Luck Does Exist According To Science

Amulets, energy stones, 4-leaf clover, touching wood, candle colors, crossing your fingers,… Do they attract luck? And, going under a ladder, number 13, seeing a black cat,… do they bewitch us with an aura of bad luck? The answer is no. But beware, in return, science seems to have figured out how to attract luck.

Richard Wiseman, a professor at the University of Hertfordshire in the United Kingdom, carried out an investigation based on the following question:  how is it possible that there are people who are in the right place at the best time for positive things to happen to them  and others, however, seem to have been graced with the gift of inconvenience ?

With his research, Wiseman came to the following conclusion: much of the fortune or lack of it has to do with attitude . In his words: “Most (inappropriate) people are simply not open to their surroundings.”

Keys of luck

According to Wiseman, there are four keys to attracting luck ( and beware, we want to make a distinction between luck and chance ; chance would be, for example, that we win the lottery. Our only room for maneuver is to buy a tenth). Luck is a much broader concept, it depends on us to a greater extent than chance:

Maximize your opportunities

It makes sense, doesn’t it? If we lock ourselves at home, how many exciting things and how many opportunities to change our lives could we have? Doesn’t seem like a lot, does it?

Richard assures that “lucky people act on the opportunities they find in their life; try, start small with endless projects and base your learning on interaction; contrary to the unfortunate, who suffer from paralysis by analysis ”.

According to Wiseman, certain types of personalities are luckier, as they tend to create scenarios that maximize opportunities. For example: extroverts by spending more time with others, in a society in which most jobs are filled with “acquaintances”, will have more opportunities to get a good job.

In contrast, anxious people will be less likely to be aware of what is happening or occurring around them; therefore, an opportunity will have to be more encouragement for them to notice. This scientific experiment highlights that if we resist the new, it is likely that we will not have many opportunities to change our destiny. In this way, luck plays when there is uncertainty.

Lucky people act on their intuitions in many areas of their lives.

Nearly 90% of lucky people said they trusted their intuition when it came to personal relationships, and almost 80% said it played a vital role in their career and financial decisions.

And intuition is not magic. Research has repeatedly shown that it is often valid. Moreover, practicing meditation and once relaxed repeating a word or phrase over and over again in order to clear the mind of other thoughts, stimulates intuition in the medium term.

“ What appears to be intuition is actually an experience in the area, a pattern that somehow the body and brain have already detected and you have not consciously seen. People with bad luck often do not follow their intuition, since they do not know where it comes from and they feel anxious about it and the decision they must make, ”Wiseman.

Wait for good fortune

It’s that simple, you have to be optimistic. We will be more likely to try new things, take opportunities, and succeed if we believe that everything will work out. The magic is that when we think things will turn out well, we persevere. And when we are resilient, we provide more possibilities that work in our favor.

And although it may sound naive, it turns out that while pessimists see the world more accurately, optimists are more likely to be lucky because their “delusions” or “self-delusions” push them towards new opportunities.

Whether through amulets or just a lot of optimism, the truth is that in this way we increase our self-confidence which, in turn, fosters a life full of beautiful coincidences.

So being a little delusional can help us, because overconfidence increases productivity, positively biases us, decreases stress and increases tolerance to pain, while improving teamwork. But what happens when things still go wrong? What should we do when we are acting properly, but bad luck still hits us in the face?

Lucky people aren’t always lucky, but they handle adversity differently than people who attract bad luck and see the positive side to the situation. Especially because these people are convinced that any stumbling block in their life will bring something better in the long run, and consequently they take constructive steps to avoid further bad luck in the future. So in the face of disappointment we must not give up a new future or lock ourselves at home because that is not going to help us.

“ When the going gets tough we have two options: give in or move on. Lucky people are tough. I remember talking to a person who had fallen down the stairs and broke his leg. I said, I bet you don’t consider yourself so lucky now; however, he said that on his last visit to the hospital he met a nurse and they fell in love. Now the two are happily married. He just said, “It was the best thing that ever happened to me,” Wiseman said.

In his opinion, only 10% of our existence is random, the remaining 90% is defined by how we deal with what happens to us. So this is good news. If we want to be luckier, we have to start with ourselves, with thinking in a kinder way.