[This post written by guest blogger Ali Davis.]
Until recently, I’d never thought of myself as particularly lucky or unlucky. According to Dr. Richard Wiseman, author of The Luck Factor, I was correct. Dr. Wiseman has spent years studying people who claim to be especially lucky and those who can’t seem to catch a break, and he believes that luck, oddly enough, isn’t just a matter of chance. He has identified factors that “the lucky” have in common, and believes that with a little work all of us can make better friends with Dame Fortune.
When I took the baseline test in Wiseman’s book, I scored “neutral” — pretty much dead center on personal luck (luckiness? luckitude? luckosity?). Not spectacular, but certainly better than scoring down amongst the many firetraps and anvil-magnets who pepper his research. And I suppose it was comforting to know that I hadn’t been astonishingly lucky all along and failed to notice it. That would have been a letdown, not to mention embarrassing. So I figured maybe since nothing was broke, why fix it?
Then I got to Wiseman’s “Life Satisfaction” evaluation. I consider myself a basically happy person, so as expected, I breezed right through to a score of… “Low.” Low life satisfaction? Well, sure, if you insist on putting it that way. Happy or no, there is a bit of a gap between where I am and where I want to be. I’d always thought of that as being “ambitious” (lucky habit: thinking in positive terms), but, yes, I suppose you could call it being unsatisfied.
I decided that if Dr. Wiseman says he can help get me closer to acing that Life Satisfaction exam, why not give his advice a chance? In addition to taking the methodical, outward approach with Dr. W, I’ll be heading inward with a self-hypnosis CD (to convince me I’m lucky), and adding a touch of magic and superstition… just in case.
My tools are:
- The Luck Factor
- Lucky You CD by hypnotist Wendi Friesen
- One pouch of “Fast Luck” sachet powder, purchased from the Lucky Mojo Curio Company
- One silver lucky sixpence, purchased at a local coin store and still in its tiny plastic sheath
- Whatever else I luck into on the way
The experiment launches this weekend. Wish me luck!
[...] September 7, 2007 Filed under: Lab Report — brangien @ 12:31pm Today we welcome the first in a regular series of guest blog entries by Ali Davis, who is trying her luck at getting lucky (but not in the way you might think). While [...]
Maybe you want to be both where you are and where you want to be — doesn’t seem to be anything wrong with that.
Best of luck with your progress.
I have always considered myself to be a lucky person. That does not mean I feel I have had more than my share of good fortune. What it means to me is that I have been lucky enough to have a positive attitude. That attitude makes things that might otherwise be impossible simpler. It also allows me to experience ‘luck’ in situations that other people call bad luck.
An example:
Scenario 1Your wallet falls out of your pocket on the train. It is the same colour as the seats so you do not notice it when you check your chair leaving the train. It contains your tube (subway) ticket so you cannot get on your next train. You have to run all over the station before you manage to get it back and continue on your way. All in all you have suffered a delay and some annoyances. Is this a story of good luck or bad luck?
It happened to me and I felt that having lost my wallet in a crowded station in the middle of London I was pretty lucky to have got it back.
The way I viewed things was
Scenario 2 I had to run to catch the train to get my wallet back. The trail to find the wallet took so long the train had been cleared and the doors had closed ready for it to head off. I knocked on the driver’s door and he waited, opened the door and I recovered my wallet. I was lucky to get there before the train left as well as lucky that no one else had picked it up and wandered off with it.
All in all I felt I had been lucky. When I told people about this (Scenario 2) everyone exclaimed over how lucky I had been. As an experiment I tried telling people who had not heard about it the Scenario 1 of this story. They commiserated over my being unlucky.
My conclusion: Judging your luck is all in the viewpoint.
My other conclusion: Your attitude affects your commitment and that affects your results.
This second conclusion is also backed up by experience. I mention an experience, where I did not trust to luck but if I had it would have changed the results, in my blog.
Rufus Evison
ReasonedRants.BlogSpot.Com
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