How To Improve Your Luck In Life
Article by Herb Rubenstein
Introduction
Let’s start with a working definition of “luck,” or what we mean by “good luck.” We mean two different things:
Good luck is an occurrence of success, good fortune, positive results, or the absence of failure, misfortune, and negative results which cannot be fully explained through normal powers of observation, analysis, or reasoning based on the concept of cause and effect. Good luck is also becoming the beneficiary of a good result from something over which you have no control or influence.
This article discusses the first definition of “good luck,” as the second one is self-explanatory. Being lucky means that “things are going your way” without your experiencing yourself or any clear preceding action or circumstance directly as the “cause in the good result.”
This definition of “luck” opens some significant insights into what people can do to improve their luck, and even influence the “luck” of their colleagues, family members, associates, team members, followers and those they work with or influence.
No introduction to an article on “luck” would be complete without a discussion of superstition and its “relation” to luck. The great economist, Kenneth Boulding, one of my professors at the LBJ School of Public Affairs, defined superstition as “the belief in a causal relationship where none exists.” If the only thing you get out of reading this article is this clear and precise definition of “superstition,” I trust you will find reading this article worthwhile.
To help create or increase the probability of a good bounce or good roll, the key is to do your homework. One needs to develop the practice “foresight” to study and learn the probabilities of which way something could result from each action you could take in that situation.
By developing this ability to exercise “foresight,” one can become “luckier” since one will better understand the true risk and reward action you take. Without “foresight,” the ability to anticipate accurately the results you might get from your actions, you simply do not have enough information to make the best “choices” and take the best “actions” to maximize the probability of a good result (or good luck) and minimize the probability of a bad result (or bad luck). This, “foresight” is a method of diligent evaluation of a situation to inform yourself of all the foreseeable potential upside and risks associated with your proposed actions. This requires using a lot of your cognitive skills, limiting the role of emotions, over-optimism, paranoia, and bias in your thinking. Using your cognitive skills in this way promotes good results on things we want very much to accomplish and therefore, improves your “luck” in life.
The lesson here is to improve your luck in life and in golf, you would be well served to:
1. Have a strong desire to achieve or have a particular result that you are capable to achieve, at least some of the time (forget about the impossible, but if the risks are low, be willing to take chances and try the probable, even if the probability is low. That is how we improve.
2. Be prepared for the action you intend to take so you can execute it properly, as planned.
3. Make a clear decision and have a clear commitment regarding how you will perform the behavior you want to achieve success
4. Assess all risks properly should you fail to perform up to the standard you thought (hoped) you would.
5. Have “foresight” as to the consequences, good and bad, that can result from your undertaking a behavior
6. When you are implementing your behavior, focus and direct one hundred percent of your cognitive and physical abilities on your action, and not be distracted by continuing to think of what you should do in that situation. (Commit to the action/behavior you have chosen)
This analysis of what it takes to “improve your luck” in life also shows that to reduce your chances of “bad luck,” If you are thinking about “failure” while doing any act, you increase the probability of failing, pure and simple.
Going Beyond Gary Player
How you think about things, how you assess a situation, how you use “foresight,” and how you quiet your mind during performance (so you don’t think about negative consequences) are keys to improving your luck.
Improving your “luck” also requires a strategy to deal with situations where you luck has not been good, and you need to change “it.” After any streak or event of “bad luck,” (or loss or “unexpected failure,”), regrouping, or “becoming present in the moment,” or what teachers call “rebound” is needed. If you think you just had bad luck, or experienced a bad result of any type, you should learn quickly from the mistake, if you made a mistake that caused the bad luck or bad result and quickly, even immediately after figuring out why you made that mistake (if you have time to reflect) then you must focus on what you need to do in the present and the future to be successful, and not keep thinking, dwelling on, focusing on, or even talking about the bad luck or negative result that just occurred. Being able to “regroup,” or rebound quickly to the present moment and the task at hand, is essential to improve your luck.
Similarly, even after some people experience a great success, they also cannot stop thinking about or focusing on that great success. As they continue to be “affected by” their recent success or “good luck,” this distracts them and keeps them from performing the best they can at the task at hand. Some people might also have the idea or thought that after some “streak” of very good success that bad results or “bad luck might follow. Get rid of that though that your streak might “end” or “bad luck is coming” and you can continue that streak. For a great book on this topic see: Confidence: How Winning Streaks and Losing Streaks Begin and End. Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Professor at the Harvard Business School, in 2005 stated that a significant component of success in athletics and in life is “confidence.”
Archie Manning taught Peyton and Eli, his two soon to be Hall of Fame quarterback sons, that regardless of whether something they did or just happened in football that was great or terrible, “get back to zero” for the next play. “Getting back to zero” means not having the past bad result or bad luck, or success, impact how you perform on the new task at hand, and the result you are trying to produce with your actions.
The key lesson here to improve your “good luck” and to reduce your “bad luck” is to make your disappointment “very, very temporary.” Yes, you will experience loss, sadness, fear, and many other emotions, but your duty, if you want to improve your luck, is to get through this phase very quickly and change your state to a state that allows you, and even helps you, do your best in a tough situation.
Finally, often “bad luck” (or a bad result) is caused by us not paying enough attention to the relatively easy actions we take in life. We trip over the step. We drop something and it breaks but could have and should have handled it more carefully and avoided breaking it. Paying attention is a key to good luck.
Conclusion
“Good luck” is not merely overcoming odds and “bad luck” is not merely failing when success seemed likely. Here are some of the best methods to improve your good luck and diminish your bad luck:
1. Make your goals and definition of success more precise.
2. Improve your focus (pay better attention) on your own activity you use to seek the result you want.
3. Improve your ability to evaluate your current situation including all of the factors that might affect whether you are able to perform the activity you need to perform well to be successful and what are the possible good and bad results of your proposed activity.
4. Improve your ability to commit to do what you need to do to achieve your goal and drive away thoughts that you might fail while you are performing that activity.
5. Improve your ability to learn quickly and not be negatively affected by your past mistakes and failures, or past bad luck or bad results.
6. Improve your ability to “let go”, take failure or thwarted expectations “in stride,” and not focus on or think about your past failures (except to learn from them and not repeat them) or even your past successes.
7. Bring a hopeful, positive, confident, optimistic attitude to new tasks. Do not speak about yourself or your current situation in a way that diminishes your own skills and abilities.
8. Encourage others to help you reach your goals and potential and be willing to help others reach their goals and potential.
9. At all times and for all endeavors, before undertaking an activity, visualize success.
10. Never underestimate your skills, abilities, or potential (for success). If you accomplish something, never say it “was a fluke,” or you “were just lucky.”
11. Never overestimate your skills, abilities, and potential (for success). Overestimating your skills can lead to your failing to prepare properly for success or build the skills and abilities that are necessary for success.
12. Develop a true sense of gratitude and appreciation for everything and everyone who contributes, has contributed, and will be contributing to your success.
Will doing each of these twelve actions “improve your good luck” and “reduce your bad luck?” Simply put, yes. By doing these things you will begin to ascribe fewer and fewer “things,” or events, or successes or failures or even results to luck. You will begin to see yourself (and all who support you) more often as “being cause” of your successes and your failures. When you do this, you learn how to create and leverage what contributes to helping you be more successful (and “luckier) and how to avoid what contributes to failure (and being “unlucky.”
To modify Gary Player’s wonderful statement, “The more I practice, the luckier I get,” I would say, “The more I appreciate, the more prepared I am and the more I look for opportunities, the luckier I get.”