Luck is something that we all think we need to become successful and It’s ironic when people say they don’t believe in luck but it’s often the first thing they blame when things don’t go their way. Interesting isn’t it? But I don’t blame them for that. Only because most of us have grown to believe that Luck is something you are born with and only a very few people are born this way.

Well in this weeks blog, I want to talk a little in depth about Luck, break any such believe systems you may and most importantly, make you realise how lucky you already are and how much more luckier you can get.

Lets get started by first trying to understand what luck is. According to the University of Cambridge dictionary luck is the force that causes things, especially good things, to happen to you by chance and not as a result of your own efforts or abilities. However, If you were to follow this definition and expect to get lucky by putting in no effort, you would unfortunately get the complete opposite of luck.

It would also not be fair to use this definition for the people who are successful and called lucky. Do you think individuals like Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg are all lucky? Yes they are, but don’t you think thats also a result of their own abilities and not just a result of chance? Think about yourself, if you work really hard on a college assignment, get amazing grades and that leads you to getting shortlisted for a scholarship program. Would you just call that luck by chance? Of course not! You worked hard to create that luck for yourself!

Darren Hardy, CEO of SUCCESS Magazine and author of a Best-Selling book is known widely by his quote about Luck – “Luck is when opportunity meets preparation”.

This leads us to the first simple way to get Lucky!

Step 1: Prepare

Any area that you want to get lucky in, start preparing for it. This could be anything. If you want to get lucky in your academics, start studying. If you want to get lucky at work, start gaining more expertise. If you want to get lucky at business, start reading more books. If you want to get lucky with girls, start learning what girls like. Literally anything you wish to get lucky with, start preparing for it.

Late. Arnold Palmer, a world class golfer in an interview once said “It’s a funny thing, the more I practice, the luckier I get”.

It’s important to prepare yourself to get lucky. If you dream of becoming a world famous actor but you are just sitting on your couch and not practicing your craft, no audition would ever make you lucky.

Step 2: Take the Opportunity

In an interview Bill Gates was asked if he got lucky in life with Microsoft and his reply is a perfect description of Luck in general. He said “I was lucky to be in the right place at the right time. But many others were also in the same place. The difference was that I took action.”

When you prepare and get in the field you will come across many opportunities and many of them demand immense courage from you. It is in that moment, when you decide to take that opportunity or not, will you decide your own luck. In the same way when Bill Gates saw an opportunity that many other people saw but only he had took the courage to pursue that opportunity thus creating immense luck for himself.

Preparation and Opportunity both go hand in hand. However unlike preparation, opportunities cannot be planned. Opportunities are natural occurrences, they pop out of no where and have the potential to create for us the luck we desire.

So keep an eye! When you see an opportunity, that is luck coming to you, so don’t turn it down!

Step 3: Keep the Faith and Count How Lucky you already are!

Have you heard of the saying, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer? Well thats simply because the rich spend most of their time thinking about how rich they are and the poor keep thinking about how poor they are. And what you think about is what you create around.

From now on, stop thinking about things that make you unlucky and think about the things that make you lucky! It could be the smallest of things, such as feeling lucky for the food you ate, feeling lucky for getting on a bus, feeling lucky for the clothes you wear, feeling lucky for the free society you live in, feeling lucky for coming across this blog! The more you think about the things you are lucky to have the more luck you will create around you. Make it a practise to recognise the good things around.

And lastly if you ever feel that nothing is good around to make you feel lucky, keep the faith that lots of luck is coming your way. If there’s nothing else, the least you can do is to think positive and believe you are lucky.

This is by far the most easiest and most effective way to bring lots of luck into your life. But don’t miss the point! Faith without preparation and taking up opportunities is useless. All three ways go together hand in hand.

So start preparing, keep the faith and take those opportunities when they come your way!