Do you consider yourself to be a lucky person? Well, it turns out your answer to that question actually plays a significant role in whether or not you’ll actually end up having good luck in your life.  And what better month to ask that question then March, when the luck of the Irish is upon us 🙂

In a book called The Luck Factor, Dr. Richard Wiseman lays out what he has found after years of researching what makes people lucky.  What he discovers in that research is that people who consider themselves to be lucky actually end up creating their own good fortune. He identifies four principles that lucky people use to create their own good fortune :

“Principle One: Maximize Chance Opportunities
Lucky people are skilled at creating, noticing and acting upon chance opportunities. They do this in various ways, including networking, adopting a relaxed attitude to life and by being open to new experiences.

Principle Two: Listening to Lucky Hunches
Lucky people make effective decisions by listening to their intuition and gut feelings. In addition, they take steps to actively boost their intuitive abilities by, for example, meditating and clearing their mind of other thoughts.

Principle Three: Expect Good Fortune
Lucky people are certain that the future is going to be full of good fortune. These expectations become self-fulfilling prophecies by helping lucky people persist in the face of failure, and shape their interactions with others in a positive way.

Principle Four: Turn Bad Luck to Good
Lucky people employ various psychological techniques to cope with, and often even thrive upon, the ill fortune that comes their way. For example, they spontaneously imagine how things could have been worse, do not dwell on ill fortune, and take control of the situation.”

The bottom line is if you want your life to be lucky then start thinking of yourself as a lucky person!

~Amy Rees Anderson