(AD)JUST YOUR LUCK
I've been deep in preparations for my online event, (Ad)just Your Luck - A Guided Hypnosis To Cultivate A Life Of Opportunity. With so much uncertainty in the world, I'm thrilled to offer a hypnosis event that can help people see opportunities everywhere they go, by transforming themselves into their own lucky charm.
That said, let's talk about "luck."
A lot of people bristle at the word. Maybe you do, too?
Some love the idea:
"Luck sounds great! Good things just happen to you!"
But I used to have a complicated relationship with it. I used to ask myself:
“Why do some people get ‘luck’ while others don’t?”
And, “If luck can be both good or bad, to avoid getting struck by lightning, do I have to specify, ‘I want to be lucky but… only in the good way’”?
Some see narrowly avoided disasters as “lucky” experiences:
“My purse didn’t get stolen today. My cat didn’t die. No piano fell on my head.”
That’s not the kind of luck I, personally, crave, but if it makes them feel lucky, who am I to argue?
I've always been able to find four-leaf clovers. It’s apparently a 1-in-10,000 find. But for me, it isn’t difficult. When you’ve picked hundreds of them, it doesn’t exactly feel like a moment of sheer chance when you find one. But knowing how rare they are, I still love finding them. The enjoyment of experiencing that rarity, is now a frequent delight for me.
Does spotting hundreds of 1-in-10,000 finds mean I’m extra lucky? Perhaps…
Maybe it’s lucky to have natural patience that is required to find so many.
Maybe it’s lucky that I have spent time practicing noticing.
Maybe it’s lucky that getting lost in the green, and feeling my brainwaves shift when I pause has been rewarding enough for me, that it’s now second nature for me to want to seek them out.
If, for me, “luckiness” is the treasure at the end of patience, noticing, openness, and getting into a flow state... might it be the same for you?
Either way you answer that question, it's clear that luck is not entirely all about chance. It can be, but it can also be something we intentionally usher in through our mindset, perspective, and actions.
Certainly, if I wanted more four leaf clovers, I could also plant some seeds for them and water them. In a very similar way, we actually plant and water seeds for opportunities all the time.
All these thoughts about luck led me to a fascinating exploration by Derren Brown, the British stage hypnotist and psychological illusionist. In an episode of his TV show called "The Power of Luck," he explores:
Luck as a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy – Seeing yourself as lucky fosters optimism, risk-taking, and opportunity-awareness. (In other words: if you think you're lucky, you are more likely to end up that way than if you think you aren't.)
The Power of Openness – People who consider themselves lucky tend to be more relaxed, open, and curious.
The Power of Expectation – Expecting good outcomes shifts behavior to create them.
The Power of Attention – Being mindful of things others might overlook can lead to noticing details and opportunities others miss that can lead to seemingly "lucky" events.
The Power of Perspective – Changing how you view circumstance—even challenges—can reveal new opportunities.
Chance is Real, but Choice Matters – Random events happen, but how we choose to walk through life also impacts our luckiness.
Luck is Action-Oriented – People who take initiative generally feel like they have better luck.
This show got me curious if I could change my relationship with luck.
In 2023, I started a "Lucky Thing of the Day" jar. Every day, I wrote down one lucky moment. At first, I had a sting of incredibly cool chance-happenings! Quickly, however, I felt an internal battle… surely not all the things I wrote down everyday were "significant enough" to warrant jar space, were they? Doubts naturally arose about the whole experiment, on various fronts, but I always reviewed the lucky things at the end of each week and eventually, I had gathered up a whole jar of experiences I felt I could honestly call "lucky things." They varied in shape and size…
"Finally! An awesome solution to one of my problems struck me out of nowhere."
"A hero I hadn’t spoken to in years reached out the same day I thought of him."
"I found something in my overstuffed purse on the first try!"
"I was offered a FREE Hammond organ."
Although "luck" still felt like a bit of an elusive word at the end of the year, I did start to detect some themes about how these lucky things felt, and in fact still feels to me. This made it easier to realize when I was having an experience of luck from day to day.
For me, when luck happens, it feels like lightness, ease, connection, synchronicity, delight, spontaneity, gratitude and celebration! Just like my four-leaf-clovers, the more I looked around for lucky things, with the tool of being able to recognize it by these feeling, the more I was able to find them
Because luck isn't just something that happens to you. It’s something you notice, make space for, and cultivate.
And if, wherever you go, something lucky happens to you, then eventually there's no denying that maybe you are your own lucky charm.
So, what about you? What does luck feel like to you?
Can you recall a moment today—an encounter, an idea, a solution, an opportunity—that checked the box on some of those feelings? What was your lucky thing of the day?
Click here to revolutionize your relationship to LUCK, by signing up to attend the powerful group hypnosis session on Zoom for free, on March 18, 2025.
Hope to see you there!
~ Gwen
