How to Have Good Luck

Last Updated: November 28, 2021

As counter-intuitive as it may sound, if you want to have good luck, you'll need to work for it. Good fortune is often lying around, waiting to be noticed. Learn to recognize opportunities for good luck and take steps to actively invite that good luck into your life.

Part 1

Part 1 of 3:

Part One: Recognize Opportunities

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Embrace the unplanned.^{[1]
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Research source} Spontaneity can throw you off, but it's also an unavoidable part of life. If you want to have good luck, you will need to learn to adapt to unplanned events and embrace the possible outcomes.
- For example, you might be surprised at work with overtime, and your social plans for the night might be ruined. Sometimes overtime is just overtime and nothing more comes of it. Consider the possibility, however, that your boss will see you working hard and without complaint during that overtime. By leaving a good impression, you may unintentionally encourage your boss to give you greater opportunity within the company, which could lead to better pay or a higher sense of job satisfaction.
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Converse with the people you meet. Share your story with friendly strangers and acquaintances. You may make a connection with someone unexpected, and that connection might prove more beneficial than you ever could have imagined.
- You don't need to tell your entire life story to every stranger you meet, but when the opportunity presents itself, take the time to have a real conversation with someone you may not know very well yet.
- Ask the people you meet about their lives, including their dreams and struggles. More often than not, they will return the favor and ask you about yours.
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Maintain good relationships. Aside from meeting new people, you also need to maintain good relationships with the people already in your life. Learn to trust others and let yourself rely on them when the time is appropriate. These relationships can also benefit you in unexpected ways.
- You need to maintain your ties to people in both your personal and professional life.
- For good or for ill, the people around you are usually responsible for half if not more of your luck. If you push people away or neglect your relationships, the lucky breaks that others might lead you to will be lost.
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Keep an open mind. Chasing a goal is great, but every now and then, you should reassess your goals and ask yourself if they are really working for you as well as they could. When you get a sign pointing you in a different direction, consider following it.
- Avoid sticking with something just because you've invested time and money in it. Maybe you dreamed of becoming a doctor but realized you hated the work once you started your pre-med studies. Perhaps you've spent the last decade working in sales but have recently acquired a taste for human resources. If your past goals no longer align with who you are and what you want for your life, it's time to re-think them.
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Look on the bright side.^{[2]
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Research source} Bad things happen, but oftentimes, these bad things could have been worse and may even have a positive side. Learn to look for the good in all situations. Something you once thought of as “bad luck” may actually be “good luck” from a different angle.
- For instance, if you returned from a blind date that went horribly wrong, look for a silver lining. At least your date wasn't a dangerous person who put your life or well-being at risk. The experience is also over and, while you may not see it now, may have taught you a few valuable lessons that you'll realize in a few weeks. Lastly, meeting the wrong guy or gal now narrows down the field and may help you find the right one later.

Part 2

Part 2 of 3:

Part Two: Invite Luck into Your Life

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Know your strengths.^{[3]
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Research source} Everyone has strengths and weaknesses. Know what your strengths are and make use of them as often as possible. Know your weaknesses, as well, and avoid situations that force you to rely on your weak side.
- You can build skills and overcome past weaknesses, but if you're not using the talents already available to you, you're passing up a great resource that could help you travel down the road toward good fortune.
- Focusing on your strongest attributes also narrows your field of vision, which, in this case, is a good thing. You can focus more of your time and energy on a handful of things. When you devote more of yourself to a task or dream, you are more likely to run across the "lucky break" you've been hoping for.
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Break out of your comfort zone. Be adventurous and take risks. The key is to make most of your risks calculated ones. Do something that makes you nervous, but plan and prepare for it in advance so that you can improve your chance of success.
- Try something you've never tried before or visit a place you've never been to. The experience might be bad or good. Either way, you will never know without trying.
- Before you follow your intuition, make sure that you can afford to fail. This might sound contrary to the concept of risk-taking, but it's what differentiates a foolish risk from a calculated one. Failing might produce negative results (e.g., losing an investment, ending a relationship) but it will not make it impossible to survive (e.g., you won't lose your house, die, or need to flee the country).
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Give more. Be generous toward other people. Regardless of whether or not you believe in karma, the generosity you display toward others has a way of coming back to you in some form. When others perceive your kindness, they are more likely to be kind to you, as well.
- Help others work through problems, pursue their aspirations, and find luck in their own lives. While helping someone else through an issue, you might see a lucky opportunity in your own life that was hiding in plain sight.
- Make sure that you don't keep score, either. You might end up doing more for someone than he or she will ever do for you, or the situation could be reversed. Regardless, it's usually easy to tell when someone is keeping score, and the attitude may turn people off.
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Communicate well. Improve your ability to communicate with other people. Speak and write more fluently. If you struggle with good communication now, practice as much as possible until you can communicate well enough to avoid misunderstandings and persuade others to see your point of view.
- Consider learning a second language, especially if you want more good luck in your career. Companies may consider a bilingual employee to be a greater asset than one who only knows a single language. If you can speak and/or write in more than one language, more lucky opportunities may open up to you.
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Imitate your mentors. If you don't have a mentor, find at least one. Watch how that individual behaves and seek to weave some of those behaviors into your own life. You don't need to be an exact duplicate, but it doesn't hurt to copy something that clearly works.
- There's no need to reinvent the wheel. A method that has produced lucky results in the past is likely to produce lucky results again. There are never any guarantees in life, but this is an odd that would certainly be in your favor to bet on.
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Expect good luck to come your way. Don't think of good luck as something distant and unattainable. Instead, tell yourself that good luck is a part of life that will come naturally if you allow it. Once you stop resisting it, prosperity will reach you more readily.
- Good fortune might be right in front of your face, but if you've convinced yourself that it's far away, you'll never be able to spot it.
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Take action. Stop waiting around for good luck to happen to you. If you want to invite luck into your life, you'll need to go out and meet it where it's at.
- Quit procrastinating. Don't put off today what you can do tomorrow. If something can be done now, do it now. You'll never know what opportunities passed you by when you dragged your feet.
- If you don't get out there and do something, nothing will happen. You can't solve a problem you never face or accomplish a goal you never pursue.

Part 3

Part 3 of 3:

Part Three: Chase Away the Bad Luck

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Cut the negative self-talk. Oftentimes, you might find that you are your own worst enemy. When you tell yourself that you can't do or be something, you chase away opportunity. Quit cutting yourself down and realize that you are more capable than you think.
- Everyone has strengths and weaknesses. One area of your life might be a mess, but that doesn't necessarily mean that you are flawed as an overall human being.
- When you criticize yourself, make sure that you do so constructively. Identify faults using reason rather than emotion, and look for ways to correct them instead of giving up.
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Overcome your fear of failure. Mistakes are a part of life, but that doesn't make them unlucky. The right mistake can set you on a path headed toward happiness and fulfillment. If you never make that mistake, though, you may never find the road you need.
- When you make a mistake or encounter failure, take the opportunity and learn from it. Ask yourself what you could have done differently and look for objective, constructive criticism.
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Quit stagnating. You are a capable human being, but there is always room for improvement. Instead of settling for your present skill set and circumstances, continually seek self-improvement. Work on both your strengths and your weaknesses.
- Educate yourself and become more of an expert at the things you pursue. Doing so will make it easier for you to spot lucky opportunities as they pop up in that area of your life.
- Self-improvement also increases your level of self-confidence. Shifting your mindset to a more confident one will allow you to think more positively about your circumstances, finding luck where you may not have found it before.
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Stop relying on superstition.^{[4]
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Research source} Clinging to the occasional lucky charm won't hurt anyone, and if doing so opens your mind to luck, then it can actually do some good. Relying on your charm or superstition like a crutch can do some damage, though. When you completely rely on an external source for luck, you stop looking for luck on your own, which may make it harder to find.
- Aside from making you lazy, relying on superstition also takes power out of your hands. Instead of acknowledging that your good fortune is a direct result of your actions, you give the credit to a charm that didn't actually do a single thing.