Shine With Grace

Have you ever wondered why some people always appear to be luckier than others, they always appear in the right place at the right time, bump into people and situations that turn out to be of enormous help to them, and even win the lottery more often…

They operate like a lucky magnet that attract great opportunities and interesting people wherever they go!

Any secret behind?  Psychologist Prof. Richard Wiseman discovers that the lucky magnets share a couple of similarities:

1. Lucky people are good at maximising their chance opportunities. Consciously or unconsciously, they: 

• Exhibit the types of body language and facial expressions that other people find attractive and inviting, which include:
  • Smiling more. (twice as much as the ”unlucky people” involved in the research in Prof. Wiseman’s study.)
  • Engaging in far more eye contact.
  • Exhibiting “open” body language (three times as much as the unlucky”), e.g. pointing their bodies towards the person that they are speaking to, uncross their arms and legs, displaying open palms etc.
• Tend to initiate conversations with lots of people.
• Are effective at building secure, and long lasting attachments with the people like them. 
• Are trusting and usually form close friendships with others. 
• Are more sociable and belong to the extrovert personality type.
• Hold a more relaxed attitude towards life - being less anxious, they are more able to notice chance opportunities, even though they aren’t consciously looking for one.  (Maybe that’s why they even spot money on the street more often!!)
• Are more open to new experiences in their life.  

The more people they attract, connect with and build relationship with, the greater probability they have a chance encounter… 

2. Lucky people listen to their gut feelings and hunches.  They even take steps to boost their intuition.

• In Prof. Wiseman’s experiment, 90% of lucky people trusted their intuition in regard to their relationships and 80% on career choices.
• 20% more lucky than unlucky people used their intuition on important financial decisions / career choices.
• Unlucky people nevertheless tend to ignore their gut feelings.

Why lucky people’s gut feelings seem to be more accurate / reliable?  It’s the unconscious at work - for our unconscious mind has the remarkable ability to detect patterns.

3. Lucky people always expect good fortune.  They tend to:

• Expect their good luck to continue in the future.
• Attempt to achieve their goals, even if their chances of success seem slim.
• Presist in the face of failure.
• Expect their interactions with others to be lucky and successful.

Beware of the self-fulfilling prophecies - for our expectations affect how we think, feel and act -  and therefore the outcome.  We can’t win if we don’t enter the game, right?  Therefore, don’t give up before you begin; and persist despite set-back - sometimes it’s the one last step that complete the whole picture.

4. Lucky people are able to transform their bad luck into good fortune. It is because they usually:

• See the positive side of their bad luck.
• Are convinced that any ill fortune in their life will in the long run work out for the best.
• Do not dwell on their ill fortune.
• Take constructive steps to prevent more bad luck in the future.

Is your glass half full or half empty?  It’s really bad or it could be worse?  Anyhow avoid the downward spiral.  Instead of coming up reason after reason why you failed, think about lateral ways around the problem and you may discover a whole new world. 

So now you know why. 

Then, how to become luckier?  Tomorrow let’s do some luck-boosting exercises.

Good reads:

• The Luck Factor
• Did You Spot The Gorilla?
• Quirkology

Related posts:

• Be An Attractive Person
• I Just Pretend I Don’t Care
• How Lucky Are You? - Take A Test
• How Lucky Are You? - We Make Our Own Luck
• Did You Spot The Gorilla

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