Why Am I So Unlucky?! Actually, It’s Astonishing

Do you keep asking yourself why you’re unlucky?

• Are you unlucky with money? 
• Betting on sports teams and losing?
• Unlucky in love?

Listen: Forget what you’ve heard about luck. It isn’t something that only happens for certain people. You can create your own luck using the power of your mind.  

Being lucky is the skill of being able to see the positive opportunities in your life and then acting on them. If you become good at spotting opportunities, you will naturally find opportune moments. And the best way to do that is to have more hope.

One reason people think they are unlucky is that they are simply not aware of all the positives in their life. They don’t count their blessings. They focus more on the negatives in their lives than all the positives. One of the best ways to change that is to develop your gratitude. 

Negative thoughts will also make you feel unlucky. Negative thoughts will create negative beliefs, such as the belief that you are unlucky. The best way to change this is to positive thinking techniques. 

Think you’re unlucky?

Whether you are very unlucky or the most fortunate person ever, your mind is creating that reality.

We are made to believe that some people have good fortune and others don’t. And if you’re the latter, you probably curse yourself and wonder why.

But the reality of the situation is that good fortune is actually a way of thinking, a state of mind, an attitude. And you can train your mind to increase your luck.

Consider these examples:

• If someone happens to be out for a walk when at their feet they feel a scratch, whereupon they bend over and inspect the grass to find a ten-pound note; it’s a fluke, right?  
• A friend goes for a coffee alone one day and happens to see an attractive member of the opposite sex sitting by themselves too, whereupon the two hit it off.  They’re fortunate, right?.
• If someone happens to overhear that there’s a new job opportunity that needs filling immediately and they end up getting it just because they were there; they’re lucky, right?
• If someone happens to have left the stove on and they smell gas just before lighting a cigarette and killing themselves; they’re lucky, right?

These are just a few typical examples of ways in which people might be fortunate. Take a look at them again. Go ahead. Tell me what you notice about those incidents. 

In all of these “lucky incidents,” someone found something. And how do you find something? You’ve got to have your eyes open. You’ve got to be mindful of what’s going on.

What is luck, really? It is the ability to perceive positive opportunities in your life, which just so happens to be about the same definition as hope.

Here’s the deal: If you want to change your luck, learn to be a more hopeful person.

The reality about your misfortune

I’m about to give you some objective criticism that you probably need to hear. Honestly, some of the following might sound insulting, but I say it more in a sense of tough-love because you need to hear it. 

The only reason you think you’re unlucky is that you have a negative attitude.  

I know, I know, you think you’re cursed! Doomed! A witch put a spell on you that cursed your luck!  But think about it.

You think you’re unlucky right? So, you must think your life sucks. So, you must not be very grateful for what you have. And thereby, no offence, you’re being negative.

Be grateful

If you were a more grateful person you would focus on the good things that have happened to you in your life and you would feel luckier.

When you are grateful you are more aware of your blessings, and when you are more aware of your blessings you feel more fortunate. Feeling more fortunate will then attract more fortune. That’s why you should seriously consider taking steps to become more grateful.

The other reason is that you’re jealous.

Sorry. I totally understand if you hate me for saying this. But you’re jealous.

You’re salty about other people’s good fortune. Just plain salty .Yep. Total green-eyed monster going on inside of you.

If you think you are unlucky, you must logically be comparing yourself to other people. And you must, logically, think other people are more fortunate than you. But really, when you say, “They’re lucky,” you mean, “I wish that had happened to me.” Right?

Do you know what happens every time you think like that? You actually stop yourself from developing.

Think about it. You see someone else’s success. You downplay it. You think, “They’re just born blessed”. Never mind if they actually deserved to get what they got. You’re salty. And you demand that it was just good fortune.

Because you demand it was just luck, you say to yourself, “I could have what they have if I were lucky”. And then you stop yourself from doing the thing that would bring you good fortune. Because, hell, why would you work your butt off for something if you could get the same thing through pure luck, which this other person did (even though they didn’t, you just think they did)?

That kinda jealousy is going to mess you up.

So let’s get this straight.

There’s no such thing as luck!

With the exception of lottery tickets and certain gambles that are deliberately set-up to be pure luck, luck in life comes down to becoming aware of something.

Go back to those examples above of the four incidents of “Good fortune”. Notice how in all of them, the person had to notice the opportunity. 

We feel the ten-pound note, see the attractive person, hear the job opportunity, and smell the gas. If we are lucky, we keep becoming aware of good things. But if we’re negative then we keep coming across the bad things instead. Why? Because just by believing that you are unlucky you will look for things that confirm that belief.

Confirmation Bias

Confirmation Bias is the theory that we act in ways that confirm our beliefs, even when those beliefs are negative (this is why some people continually enter bad relationships because they believe they will). You can read more about this on Wikipedia.

If you believe you are unlucky you will act in ways that support that belief. 

So how do you change that?

1. Start by changing your beliefs.
2. Stop doing things that confirm your negative belief.

That second point was a little confusing. I should write that better. So here goes.

How to stop being unlucky

1. When you are doing something negative, stop.
2. Ask yourself, “Does this make me feel like I am unlucky?
3. If yes, tell yourself “I am doing this because I think I am unlucky”
4. Stop the action. Ask yourself, “If I believed I were lucky, what would I do then?”
5. Do that thing.
6. Do this routinely and you will start to train your mind that you are lucky, and then you will act in positive ways that bring positive results.
7. If you think this will be challenging for you, try practising mindfulness meditation. It will slow you down and help you to achieve the points above.
8. If you still think “This is dumb. I will always be unlucky” do yourself a favour. Realise that you could use a little more optimism and hope.
9. You can also recite good-luck mantras.

Practice being observant

The central ingredient in every lucky incident is this: a person becomes aware of something good. We find the ten-pound note. We see the hot girl. We overhear the opportunity. We smell the gas. Yet rather than saying that the people in these examples have good observational skills, most people would say they were lucky. Why?

The answer is that most people believe that these moments of good fortune don’t exist for them. “Oh, I wish I could have felt money at my foot,”—the average person says—”you must be lucky.” But the odds are that we have all most likely walked right past money—whether it be real physical money or the opportunity to make money—we simply didn’t see it.

Stop asking why you’re unlucky

If we are to be lucky, we must be good at finding, discovering, and spotting. To experience moments of good fortune we have to be aware of them, and to be aware of them, we need to spend less time obsessing over our thoughts and a lot more time focusing on the world outside ourselves.

We need to take our focus away from thoughts like “they’re lucky and I’m not” and we need to put that focus where it belongs, on our senses and on the world outside ourselves, a world where opportunity and luck sit right now, waiting for our open eyes.