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Seven Secrets to Making Your Own LuckAuthor / Source: Kathy Nickerson, PhD Category: Featured Article Archive |
1. Work hard and smart, luck will follow. It’s been said that the harder we work, the luckier we become. I believe the hard work is often rewarded with positive results, but I would add that you also need to work smart. Working 18 hours a day is bound to lead to exhaustion and burn-out, so don’t just plan to work hard, plan to work efficiently.
2. Use the 80-10-10 rule. So many of us get wrapped up thinking about the past or worrying about the future that we fail to act on what we need to act on today. If you apply the 80-10-10 rule, where you spend 80% of your attention on today, 10% on the future, and 10% on the past, you will be putting the majority of your focus on now. Acting now and making concious choices in the present often leads to great success.
3. Make a plan. Perhaps you’ve heard that luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity. With this in mind, become prepared for a lucky break: make plans for your future, spend time thinking about who can help you achieve your dreams, ask others for assistance. With a plan in mind, you can be ready when your opportunity strikes.
4. Act as if you expect good things to happen. If you don’t believe good things or good luck is in your future, odds are, neither will others. You must act as if you are confident and believe good things are coming your way. If you struggle with confidence, try creating a smile file: assemble all of the birthday cards, complimentary emails, drawings from your children, family photos, and other items that make you smile into an actual file. When you are feeling down, grab your smile file and tell yourself, “Wow, if these people care enough about me to say and write these things, I must be pretty good.”
5. Treat people well. One of the most important secrets to creating a lucky life is that you should pay very close attention to how you treat people. It’s funny how small the world is and how many people know each other. Now that we live in a Facebook and MySpace world, more and more people are in touch with their past. By treating everyone well, you know that people will think positive things about you and have respect for your behavior. More and more, people with the strongest social skills experience the greatest success.
6. Surround yourself with lucky people. No, I don’t mean to suggest you should start holding meetings of lottery winners. Rather, I want to encourage you to spend time with smart, talented, hard-working people who appear to attract good things into their life. There are two reasons for this. The first is that we tend to judge people by the company they keep, so if you are surrounded by wonderful folks, people who meet you will assume you are just as wonderful. Second, we tend to act like our friends, so if you are surrounded by talented people, odds are, you will work hard to model their behaviors.
7. Don’t wait for luck to happen, create your own luck! I whole-heartedly believe that we are responsible for creating our own luck. Sure, some people may seem luckier than others, but I pormise that your luck quoitient goes way up if you work to be lucky. Put yourself in places where things happen, actively look for connections and opportunities, seek information and education to help you succeed. Everyone can be lucky, your luck is out there waiting for you to find it. Get busy!
