Ten years ago I decided to take a more scientific investigation into the concept of luck. I decided that the best method was to examine why some people are consistently lucky whilst others encounter little but ill fortune. In short, why some people seem to live charmed lives full of lucky breaks and chance encounters, while others experience one disaster after another. ~Dr. Richard Wiseman

Editor’s Note: This is a guest article by Stu.

If you’re anything like me you probably thought being lucky or unlucky was just random chance, and omens and talismans had no effect on your life. Black cats are just cats, mirrors are made of glass and are bound to break, and a rabbit’s foot belongs on a rabbit.

And you will probably be happy to know that to increase your luck you don’t have to start carrying around animal feet.

Dr. Wiseman, author of The Luck Factor, did a 10 year study of luck. He found people who considered themselves to be very lucky and people who considered themselves to be very unlucky and he looked to see if there was any difference between the two groups.

He found four major differences. Lucky people are good at:

1. Creating and noticing chance opportunities
2. Making decisions by listening to their intuition
3. Creating self-fulfilling prophesies via positive expectations
4. Adopting a resilient attitude that transforms bad luck into good

Dr. Wiseman didn’t stop there though. He took what he had learned and made a ‘luck school’. Unfortunately the good doctor doesn’t go in to much detail on specific exercises that he got people to do at his luck school, and I couldn’t find anything in any of his research, but knowing the four things we’re trying to develop it’s easy to come up with some effective exercises.

Creating and noticing chance opportunities:

• Change up your daily routine – Dr. Wiseman found that this was a common practice of lucky people. You could do something like take a different route to work or school each day, or go shopping for groceries somewhere new.
• Talk to people you wouldn’t normally talk to – Dr. Wiseman found that one lucky person would pick a color before going to a party and only talk to people wearing that color.
• Try something new – You could join a sports team or organization, go to poetry reading or an art gallery, take a class at a local college or even take a walk in the park. Get out and create opportunities for luck

Making decisions by listening to their intuition:

• Practice going with your gut instinct – Next time someone asks you something, just blurt out the first thing that comes to mind. Turn the verbal filter off for a little while.
• Understand your intuition – Next time you judge someone by a first impression take a serious look at how you came to that judgment. If you understand your intuition you’re more likely to trust it.

Creating self-fulfilling prophesies via positive expectations:

• Get rid of negative thoughts and expectations – An important part of thinking positively is not thinking negatively. Every negative situation is an opportunity to think positively.
• Best case scenario – Write down or just think about how your positive expectations are going to come true. This is a trick I’ve picked up from playing a lot of sports. Visualizing myself kicking the soccer ball and seeing it go into the net makes that scenario more likely to happen.

Adopting a resilient attitude that transforms bad luck into good:

• See the silver lining – Dr. Wiseman presented his lucky and unlucky groups with a scenario where they were in a bank while it was being robbed and they got shot in the arm. The unlucky people viewed this as very unlucky, whereas the lucky people thought they were lucky they hadn’t been killed.
• How are you benefiting? – If you were to lose your job for instance, how would you benefit from it? Possibilities include more free time, the opportunity to find a better job, and the chance to meet new people at a new job.
• How has bad luck helped you? – Take a look at the last month and trace back the circumstances that led to something good happening. Chances are that somewhere along the way some bad luck entered into the equation, and yet you achieved a positive outcome.

In the end, being lucky has nothing to do with luck. It’s a lifestyle that creates opportunity and fosters a positive outlook. Being lucky is simply being a better, more outgoing person.

Further Reading:
The Luck Factor ^[1] (pdf) by Richard Wiseman

About the Author

This guest post is by Stu, who blogs at Improved Lives ^[2] and writes about how to use psychology for personal growth in posts like 112 Quick and Easy Personal Growth Exercises ^[3].

If you like this article please vote for it on StumbleUpon and Digg it. I’m currently accepting more guest articles ^[4].

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