I’m sure that you have or have had someone in your life that seemingly everything just works out perfectly for…
Amazing opportunities, great relationships, a solid career and the list goes on and so what we’re going to be covering in this short article is, how to be(come) that person!
The traditional definition of luck is, ‘success or failure apparently brought by chance rather than through one’s own actions’ and the example that the google machine gives is, ‘it was just luck that the first kick went in.’
This is really interesting because the definition uses the word ‘apparently.’ Success or failure apparently brought by chance rather than through one’s own actions and so, it’s almost as if the definition doesn’t even believe in itself!
Also, the example of ‘it was just luck that the first kick went in’ implies that one’s own actions do matter because if you don’t kick the ball, there’s absolutely zero chance of it going in…
Furthermore, how you kick the ball clearly matters as well because if you kick it too softly, it won’t even make it to the net and if ya kick it too hard it might go over the net…so, what the heck is luck!? It’s really a fascinating question, for example…
Are certain sports teams luckier than others?
Why is that Tom Brady wins so much?
Why did Michael Jordan score so many points?
Why is Serena Williams the best female tennis player in history?
Are certain individuals really luckier than others?
I have good news, luck is created!!
You create the luck in your life and I’m going to outline exactly how to quote unquote ‘turn your luck around’ via 3 simple steps. I would consider myself to be a ‘lucky person,’ however in the past I wouldn’t have considered myself ‘lucky’ in the slightest…what changed!? Let’s dig in!
The first and most important step is to start bringing your awareness to 2 things, your thoughts and your language, so your internal dialogue and your external dialogue because they are going to be the easiest ‘tells’ as far as what sort of luck that you’re creating right now, for example…
When something doesn’t go the way that someone expected it to or would have preferred it to, I’m sure that you’ve heard folks say things like, ‘oh, just my luck’…they believe that they’re unlucky because their language shows you that they expected the exact outcome that they got!
So when it comes to your thoughts and your language, start paying closer attention to what you’re thinking or essentially expecting and what you’re saying because we are creating our reality via first and foremost our thoughts.
We’re all super creative, but the kicker is that we can create anything that we want…we can create abundance or lack, they’re both classified under the creating category, however having personal experience creating both at different times in my life, I can say that abundance is a far more enjoyable place to sit!
So, step number 1 is to start to become more aware of what you are thinking and what you are saying because these 2 things will let you know exactly where you’re at with this right now…and as you bring more awareness to your thoughts and your language, you’re going to catch yourself in certain situations thinking or saying things that might surprise you, for example…
You may become aware of some really destructive thought patterns that may have served you at one point, but aren’t anymore…I experience this all the time, I catch myself thinking in certain ways that just don’t align with my current perspective anymore and the coolest thing about bringing awareness to this is that awareness provides the opportunity for change!
On the contrary…if I’m not paying attention, I’m simply running around on autopilot, I’m running a generic computer program that I may have installed when I was 12 years old…it’s probably time for software update right!?
Step number 2 is to take action on specifically what you want to create, for example…if I want to lose fat and get healthier, it’s required that I take action via primarily improving my nutrition.
One thing that I want to make abundantly clear here is that we’re not talking about blind manifestation where some folks believe that they can just think themselves to the result that they want…we obviously need to put in the work as well, that’s a requirement of the creation process.
So, you could choose one aspect of your nutrition that you’d like to improve and simply do it consistently. Let’s say that it’s breakfast, you can commit to eating a healthful breakfast everyday this coming week, boom!
Now, if that feels too small because perhaps you prefer to create bigger change all at once vs. smaller changes more gradually, you can increase that to say 2 meals per day or even 3…you can commit to eating nothing but single ingredient whole foods for 7 days straight if you want to…the options are endless!
Personally, I do far better with bigger changes vs. smaller more gradual changes, neither one is better than the other, they’re just different ways to go about getting what you want and I’d encourage you to honour your tendency, for example…
When we’re talking about nutrition, moderation, which would fall under the smaller more gradual change category is put up on a pedestal as if it’s the ‘right’ way to interact with food and the truth is, a lot of folks just do better with bigger more sudden changes and these folks are called abstainers…I absolutely lean towards the abstainer end of things.
The reason why moderation is looked at as the ‘right’ relationship with food is because over 90% of dieticians and nutritionists are moderators and so they’ve assumed that their way is the only way and I’m telling you via personal experience as well as with plenty of my clients, some folks are moderators and some folks are abstainers…both exist, neither is right or wrong, it’s just a matter of what approach is better fit for you, so…know thyself!
If you’re unsure as where you stand with this, check out Gretchin Ruben’s work because she’s got some great stuff around these terms and she has a few articles and short little tests on her website that can help you identify your tendency.
So, we’re examining our thoughts and language and we’re also taking consistent action and step number 3 is to now expect the result that you’re after because you’re earning it, you’re quite literally changing your ‘luck!’ You’re kicking the ball and not just in a haphazard way, in a very specific and targeted way so that it can go in the net…but, if ya don’t take the shot, it can’t go in! Also…
The reason why expectation is important is because we we want to flip the ‘oh, just my luck’ perspective on its head and actually create the expectation that things are going to work out in our favour, that life happens for us not to us!
Now, step number 3 can be a bit of a tricky thing just because our expectations can often be fairly…ambitious, I’ll put it that way haha!
Essentially, it’s easy to expect a far greater return than what we’re actually putting in however, the amazing thing about life is that you get what you put in…it’s so simple that way, I love it, for example…
If I put 60% effort into my nutrition and lifestyle, I’m going to get a 60% return.
If I put 90% effort into my nutrition and lifestyle, I’m going to get a 90% return and my results will be 30% better than if I were to put in 60%.
The beautiful thing about the body specifically is that it never lies…our minds can play tricks, they can justify, they can rationalize, they can feel entitled, they can avoid but the body, the body tells us the truth only always…
If someone is 100 lbs overweight and they tell you that all that they eat are salads…well, you know that they’re not being transparent because their body is telling a completely different story.
If someone tells you that they’re super confident public speaking and then they hop up on stage and you see that they’re flushed, sweating like crazy and stumbling over their words…well, they’re clearly not all that comfortable speaking in public just yet.
The body is like truth serum and it can teach us so much about where we’re at right now, in the present moment and so your body will tell you whether your effort and your expectations are congruent because they always are…and the only caveat here is that what you’re doing are the correct things, for example…
You could potentially put a bunch of effort into losing fat via exercising like crazy and not getting much of any results because in order to lose fat, you need to dial in your nutrition, which is the correct way to go about achieving fat loss.
Having said that, even in this instance someone could argue that there is still a lack of effort on this persons part because clearly there isn’t enough effort being applied to research and making sure that this individuals nutrition is sorted…a ton of effort in the exercise category, but obviously not enough in the nutrition realm, but that aside…
The key take home on the expectation front is that we get what we put in. My clients get amazing results because they put in the work, plain and simple…
I handle the correctness of our approach, but they are the ones that implement from an action standpoint and their results reflect those correct actions. Also, when I say correct I don’t mean morally good or bad, I mean correct as in there is absolutely a way to go about achieving fat loss and there are a million and one ways to go about NOT getting fat loss results.
A few things to keep in mind when looking at others because it’s really easy to get into the comparison game, for example…
Circling back to that ‘lucky’ person with seemingly all the opportunities, great relationships, awesome career and the list goes on…what we’re seeing is only a snapshot…
If we look at Jeff Bezos right now, it’s easy to think…109 billion dollars, man, he’s so lucky, but if you do a little bit of digging you’ll find a picture of Bezos in his original amazon office and it’s literally a run-down dark square box with amazon.com spray-painted on a piece paper that’s stuck to the wall in the blue ink!
No matter what your personal opinion happens to be of Bezos and Amazon as a company, his success is not chance…it’s 80, 100, 120+ hour work weeks not for days or weeks at a time, for years and decades at a time.
The harder we work, the luckier we get and the kicker is…you are the only person that sees all of the work that you put in and you don’t see very much of any of the work that other folks put in and so, if you find yourself falling into the comparison game…just know that you don’t know how much work someone else has put in because how could you…? You’re not with anyone 24/7, 365 other than yourself…
Step #1 – Bring your awareness to your thoughts and language.
Step #2 – Take consistent action.
Step #3 – Expect the result that you want.
You can have a ton of fun with step #3…you can even visualize your result, you can talk about it as if it’s already happened, you can say things like ‘when I get fit and healthy I’m going to buy an ‘x’ sized waisted pant and it’s gonna fit perfectly!’
You can get as creative as you’d like with this and most importantly…
You create your luck :)
