Smile more.
2. Say yes to new opportunities.
3. Look for the good in every situation.
4. Put the work in where you need some extra luck. Study the variables and take control where you can.