Guess you are at a stage in your life where you feel like things aren’t going as smoothly. Maybe, you even feel like you’ve had the stroke of bad luck on your side. Well, maybe you have more control of your own luck than you may think. Consider this:
Prepare: “Luck is when preparation meets opportunity”, said Seneca, Roman dramatist, philosopher and politician, 5 BC – 65 AD. The difference between lucky and unlucky people, is all in our perspective. Luck isn’t just about being at the right place at the right time, but also about being open to and ready for new opportunities.
Network: There are no guarantees to entrepreneurial success. Your concept may be bold, your passion high, your intelligence and analysis exceptional, but there will always be external factors beyond your control. Lucky people know people, lots of people. Practice feeling comfortable talking to strangers at events that you attend, actively listen to them when you strike up a conversation because you will have a lot to learn and they will remember that you appreciated what they had to say. This can translate into opportunities; the more people you meet and the more people you display genuine interest in, the more likelihood of you meeting the right person at the right time who has an opportunity at hand that you want to be a part of.
Trust your instincts and don’t get stuck in routines. Many ‘lucky’ people claim to trust their intuition and never ignore their gut feeling. Consider whose voices are speaking to you when you are faced with overriding intuition – is it your own trustworthy voice or is it the voices of others’ expectations? Listen to your hunches and go “with the flow”. Start to break old habits by taking different routes to work. When you notice yourself doing things in a routine way, look for other ways to do them.
Take it easy. Anxiety and worry are enemies of luck. if you are too busy hiding out, the chances are that you won’t be stumbling across luck. When opportunities come, you need to notice them and you need to seize them. A lucky person believes in now as being as important as tomorrow and much more so than yesterday. Don’t be held back by ghosts of failure – they were just learning experiences. And tomorrow will always come whatever happens, so do your best to enjoy today so that tomorrow has a standard to match!
Be ready for new opportunities. One of life’s biggest ironies is how often people complain about their circumstances, yet rarely do anything about them. It’s not that they don’t have good intentions, or the desire for change isn’t great. It’s that change is scary and risky. Even when we’re unhappy with our current situation, we are familiar with it. Change is just so unknown!
Expect the best. Do you ever find yourself feeling stuck in negative thought patterns that dampen your expectations or start expecting the worst possible outcomes? Have you ever thought or said: ‘I don’t think I can make this work, or I seriously doubt that I can pull this off.” Instead of choosing to wallow and feel rotten about things that go wrong, look for life’s lessons in the experience and look for new solutions that grow out of the bad experience.
Never stop learning. continuous learning is vital to making the most of what the world has to offer. You could say that it’s what separates us from the animals. And there is evidence to suggest that it plays a role in staving off mental diseases such as Alzheimer’s. Make sure you don’t break the habit of learning that most people abandon after graduation. It really makes your life a whole lot more exciting and helps you to understand where others are coming from.
