The Luck Formula

A researcher named Richard Wiseman did some considerable study of people that seemed more lucky than others. 

He finally concluded that there were 4 qualities that made people more "lucky" …

• Being open to meeting new people and having new experiences
• Having a generally positive attitude (i.e. expecting good fortune)
• Trusting intuition and gut instinct
• Being able to see the good in the bad

Here are a few of own observations on the topic of ‘luck’ …

When considering ‘good luck’, it would serve us well to keep things in perspective. The true miracle is that any of us are here at all. The odds against us being here, are astronomical in the extreme. The mere fact, that every single one of our ancestors, leading back to the dawn of life on earth, managed to survive long enough to reproduce, is a miracle beyond the abilty of any of us to fully comprehend. 

Each of us are natural ‘visualisers’. We are amazingly adept at daydreaming and pondering about events that have not happened yet. This is one of the things that sets us apart from the other members of the animal kingdom. We can look forward - we can visualise goals - our imagination paves the way. Being able to see with our mind, what doesn’t yet exist in the present,  is a skill that can make us seem lucky.

I have never liked the ‘poster & stick-it’ note style of goal-setting. The only thing a poster on the wall will ‘manifest’ for us, will be perhaps, a family of spiders who decide to take up residence behind it. Goal-setting is not anything that special, it is simply an inner-knowing, a conscious acknowledgment of what we want to move toward. Even children accomplish this with little or no effort. Plotting a way forward is integral to the concept of good luck. 

Decision-making, like any other skill-set, can be honed and refined. Unknowingly, each and every day provides us with a myriad of opportunities to practice the development of this skill-set. More often than not, we make decisions with little or no conscious awareness; sometimes the result of a string of such decisions is misinterpreted as ‘good luck’. 

We don’t always have to make great decisions; very often, the way our lives unfold, is determined by simply choosing not to make bad decisions. The elimination of what we do not want to do, what we do not want to have, can in itself be a powerful directive force. 

The world is smaller than we think. Each of us is more connected that most of us realise. We are all related. We are all living, deciding, choosing, dreaming and dying in the same intimately-shared, ultra-thin slice of time. Some things may seem much more improbable to us, than they actually are.

Reliance on four-leaf clovers, amulets and horoscope forecasts is for the ignorant, the superstitious and the desperate. Consistent ‘good luck’ is the result of cultivating the right habits and the development of certain set of skills. 

• JBW