Why are some people lucky? They land the perfect job, meet their ideal partner and achieve their ambitions. Their success is due not to exceptional intelligence, talent or hard work, but to an uncanny ability to be in the right place at the right time — and they always get the lucky breaks.
Richard Wiseman, a professor of the public understanding of psychology at the University of Hertfordshire, was so intrigued by luck that he decided to investigate it scientifically. After doing experiments with hundreds of very lucky and unlucky people, he claims to have discovered four basic principles (see panel, right) that lucky people unconsciously use to create good fortune. He claims that these can be used by all of us to enhance good luck in our lives.
On the brink of a career change from journalist to craniosacral therapist, I decided to give Professor Wiseman’s principles a go and put myself through “luck school” for a month, as instructed in his book The Luck Factor. First I completed exercises to determine my rating — low, medium or high — in relation to the four luck principles. I scored medium on “Listening to lucky hunches” and “Turning bad luck to good”, and low on “Maximising my chance opportunites” and “Expecting good fortune”. I decided to concentrate on the low-scoring areas.
“Maximising chance opportunities” states that lucky people have a larger than average number of contacts. Professor Wiseman asks volunteers to class themselves as lucky, neutral or unlucky, then presents them with a list of 15 common British surnames to tick if you are on first-name terms with at least one person with that surname. Almost 50 per cent of lucky people ticked more than 8, compared to 35 per cent who were neutral and only 25 per cent of unlucky people. A striking demonstration of the link between luck and social connectedness.
My score was 7. To improve this Professor Wiseman suggests striking up conversations with people you don’t know well as often as possible. The lucky do this with ease but most people find it hard. Professor Wiseman suggests chatting to people in the bus queue; in London, sadly, only fruitcakes do this. Instead, I looked for local volunteer groups and joined a fundraiser for a museum and a gardening group. I have met friendly new people, so my “network of luck” is starting to shape up.
The next principle I need to work on is “Expecting good fortune”. But my scores were contradictory on the exercises in this section. I scored low on the general premise that “I expect good things to happen to me in the future” — I expect the worst, as a sort of insurance, so I’m prepared just in case. But when confronted in a questionnaire about specific negative events — getting mugged, suffering depression, — my score, 10 out of 100, indicates that I am ravingly optimistic. So I have to knock my “insurance” worrying on the head.
To bolster expectations of good fortune, Professor Wiseman suggests that you intone aloud daily the mantra: “I am a lucky person; I can be luckier in the future. I deserve and will experience good fortune today.” I tried focusing the mantra on my train delays, as the resulting filthy mood is unconducive to expecting good fortune. It hasn’t made them run on time, but using another exercise, “Thinking differently about bad luck”, I see the delay as meditation time, which lessens murderous feelings.
Lucky people are open to new experiences, so luck school suggests trying new things. I started by attempting a risotto. I can wreck the kitchen to emerge with a burnt fried egg, so this could have been nasty. But it turned out perfectly. Next, a bigger challenge: try to sell some paintings. I paint as a hobby so I took some to a local art shop and as I was unpacking them a property developer walked in, bought two and commissioned two in the same style. After this I became fearless and now have paintings for sale in several shops. Also a friend who saw my “commissons” in progress asked me to donate a painting to a charity art auction at the homoeopathic hospital where she works. Another friend I hadn’t spoken to for months rang and mentioned that I should submit work to a selling exhibition held locally in the summer, and with my new positive attitude, I’ll give it a go.
For a few months I’d been e-mailing hospitals to set up voluntary craniosacral therapy sessions to get experience and myself known as a practitioner, to no avail. Buoyed by my success with the paintings, I decided to go along in person. I tracked down the complementary co-ordinator at a local hospital but she couldn’t offer space. However, a patient overheard my query. She worked in the voluntary sector and gave me the number of the manager of a natural health clinic attached to an NHS hospital. I contacted him and was offered a regular voluntary clinic starting the next week. A couple of days later I got a call from my first client. Feeling invincible, I bought a lottery ticket — I didn’t win.
My next target was regular freelance journalism to support me while building my practice. So I visualised — something lucky people do — having work for two days a week. A few weeks later I got a call offering a flexible number of days each week, spookily perfect — it fell through. But lucky people don’t dwell on bad fortune, they take action. So I e-mailed a company where I freelance to ask about doing a clinic for stressed-out employees and it is interested.
At the end of my experiment I have taken on board the premise that lucky people create luck by their own efforts. Having had to think about my attitude every day and “reset” myself when I slide from positive is helping me into what I hope will become a self-fulfilling cycle; that the more I believe, the more I’ll strive for goals and the luckier I’m likely to be.
The Luck Factor, by Richard Wiseman (Arrow, £6.99). For information on craniosacral therapy, visit www.rosemaryduffy.co.uk; or call her on 020-8699 2905
Go ahead, make your day
Richard Wiseman, a professor of the public understanding of psychology at the University of Hertfordshire, claims to have discovered four basic principles of luck, and 80 per cent of people who attended “luck school” at his research unit for a month said that their luck had increased, on average, by more than 40 per cent. Apply the principles to your life for a month, he says, and you’ ll start to think and act like a lucky person.
Principle one: maximise chance opportunities
Lucky people create, and act on, chance opportunities. Network (talk to people you don’t know, for example, in the supermarket queue). Be open to new experiences and write down six new things to try (a new food, a visit to the zoo) that are achievable in a month.
Principle two: listen to your lucky hunches
Lucky people make effective decisions by listening to their intuition which they boost by, for example, meditating.
Principle three: expect good fortune
Lucky people are certain that the future will be full of good fortune. These expectations become self-fulfilling prophecies by helping lucky people to persist in the face of failure. For the test period, assume that every day will be a good one and everything you do will turn out for the best.
Principle four: turn bad luck into good
When lucky people have ill fortune, they don’t dwell on it and they take control of the situation. If something goes wrong, ask how you can learn/benefit from it.
