Luck

Categorized | Featured

Posted on 09 April 2010 by Woman about town

Are you lucky? There’s no doubt that some of us are. Always in the right place at the right time – to meet our perfect marriage partner or win a great business deal. While for the rest of us nothing ever seems to go right. About half of us say we enjoy luck like that. Around 15% say we have no luck at all, while the rest of us aren’t sure either way. So something like two thirds of us feel that luck plays an important part in our lives. That’s such a high proportion, that luck can’t just be the way chance events stack up in different people’s lives. Something real must be causing things to work out well for some of us – and not for others.

But if it isn’t chance, what is it? Many of us think it’s some sort of ‘sixth sense’ that helps lucky people foresee how things will turn out. But a brilliant experiment has ruled that out. Many hundreds of people were asked to fill in questionnaires about their luck – and to buy tickets in a lottery. And what happened? On average, lucky people won or lost exactly the same as everyone else! What that means is that when an event is completely random – like a lottery – luck has no effect at all. So it’s not some sort of mysterious ability to see into the future.

But it’s real, all right. Psychologist Professor Richard Wiseman has spent a lifetime studying lucky and unlucky people. And he found that their lives certainly are different. But why?

Luck is all about opportunities. And it turns out that lucky people spot, create and take advantage of opportunities better than the rest of us. And the reason has nothing to do with chance. Lucky people have personality traits which help them to generate and manage opportunities well. For example, they tend to be extroverts: so they like meeting people – and keeping in touch. They smile a lot, make lots of eye contact, and other people like them.

That might sound trivial – but the more people you talk to, the more opportunities come your way. Job opportunities, dates, business deals, you name it. And it only takes one chance encounter to change a life…

What’s more, lucky people generally have relaxed attitudes – and so they notice things better. Because if you’re tense and anxious, it’s harder to see what’s in front of you. Have you ever noticed how it’s difficult to find things when you’re stressed? Luck’s just like that. Lucky people spot more opportunities because of their relaxed way of looking at the world. They tend not to go out searching for them. Desperately trying to find their dream partner, or someone who will offer them the job of a lifetime. But they always recognise an opportunity when they see it! At parties, meetings and the like, they listen and watch – relaxed and receptive. Reacting to what’s available, rather than trying to find what they want to see.

They also like to have loads of variety in their lives. They love trying new experiences, new food – and new ways of doing things. They seek out new people to meet, places to go and things to do. And what does that mean – more opportunities!

Lucky people listen to their intuition. 90% of lucky people trust their intuition in personal relationships, and 80% in career choices. They’re much more likely than unlucky people to use their intuition when considering important financial matters. They don’t rush into a decision, but give their intuition time to work on it. By sleeping on the problem, or deliberately clearing their mind of anxieties and returning to it later. And it definitely works – but why?

Psychologists have been studying the way we think, feel and behave for over a hundred years. And one of their most surprising conclusions has been how much of what goes on in our brains is unconscious. In fact, we’re only aware of a tiny fraction of the things that influence our decisions – something that has been confirmed by hundreds of experiments. And it turns out that our subconscious is very good at making complex decisions. It integrates huge amounts of information about people we meet – their countless tiny gestures, for example – into our lifetime of experience. We end up with a ‘gut-feel’ as to whether we like them or not. Lucky people listen to these ‘hunches’. They can rarely tell you WHY they feel the way they do – but more often than not they’re right. And that’s all it takes to be lucky.

Lucky people are different in other ways too. They have dreams and ambitions – don’t we all. But lucky people expect them to happen. They’re convinced that their own efforts will bear fruit – and that events beyond their control will consistently work out for them. Unlucky people feel just the opposite. They always feel that events both within and outside their control will work against them. Lucky people see things that go wrong as temporary – and don’t let them affect their expectations about the future. Unlucky people always expect the worst. Anything nice will only last a short while – and they’ll swiftly revert to their regular bad luck.

And our expectations matter. They affect our health. Lucky people expect to be healthy, so they tend to look after themselves well. Unlucky people see little point in trying to lead healthy lives – and so they suffer far more cancer, cardiovascular disease and accidents.

Our expectations affect how we behave towards others – and how they behave towards us. Lucky people expect their interactions with others to be successful – so they are. If you meet your date expecting they’ll like you, a smile all over your face – guess what? Your date ends up feeling the same about you! Positive expectations help us achieve our dreams and ambitions. They become become self-fulfilling prophesies…

Lucky people have one last secret weapon. They experience bad things just like the rest of us. But they react to them differently. They always seem able to transform misfortunes into good luck! They see the positive side of what’s happened to them and are convinced that in the long run, it will turn out for the best. They don’t dwell on their troubles, but instead take constructive steps to prevent them in the future.

So which are you? Do you recognise yourself? Luck isn’t something that happens to other people. It’s something we create – all by ourselves. By our attitudes, and the use we make of our experience and intuition. So if enough people e-mail me to say they’re interested, next week I’ll describe how you can change your luck for the better!