How to Create Your Own Luck
Luck can mean anything from making a dollar to your dream job. You cannot change the laws of the universe, but people who consider themselves lucky tend to exhibit certain character traits. Here’s how to take advantage of this and create your own “luck”.
Four types of luck
In his book Chase, Chance, and Creation: The Happy Art of Newness, Dr. James Austin discusses four types of luck. Austin believes that luck, that is, randomness, capricious and unintentional, and divides it into four types:
- ” Chance I is completely impersonal, you cannot influence it.”
- Chance II : “A certain [basic] level of action ‘stir the pot’, brings in random ideas that will clash and stick together in new combinations, allows chance to act.” You combine events to form “happy accidents.” This is beneficial for people who try a lot of new things, as they have more attempts. Imagine a scientist in a laboratory, furiously conducting various experiments.
- Chance III : “Chance is only a weak clue, the potential exists, but it will be overlooked, except for one person who has the unique ability to observe it, visualize it conceptually and fully understand its meaning.” This type of randomness is the result of your background knowledge, old memories, observations, or a new combination of ideas (similar to the Medici effect ).
- ” Chance IV is the luck that comes with probing, which has a characteristic personal flavor.” Follow your instincts and your passion. Your personal views, rich life experiences, and unique lifestyles can all come together to create that chance. This is the rarest and most unpredictable form of occurrence.
You cannot directly control any of these types of randomness . However, at the heart of each type is a fundamental ingredient: familiarity with different ideas and experiences. Discover new things ( and remember them ). Follow your guesses and explore your personal quirks (like your hobbies).
Leave Intuition in Your Life
Intuition is the key to good luck. This is when events develop in such a way that it is beneficial for someone. The more flexible your schedule, the more flexibility you have for your intuition. You can combine work, exercise and social life every day. If you don’t have the flexibility to hobby or learn new things, then you have less room for luck.
Increase the distance between what you have to do and what you have to do, what Richard Swenson, M.D., calls margin . It will take time and planning to increase your margins as it may require a completely new structure and schedule , but it will be worth it. As blogger Michael Hyatt writes : “Margin is not something that just happens. We need to fight for this. “
Break your daily routine from time to time
We gravitate towards our daily routine and habits. And there is no doubt that they can increase your productivity. However, to get lucky, it is helpful to disrupt your daily routine from time to time. Giving up the routine means new experiences. You may find that you need to break out of your comfort zone in order to be lucky .
Psychology professor and writer Richard Wiseman, whose work we have already reviewed , writes in The Telegraph :
Losers tend to be routine. They tend to take the same route to and from work and talk to the same people at parties. On the contrary, many lucky people try to add variety to their lives. For example, one person described how he thought about a color before going to a party and then introduced himself to people wearing that color. This behavior increases the likelihood of random opportunities by introducing variety.
Talk to new people at the party . Take an unfamiliar magazine. Try a new grocery store or restaurant. If you have a day off, take off your pajamas and leave the house. Confuse yourself on the side of exploration and living in the present . For example, all successful artists, as well as amateurs, find themselves in a writer’s crisis. They know and apply various procedures to get around this . Breaking your daily routine opens up new opportunities and better times for you. Both elements are critical to obtaining positive insight results.
Encourage randomness by taking less risks
Probability determines luck. If you don’t play, you will never win. Author Frans Johansson, in his book The Click: Seizing Opportunities in an Unpredictable World, compares luck to betting. He suggests making small, targeted bets in order to experience a positive outcome known as luck.
Two variables determine how appropriate your rate is. Based on Johansson’s observations, author and professor Cal Newport puts forward the idea of an equation of serendipity :
<project success> = <project potential> x <random factors>
Newport describes two variables:
- The first is the potential of the project. The more rare and valuable your skills are, generally speaking, the more opportunities you have for project success. This is what you control.
- The second variable reflects serendipity. You cannot predict or control this factor, but you can expect really large values to be rare indeed (hence the approximation to an exponential distribution).
You can expand this offer beyond Newport’s offer to create a steady stream of side projects . At the end of the day, this is the only factor that you can control. Johansson makes time for coffee conversations with no agenda, no matter how busy he is .
If you want to be lucky in love, hang out with strangers more . Get out of the house and talk to people who usually scared you or didn’t feel yours ( use the three second rule ). Try social events that you may find unusual. This tactic can be beneficial for your career as well, as it is influenced by people you know.
For example, if you hit a plateau in the gym or find yourself in a rut, disrupt your daily routine. Try changing your rest time or creating a completely new workout plan. Make small changes to your diet to see if it affects your performance. Find new information on websites or forums you don’t normally visit (like our Vitals fitness blog), or by asking friends questions. You may fail. You can regress. But you may also find that this change works wonders for you.
When in doubt, place your bet by following your instincts. Johansson says in an interview with Fast Company :
So the question is, what can you apply? Which metric to use? This is passion. Passion helps you figure out how many apple slices you are willing to eat. In a world where success is by chance, you have to place a lot of bets or you will never be successful.
Remember Chance IV. Your personal quirks and hobbies can lead you to the desired result. As a reminder, Fleming’s passion for swimming and water polo led him to where he was needed. Jobs’ passion for typography led to the creation of the wonderful computer fonts that everyone loved.
Luck is good for you when you make room for it. Create a more flexible schedule to give yourself more room for insight. Get out of your comfort zone and routine. Plan for randomness in your life. It’s all about probability, so even during a bad break or streak, don’t take it too personally.