Have you ever been walking home from a bad day at work, the rain pelting your face, and a car drives by to splash your recently cleaned clothes? You’ve seen the scenario play out countless times in movies, but many people in real life have experienced something similar, causing them to ask themselves, “Am I unlucky?”
It’s a question that haunts many people, and there is a whole system of folklore, a whole cottage industry of remedies, that have popped up around it. Some cultures believe that finding a four-leafed clover or holding onto a rabbit’s foot can make you luckier, but in reality these talismans don’t do much other than assuage the fear of being unlucky.
In order to truly be lucky, you have to reconceive of your relationship to success. Here are four proven ways to be luckier in your life.
Visualize Your Success
It is said that visualizing your success, taking the time to think about yourself in victorious terms, helps you achieve that success. This article from Entrepreneur magazine does a great job of summarizing the phenomenon, but here it is in a nutshell: when you dream big, you not only improve your confidence, and therefore motivation, but also prepare yourself for the obstacles that might come your way. It’s no wonder that dream board have become such a popular concept lately – they’re certainly more effective than a four-leaf clover!
Actively Create Opportunities for Success
If you want something, create the necessary environment for that goal to be achieved. It’s one thing to sit around wishing you won the 500 million dollar Powerball jackpot, but unless you learn how to play the Powerball lottery and buy tickets, it’s never going to happen. You have to immerse yourself in the trends, the theories and the number choosing techniques. Likewise when you’re looking for your dream job: make connections, cold call people and generally do everything in your power to create opportunities.
Try, Try Again
If at first you don’t succeed, don’t take that as a cosmic excuse to give up. Luck is sometimes only brought about through several tries. People tend to think of luck as being successful effortlessly and on the first try, but sometimes luck takes a little patience and a lot of time.
When in Doubt, Go with Your Gut
For a long time, science has been interested in the value of human instinct. It turns out that trusting your gut is an effective way to make decisions, and can ultimately have a profound effect on your overall success. Alternately, overthinking things – and, in particular, delaying decisions – doesn’t always help you make the right decision. Intuition is a surprisingly complicated process, albeit a quick one, and it pulls from a deep well of subconscious cues and information.
Next time you’re having a bad day, or are certain that the universe has made you unlucky, remember these four tips. Success is within your control; it’s just a matter of visualizing, creating opportunities, retrying and trusting your gut.
