20 expert tips on how to get lucky in life

How to be lucky and what you hope for

Perhaps you’ve heard it said: “You make your own luck.” But is that really true?

If it is, how do you attract good luck into your life if it is? What’s the secret?

Perhaps you searched “how to get lucky” because, feeling particularly unlucky, you’ve become even more aware of other people’s good luck. Maybe, things have happened to you, and you’re feeling overwhelmed and even depressed. Naturally, when you think the world is against you, you reach out for anything that could turn your fortunes around.

Life can be ever so tough and frequently deliver a ‘left-hooker’ out of nowhere. It can make you doubt you deserve anything in life at all. So, I understand you’re googling “how to be lucky”.

Unfortunately, you can’t quickly turn ‘bad’ luck into ‘good’ luck. But of course, I’m glad you’ve landed here. Let’s work together to help you get luckier than you feel right now.

Please note that this article is not for you if you’ve searched for: “How to get good luck fast or now.”. I totally get it, though, that if you’re going through hard times, you want luck to come your way now to rescue you out of whatever tricky or even disastrous situation you’re in!

Will luck increase your success and happiness?

Let’s look at why you want to attract more luck into your life.

Beyond perhaps hoping that luck will ensure you can provide for fundamental needs, do you think it would make you more successful?

Would it prevent heartache or hard work?

Would it even make you happier? 

You only need to read the headlines to realise that success does not necessarily make you happier. Lottery winners are often unhappy – they attract conflict and lose friends!

Of course, getting lucky – whatever that means to you – may contribute to your happiness.

However, words like ‘heartache’, ‘success’ and ‘happiness’ are what we call nominalisations. They can mean something entirely different for each of us. If only you could buy a bag of happiness or a pallet of success, you’d know what you’d get.

Let’s get a bit of context before talking about how to get lucky.

Do you need or deserve a bit of luck?

Maybe you feel you ‘deserve’ a bit of good luck.

But why do you think you’re deserving?

When and how does anyone become ‘entitled’ to some good fortune?

When completing this article, I happened to be listening to the audio version of Viktor Frankl’s book, ‘Man’s Search for Meaning’.

If anyone deserved a bit of luck, it was Frankl, psychiatrist, neurologist and brain surgeon in Austria before the second world war.

Yet, he wouldn’t have dreamt of searching for how to get lucky.

(The following doesn’t mean in any way I’m judging your need to be lucky, though.)

How lucky would you feel with a few peas scraped from the bottom of the pan?

This story illustrates just how relative luck is.

Nevertheless, it now matters only to me that I help you on your way to becoming luckier. So, let’s hunt down the nuggets of luck in your life and build on those.

What was your start in life?

What if your environment gave you little access to resources that could have nudged your chances of luck in the right direction?

What if you suffered from childhood adversity, such as abuse, discrimination and poverty?

People who grew up in an unsafe environment and lacked a decent education have all too often great difficulties trying to catch up. They frequently feel out of luck.

This study, for example, records how black men, in particular, find it hard to build stable relationships.

Nevertheless, among people with an adverse childhood background are those who shine like stars and transcend their early exposure to a less than desirable environment. Maybe they even shine because of it.

Lucky people?

Some people seem to sail through life without searching for how to get lucky and without a magic wand. They just seem happy and resilient regardless of their circumstances. They appear to attract luck into their life somehow.

If you were to know a little bit more about those people, you might find them not so lucky after all. 

For example, someone running a successful business with a fantastic income may have lost the love of their life while building that business.

People who consider themselves lucky are most likely running a different spiel in their minds – just like Victor Frankle.

It’s ultimately your perception that ‘makes’ someone – you – lucky. (That is assuming you can provide for life’s fundamental needs, at the very least!)

Let’s get cracking now with how you can get lucky.

Therefore, instead of focussing on how to be lucky, you’ll want to concentrate on how to attract positive energy. I have some ideas on how to do that!

How to leverage your chances of ‘having luck’

You already know there’s little you can do to turn your fortunes around immediately.

However, my 20 tips on how to be lucky can nudge you in the right direction.

How to bring luck into your life

Top tips to attract luck into your life

As fast as each opportunity presents itself, use it! No matter how tiny an opportunity it may be – use it.”
Robert Collier, success author 1885 – 1950

The Roman goddess of fortune – and fate – Fortuna (Tyche in Greek mythology) represented good and bad luck.
Why not invite Lady Luck’s pleasure by living your life in a way you’d be delighted to share with anyone, regardless of their status, age, gender, race, religion or political interests?
My top tips for encouraging Lady Luck’s goodwill might also help you to avoid feeling downtrodden by a string of bad luck. You’re less likely to be tempted to turn it into your ‘just deserts’. Instead, you’ll be living a life with purpose.

1. Remember: luck is an opportunity coming your way at the right time. Don’t let it pass you by.
2. Be proactive: plan for a life without luck so that when opportunities do come along, you don’t necessarily need them, being fine without them.
3. Count your blessings every day – you’ll find golden nuggets of luck among them.
4. Don’t complain about your lack of fortune – it’s unlikely that anything or anyone will ‘make’ you lucky. Self-pity attracts the wrong energy and people, so healthy opportunities pass you by.
5. Be honest with others. People always know or come to realise when you’re lying. Opportunities are more likely offered to those who are known, liked and trusted.
6. Be honest with yourself and accept your experiences in life – however challenging – as lessons in self-development.
7. Accept your own role in mishaps, missed opportunities, misfortunes and accidents instead of blaming others or the circumstances. There is no failure – only feedback. You may simply have been in the wrong place at the wrong time.
8. Celebrate other people’s luck or good fortune. Envy and jealousy are a waste of your energy. They don’t contribute anything positive to yourself or the world in general.
9. Refrain from speaking badly about anybody. Besides being ill-considered, rude, unkind and possibly untrue, you never know – that person may be your link to better days ahead.
10. Judge every opportunity for its integrity. If you accept those that are sound, you’ll sleep soundly without feelings of guilt or worries of being ‘found out’.
11. Don’t wait for good fortune to come by – it’ll arrive out of the blue.
12. Be optimistic – people shy away from negativity. Pessimism may help you make friends, but those people are unlikely to help you attract luck into your life.
13. Life will throw challenges at you. Don’t waste your energy worrying about it – know that you’re much stronger and more resilient than you think you are!
14. Don’t become someone who tots up everything that goes wrong and peppers conversations with: “Now this has happened and now that has happened”. Your filter will become corrupted with a negative bias, and doubtless, it won’t help you get lucky.
15. In all your dealings, ask yourself: if there was a hidden camera or microphone, would I be happy for my behaviour to be broadcast? Am I contented with how I felt, thought and behaved?
16. Genuinely healthy opportunities are offered to those who work hard, smart and with integrity. Nothing in this world will bring good luck when you demand it.
17. Be yourself. People will know when you’re faking it. Know that you’re as unique as any star in the night sky – there is no one like you on this earth!
18. Scatter a bit of kindness. There’s enough trouble in the world, and people will remember you for being kind – they will remember how you made them feel. (That doesn’t mean you mustn’t assert yourself when the need arises!)
19. Take a calculated risk occasionally. If, all things considered, you remain unsure whether an opportunity is worthwhile pursuing: go for it! Just be sure to cut your losses in time if it doesn’t work out.
20. Read The Luck Factor – a scientific study of the lucky mind by Robert Wiseman in which he teaches people to be lucky.

Let’s talk about your marriage or relationship now. That is if you are so fortunate to live your life next to a loved one.

Your relationship or marriage and luck

It would be all too easy for you both to think that life’s luck is passing you by.

So…

• Are you or your partner envious or even jealous of the other’s good fortune or lucky breaks?
• Does either of you feel resentful of the other’s successes?
• When something goes particularly well for you, does your partner suddenly become needy, or do they try to compete? Or vice versa?
• If one of you is being successful, does that make the other feel insecure?

As a team, you can double your opportunities to create some luck!

Instead of focusing on each other’s shortcomings or your own, learn to harness your collective strengths and celebrate your successes – even your most minor wins.

To help you become a stronger couple, read my article 24 healthy relationship tips, or if you’re having relationship issues, hop over to my page with 25 common relationship problems.

Curiosity and focusing on strength are a much better use of your energy than envy and jealousy!

How to get lucky in life

Finally

I’m sure you already knew there’s no magic spell for bringing luck into your life.

How about reframing luck into positive energy? There’s much you can do to create and use opportunities to bring positive energy to your life – no matter how small your start.

I wish you the very best of luck. As a therapist, I know you’ve got what it takes. Go for it!