Think changing your luck is like a pig dreaming of flying?

Or do you think luck is what you're given?

Professor Richard Wiseman spent years studying people who describe themselves as lucky, and to all intents and purposes seem to have had more than their fair share of good things happen to them. He compared them to others who seem to have had more than their share of misfortune. 

He set up experiments to find out whether people who thought they were lucky or unlucky actually were. Some of the experiments were purely random like gettting them to choose lottery numbers and on these, there was no difference. However,where the experiments were based on real life scenarios such as solving puzzles, finding money or creating a positive outcome or opportunity, the lucky people consistently did better.

Wiseman explored whether this was due to upbringing, education, intelligence, personality, culture, status or income. There was no significant factor identified. The only difference was that lucky people seemed to follow 4 key principles in the way they thought and behaved.

Research proves you can learn to be lucky

The researchers taught the unlucky people these four principles and how to implement them in their everyday lives. The unlucky people became luckier, happier and more successful. So what are these four principles?

1. Lucky people are good at spotting, making and following up on opportunities. They are open to new experiences and prepared to try different things.

2. Lucky people listen to their intuition and their experience.

3. Lucky people expect things to go well, so take more chances and are more positive when they act.

4. Lucky people turn bad luck into good by noticing any positive aspects of the negative event, learning from it, taking action to make things better and putting it into perspective. 

Want to know more? Have a look at my blog or LinkedIn Posts, or contact me for further resources. Let's see if we can move "from tragic to magic" as Walt Disney says. My coaching, facilitation and mediation practice is based on research like this in psychology and behavioural science.