How luck works

 Can you change your luck? Is fortune something real? It’s difficult to say. There are times when everything seems to go wrong.

They don’t give him the job he asked for, his back hurts, he doesn’t raise the closure of his dress, his cat doesn’t stop vomiting, etc. Suddenly he encounters setbacks of all kinds and feels that his life is going from bad to worse. He’s not superstitious, but he’s starting to wonder if he just doesn’t have good luck. Why does nothing seem to go well?

I’ve felt that way lately. Hoping that my outlook would improve, I went to three experts who helped me understand why we believe in luck and how we can take advantage of that belief to make real changes in our attitude towards life.

What is luck?

People define luck in three different ways, according to Jacqueline Woolley, professor of psychology at the University of Texas, in Austin, United States. First of all, we often use the term luck as a synonym for “luck”. We could say that it would be a matter of luck to win in a slot machine even if it is actually a random event. Another way of referring to luck is as “a supernatural force that exists in the universe,” says Woolley.

This force can affect different people at different times in their lives, and there are those who believe that it can also be exploited through rituals or enchantments. Thirdly, it can be taken as a personal quality with which you are born.

But does it really exist? Richard Wiseman, author of The Lucky Factor and professor of Public Understanding of Psychology at the University of Hertfordshire in the United Kingdom, does not believe that there is anything magical or superstitious about luck: it will not help or harm you in the casino. On the other hand, considering himself as someone lucky or unfortunate is “a way of seeing himself that subsequently has an impact on his behavior and his way of thinking, in addition to the fact that he ends up becoming a kind of prophecy that is fulfilled,” he says. “So, in that sense, of course it exists.”

And it has “existed” for a long time. “In every culture, throughout the history of which we are aware, people talk about superstitious rituals or luck, just as we do now, even with today’s technological advances and science,” according to Wiseman. “It is something very deep within us that realizes that our lives are governed by chance, and we try to do something to control it.”

Woolley agrees with this. “Humans don’t like uncertainty,” he says. “When you feel little control over our lives, such as when you feel that things happen randomly and that we do not direct our lives, supernatural explanations are often sought.”

What to think of luck?

Is it possible to change your attitude about luck? And if so, could this lead you to better results?

After studying people who consider themselves fortunate and others who consider themselves unfortunate, Wiseman discovered that those who “had good luck” maximized the possibilities of their opportunities and dared to follow their intuition to take advantage of those moments.

“If you are relaxed and happy, you have a broader vision of the world around you and you can see more opportunities,” he says. “If you are a flexible person, when such opportunities are presented to you, you will make the most of them. Lucky people know where they are going, but they often change course depending on where the wind takes them.”

Lucky people also hope to have good luck and can turn bad experiences into something good. “It’s no surprise that they tend to be optimistic and also resilient,” Wiseman adds. “If something bad happens, they think, ‘It could be worse.’”

You can change your focus towards the positive if you have a “good luck diary,” says Wiseman. “Every night you can spend 30 seconds writing a positive thing that happened to you that day or a feeling of gratitude to your friends, your family or your health, or even something negative that no longer happens to you.”

Don’t be an animal of customs: take a different route when you go for a walk, watch other series, talk to different people… Get ready to take advantage of any opportunity that may arise.