Saturday, July 26, 2008

How to Increase Your Luck

For well over a decade, Dr. Richard Wiseman has been the head of a research unit at the University of Hertfordshire in England and has conducted research into unusual areas of psychology, including deception, luck and the paranormal.

One of my favorite books is Dr. Wiseman's bestseller called The Luck Factor, which summarizes his ten-year research project about how luck operates in the lives of individual. The book has been published in 14 languages and over 25 countries.


You Can Change Your Luck
The exciting news is that based upon this research, Dr. Wiseman concluded that luck is something that can be learned.

Dr. Wisemen lists the four essential principles of luck as:

1. 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. Being an extrovert, which means you are more sociable and have more social "magnetism", is correlated to being more lucky. Lucky people smile twice as much as unlucky people and have more open body language. And perhaps the biggest role in their success is that lucky people are effective in building long-term, secure relationships with other people. And they keep in touch with these friends and colleagues and this network of people bring opportunities.

2. Principle Two: Listen 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 doing such things as meditating and clearing their mind of other thoughts. "Almost 90 percent of lucky people said that they trusted their intuition when it came to their personal relationships, and almost 80 percent said that it played a vital role in their career choices. Far more lucky than unlucky people were relying in their intuition when it came to making important decisions in their lives. It was a simple message - when it came to luck, intuition mattered."

3. 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 by shaping their interactions with others in a positive way. "Lucky and unlucky people have amazingly different expectations about the future....Lucky and unlucky people seem to be living in different worlds. No matter how hard they try, unlucky people seem unable to obtain their goals while lucky people effortlessly achieve their lifelong dreams and ambitions."

4. 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 the ill fortune and take control of situations. "Lucky people are convinced that any ill fortune in their lives will, in the long run, work out for the best...Unlucky people tend to dwell on the bad luck in their lives"....and..."Lucky people take constructive steps to prevent more bad luck in the future...they treat their failures as opportunities to grow." Unlucky people, however, are reluctant to learn from their mistakes and more likely to repeat them in the future.

Learn to Think & Behave Like A Lucky Person
Using these principles, Dr. Wiseman was able to show a group of people that considered themselves unlucky how to think and behave like lucky people. The results were astounding with almost all participants reporting significant life changes including increased levels of luck, self-esteem, physical well-being, confidence, and success.

"The Luck Factor" Contains Easy Exercises to Change Your Luck
The book contains several easy exercises for determining how lucky you are and for actually changing your luck. There is detailed advice on how to use a "scientifically proven way to understand, control and increase your luck."

Chance Opportunities Can Change Your Life
One of the most important keys I took away from the book is that lucky people "create, notice and act upon the chance opportunities in their lives."

Don't Be Passive - Take Action
How many times have all of us gotten some intuitive message to do something and have not followed through for any number of reasons. The key is to take action and have the courage to look silly or even feel a little self-conscious doing something that is out of the ordinary.

Follow That Inner Voice of Intuition
When I look at my own life and examine those times that I followed my inner voice, my strong promptings to take action, I can see that almost magical things have happened.

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Dr. Richard Wiseman web site at www.richardwiseman.com

Purchase The Luck Factor book at Amazon.com