How to Be Luckier: Simple Ways to Increase Your Luck

Scientifically proven ways to have more luck in your life

Photo by Joshua Olsen on Unsplash

Recently my dad had a lucky day at a casino in Las Vegas and it wasn’t from playing slot machines.

He explained over text messages that he gave himself a budget of $40 that day to play slots, but unfortunately, lost it all.

He was walking back to his car in the parking garage. He took the elevator to his floor, exited, and turned left to his car in the parking garage. When he got to the yellow poles, he noticed something on the ground.

Laying there were four $100 bills.

He picked up the money and waited a few minutes to see if anyone came back to look for money they lost, but no one did.

In typical dad fashion, he went back the next day to take photographs of where he found the money and shared it with me. He even placed a $100 bill where he found it and took a picture.

My dad was lucky that day. Not only was he in the right place at the right time, but he noticed it on the ground.

I wondered how long the money had been there. How many people walked by without noticing it?

I bet he wasn’t the first one to walk by, but others might have missed it.

How often do you have things on your mind as you walk back to your car?

You might have your kids with you, on your phone, or thinking about where you’re going next.

It’s easy to not see something laying on the ground because you’re just not paying attention to it.

This whole experience was amazing for him, but a lot of luck was involved in that.

The good news about luck is that it's in our control. We aren't born lucky or unlucky. It can change. We can go from periods when lucky things keep happening to us and periods when nothing seems to go right. I’ve experienced that in my life.

A closer look into luck

Richard Wiseman, a psychologist, wrote a book called The Luck Factor. He wanted to take a more scientific approach to investigate the concept of luck. He wanted to see why some people always had lucky breaks, while others weren’t so fortunate.

So he placed ads in national newspapers and magazines asking for people who consider themselves exceptionally lucky or unlucky to contact him. During this research over 400 men and women between the ages of 18 and 84 and from all backgrounds volunteered to participate in the research.

In the lucky group was a 42 year old woman who was in a long term relationship with a man she met completely by chance at a dinner party. She said that good fortune helped her achieve many of her lifelong ambitions like a dream job and raising wonderful children with her husband who loved each other very much.

At the opposite end was a 27 year old woman in the unlucky group. She experienced bad luck throughout much of her life. A few years ago before the experiment, she started to work as a flight attendant for an airline and quickly became known as being accident prone and bad luck when she was around. One of her first flights had to make an unplanned stop over because some passengers had become drunk and abusive. Another flight was struck by lightning. Weeks later a flight was forced to make an emergency landing. She was convinced that her bad luck would rub off on other people, and she didn't want other people to have the same sort of bad luck as her. She was also unlucky in love and had gone from one bad relationship to the next. She never seemed to get any lucky breaks and always seem to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Over the years he interviewed these volunteers and asked him to keep journals fill out personality questionnaires and intelligent tests. He invited them to his laboratory to participate in experiments.

His findings have revealed that luck is not a magical ability, or the result of just random chance. People aren’t born lucky or unlucky.

Although lucky and unlucky people couldn’t tell you why they’re lucky or unlucky, their thoughts and behaviors were responsible for much of their fortune.

And that's great news for us because we can shape our thoughts and behaviors to have more luck in our lives.

Chance opportunties

He found that lucky people consistently notice such opportunities, while unlucky people do not.

He gave lucky and unlucky people each a newspaper and asked them to look through it and tell him how many photographs were inside. On average, the unlucky people took about two minutes to count the photographs, whereas the lucky people just took seconds. Why?

Photo by Roman Kraft on Unsplash

Because on the second page of the newspaper contained the message to stop counting and that there were 43 photographs in this newspaper. This message took up half the page and was written in a font that was over two inches high. It was literally staring everyone in straight in the face. But the unlucky people tended to miss it. The lucky people were more likely to see it.

To have some fun, he placed a second large message halfway through the newspaper. This one said to stop counting and tell the experimenter you have seen this to win $250.

The unlucky people miss the opportunity because they were too focused and busy looking for the photographs. Being more tense and anxious blocked their ability to notice the unexpected. People who are luckier are more relaxed and open. They not only see what they're looking for, but they also see what else is there.

I would guess that day in parking garage my dad was relaxed. He wasn’t solely focused on getting to his car. Therefore he was noticing the environment as he was walking.

Research has shown that anxiety disrupts people’s ability to notice the unexpected.

In one experiment, people were asked to watch a moving dot in the center of a computer screen. Without warning large dots would occasionally flash around the edges of the screen. Nearly all noticed these large dots.

A simple and relaxing experiment.

The experiment was then repeated with a second group of people who were offered a large financial reward for watching the center dot. Lots of pressure now. This time people were far more anxious during the experiment. They became extremely focused on the center dot and over a third of them missed the large dots when they appeared on the screen.

So the harder they looked, the less they saw. And it's the same with luck.

Unlucky people miss chance opportunities because they're too focused on looking for something else. How many people missed money laying on the ground cause they were too focused on walking to their car. In the newspaper experiment, unlucky people missed a huge answer staring straight at them in the face because they were too focused on counting.

Richard conducted an experiment where he put money on the ground and told people to walk to a particular coffee shop. Exactly like what my dad was doing that day. Unlucky people tended to miss the money, while people who felt they were lucky saw the money.

Shake up your life

Besides being more relaxed and open to have more luck in your life, you can also create more luck through creating more opportunities.

Many of his participants created ways to introduce chance opportunities in their own lives by introducing variety and change. Some would do simple things such, as driving a different way to work.

One did had a great idea to talk to new people. He forced him to talk to different types of people at a party instead of always talking to the same people. He would think of a color before the party, and would only speak to people at that party who are wearing that color. That might seem silly but that is a great way to force himself to create more chance opportunities because a conversation with someone that he normally wouldn't talk to might be life changing.

Walk the path less traveled

It is easy for people to miss the opportunities in their life if they keep doing the same things over and over again.

New and different experiences introduce the potentional for new opportunities.

Stanford psychologist Alfred Bandura has discussed the impact of chance encounters and luck on people's personal lives. Some of the most life changing moments arise through the most simple of circumstances.

He supports his case with a personal example as a graduate student. Bandura became bored with a reading assignment so he decided to visit the local golf course with a friend.

Just by chance, he and his friend found themselves playing behind two attractive females and soon joined them for a round of golf.

After the game Bandura arranged to meet up with one of the women again and eventually ended up marrying her.

A chance meeting on the golf course altered his entire life.

Look on the bright side

Luck isn’t only about creating more opportunities to experience it.

It’s also how you deal with situations and how you see it.

Imagine two Olympic athletes. One wins a bronze medal and one wins a silver medal. Who do you think would be happier? We would think the silver medalists would be because they came in second place. They’re the second best in the world. But research suggests that athletes who win bronze medals are actually happier.

The silver medalist keeps thinking that if they had performed slightly better than they would have won a gold medal. They could have been .01 seconds behind. For athletes dedicate their entire lives to compete, being that close much be heart wrenching.

In contrast, the bronze medalist focuses on the thought that if they had performed slightly worse, they wouldn't have won anything at all. So they think about that they were so close to missing out on the medal.

Psychologists refer to our ability to imagine what might have happened rather than what actually did happen as counter-factual. Richard Wiseman wondered whether lucky people might use counter-factual thinking to help deal with emotional impact of unfortunate experiences they had in their lives. To find out he decided to present lucky and unlucky people with some unlucky scenarios and see how they respond. He asked him to imagine that they were waiting in line at the bank. And suddenly an armed robber enters the bank fires a shot and the bullet hits them in the arm. Would be lucky or unlucky? Now before I give you his findings, I want you to answer that question for yourself. How would you respond? If you're in that situation, and you were shot in the arm while you were in line at the bank.

"What Richard Wiseman found was that unlucky people tended to say it would just be their bad luck to be in the bank during the robbery. In contrast, lucky people were relieved it could have been much worse. They could have been critically wounded or dead. So they felt lucky it was only their arm. The differences between lucky and unlucky people were like day and night.

By looking at the glass half full in unfortunate situations, maintaining a positive outlook about the future increases opportunities for a luckier life.

Four basic principles to be luckier

Richard took some participants through what he called luck school to get them to think and behave like a lucky person. 80% of people were happier and more satisfied with their lives. Those who were unlucky became lucky. Those were were lucky became luckier.

He asked them to do exercises for a month based upon his four principles:

• They are good at creating a noticing chance opportunities.

• They make lucky decisions by listening to their intuition.

• They create self fulfilling prophecies through positive expectations.

• They adopt a resilient attitude that transforms bad luck into good.

Remember the unlucky flight attendant? After going through his exercises, her bad luck had completely vanished. By the end, she felt like a completely different person. She was no longer involved in accidents and was much happier in her life. Finally everything was going her way. Other people that volunteer for luck school had found romantic partners through chance encounters and job promotions.

One part of luck school involved keeping a diary. What he had them do was at the end of each day spend a couple of moments writing down the most positive things that happened or lucky things that happened during the day. Each day when you write what you do is you scan back your day to look for positive and lucky moments. You're training your brain to look for these moments in the future as well. As you keep doing it, you'll get into the habit of starting to look at your day, looking for those moments that you can write down later. And doing this at the end of the day won't take more than a minute or two. So it's something very simple that you can do that can have a huge impact on your life.

Luck is in your control

The amount of luck you have isn’t fixed. If you’ve had an unlucky few years, it doesn’t mean the next few years will be the same. You can change. Your luck can change.

Maximize chance opportunities. Change your routine. Go to different places. Talk to people you normally wouldn’t talk to. Be open to new experiences. Instead of immediately say no, say yes to that invitation.

If you see a penny on the ground, don’t just think it’s a penny. Think about how lucky you were to find a penny. Start thinking like a lucky person.

Listen to your gut feeling. Alfred Bandura met his future wife playing golf after he decided to stop studying and play golf.

Believe you have a bright future. That’s what lucky people do. Over time, that expectation becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. Because it helps lucky people keep going in the face of challenges.

Turn bad luck into good, find the silver lining, and see the glass half full. Remember the idea of counter-factual thinking where lucky people tend to imagine how the bad luck they countered could have been worse, and in doing so they feel much better about themselves and their lives.

I know we all wish we would have more luck in our lives. And it's good to know that based on scientific research that we can have more luck in our lives and it is in our control.