“Luck is like the Tour de France. You wait, and it flashes past you. You have to catch it while you can.”

–from the film Amelie

Luck is certainly fleeting. Some people tend to have more luck than others, and sometimes it seems luck is absolutely unattainable by certain people.  The good news is we can all be lucky in life.  Because even though luck would have us believe it is a mystical, mysterious thing, it is actually something that has the potential to come into fruition if we choose to live our lives in a particular way. Here are nine ideas on how to welcome more luck into you life.

1. Adjust Your Mindset

Recently on the blog The Daily Love, Mastin Kipp shared insights that Tony Robbins revealed at his recent seminar.  One of the statistics was that in today’s culture, an overwhelming 63% of people do not see their futures getting any brighter.  63%!  The purpose of bringing up this statistic is to prove that if we don’t believe things will improve, we have shut off the engine that will make it possible for things to reform themselves.  Our minds, as I’ve stated in the past, are amazing tools that can help us to live a live that is bliss-filled or humdrum.  We determine the path by what we believe and seek out.

2. Be Open, Less Specific

Part of the reason many people deem themselves unlucky is that they approach every situation searching for a specific outcome, for example: attending a wedding in hopes of find their future mate, going shopping the day before the event looking for a very specific outfit or having a dinner party with the conversation already mapped out in your mind.  None of these scenarios offers room to wiggle.  By searching for only one thing, beautiful moments, memories and opportunities are missed.  Some call it luck when those who are open discover new friends, a fabulous new accessories or memorable conversation, but really it is the ability to be open to whatever life has to offer.

3. Be Willing to Leap

If we want change in our lives, if we want something different, we must stop approaching life in the same manner as we have up until this particular point.  “If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always gotten.” We tend to forget that we are here on this earth for a minute amount of time. If an opportunity presents itself, whether it be at work, in love, or in any aspect of life, take the leap.  From past experience, I can say I honestly regret those things I didn’t do ten times more than those things I chose to try that didn’t work out.

4. Believe in Possibilities

Similar to adjusting your mindset, in order for anything magical, wonderful and unbelievable to happen in your life, it must first begin with the hope of it happening. While there will be times that it won’t work out as you had hoped, it will never have a chance to work out if you don’t at least take off the training wheels.

5. Put Forth the Effort

And to that same effect, if it doesn’t work out the first time, it doesn’t mean it won’t work out the next time.  Keep trying, keep searching.  If you want something badly and passionately enough, life has a way of rewarding your efforts. Anything in life worth achieving and savoring will require all that you have.  It will test you. It will make you believe you can’t have what you desire, but remember, it is simply trying to determine how badly you want what you say you want.

6. Hone Your Instincts

With each situation in life you gain experience.  In each of these instances it is up to us to absorb the insight and take that knowledge with us to the next experience.  By practicing this, whether you are questioning the reason for something happening, you are honing your instincts.  A revelation with life that continues to impress me is how many aha moments I have now regarding events that occurred in the past that made absolutely no sense at the time.  While it is true, some lessons never reveal themselves, more times than not, they do eventually  if you’ve cataloged what occurred in your memory. So while in your twenties you weren’t sure why a particular dating experience took place, trust me, there will be that moment down the road when you are thankful that it did occur, because it will prompt you to make a better decision later in life.

7. Respect Karma

Regardless of what religion you adhere to or whether or not you are religious at all, in some form or another we all tend to receive what we put into this life.  Everyone will give in their own way, but it is important to put the sort of energy out into the world that you wish to be surrounded by.  Whether you choose to volunteer, help your neighbor, leave sweet notes for your significant other, work as a social worker, read to your grandchildren or care for animals, that is positive energy that helps perpetuate similar behaviors in others.

8. Be a Participant, Not a Spectator

Life requires participation.  In order to find luck, we must seek it out.  And by looking for it, we are required to do something and not just hope and wish that it will arrive.  Trust me, it won’t just arrive. On the off chance that it does, most people don’t know how to appreciate it because they haven’t put forth the effort to discover it and thus blindly toss it aside.  In other words, put down your fortune cookies, your horoscopes and go make your luck, be curious, give new ideas a shot and be willing to grow because as long as you are growing you will always be living fully.

9. Dismiss the Idea of Luck

What I hope you take away from today’s post is that luck, by definition (the chance happening of fortunate or adverse events), doesn’t exist.  Each one of us creates the luck that occurs in our own lives.  By choosing to live, to explore, to be an optimist and take chances, we make opportunities that outsiders perceive as luck.