“When a man is willing and eager, the gods join in.”- Aeschylus
Besides the quote above from a noted Greek philosopher, one of my other favorites is “The harder I work, the more lucky I get.” They both basically say the same thing: the universe will conspire to assist you when it notices that you have taken your destiny into your own hands.
Practically every belief system on earth believes in this principle. Ever heard anybody say “God helps those who help themselves”? Same thing.
A lot of it also comes down to a relationships between timing and preparation. There is a constant and steady flow of opportunity all around you. It has always been and will always be. To a large degree, success comes to those who are ready and prepared for it when it comes there way.
If you would look into your own past, I’m sure that you will remember times when amazing opportunities were literally at your doorstep. Yet, you could not take advantage of them because you were not prepared with what was needed to participate. Either you lacked money, time, information, or some other resource.
The more diligently you work on one focused area of achievement you will set in motion a process of becoming more and more prepared to be able to take advantage of opportunities that will present themselves in the area of achievement that you are working in.
It can be so easy to see very successful people as “luck” when looking from the outside on the inside. The truth is that so often what appears to be luck is often years and sometimes decades of earnest hard work and relentless dedication. It is indeed that working hard that brings about the “luck” in your life because you are preparing yourself for future opportunities and also (hopefully) making yourself invaluable in the present one.
So, you want more “luck”? Or if you don’t believe in luck, are you looking more favor? Then get to work! To your pleasant surprise, you may look up one day to discover that someone besides just you has also joined in to help you achieve what you are after.
Luck Is Everywhere – Are You Identifying and Utilising Yours?
Success is a becoming; it is never something you can successfully pursue. Are you satisfied with amount of preparation you are putting in every day, towards becoming the person you need to be, to attract the success you deserve and desire? Are you acquiring the skills, knowledge and resources you will need when that big opportunity crosses your path? We all have lucky breaks cross our paths at some time or other. Super achievers know this and ensure that they use this principal to their advantage. They work every day to improve and become more. So that when luck shines upon them they are prepared and able to take advantage of it. As Oprah says “Success is when opportunity meets preparation”.
Opportunity is Everywhere
When Richard Branson was asked, what he thought helped him become so successful. He stated that he attributed his incredible level of success to Luck. In fact he stated that we are all lucky to live in a free society, with opportunity everywhere.
As you know, we are all surrounded by what some would construe as luck or viewed differently, great opportunities; if we know what we want to achieve and we are vigilant. No one person is any luckier than another. The difference between super achievers like Richard Branson and everyone else is that he takes advantage of his lucky breaks, every time they cross his path. Are you preparing to take advantage of the next lucky break or great opportunity, which crosses your path?
Action Idea: If you want to increase the probability of becoming lucky then introduce the following few criterion into your life and apply them daily.
This consistent preparation will set you up to take advantage of opportunity when it crosses your path. It is inevitable that opportunity will regularly cross your path.
Believe in Yourself
There really are opportunities all around you all the time, if you are willing to unlock your observant self and to look and see your world, without your blinkers on. You will never see what you are not looking for and you most certainly will never be looking for something you do not believe in. Believe in yourself and you will begin to see that luck or great opportunity is all around you. Constantly prepare and actively seek out luck or opportunity and you will immediately see huge positive change in your life.
Become Observant
Prepare and look at your world differently. You will begin to see opportunities or lucky breaks show up everywhere. Luck or opportunity is all around you and will show up if you believe it will and you are searching and constantly on the lookout for it. Don’t try to force luck, it will show up, it will find you. Luck or opportunity crosses your path every day. Look and you will see, seek and you will find.
Take Action
When you have done all the preparation necessary, you believe in your skills and ability, you know opportunity is out there and you finally identify yours. The last and obviously the most crucial step in the process of utilising all your lucky breaks, is to simply take action. This is probably the one step that separates those few super achievers from the masses. They get off their butts and take advantage of their luck. Mediocre people allow their luck to pass them by. You now know that your life is filled with luck and opportunity, are you going to take advantage of your, this time?
The Choices We Make
Every minute of every day we are faced with choices. Each decision we make leads us along a new path. The road to our future is determined by the choices we make now! Unconscious of the fact that we are making these choices we are led down the well trodden paths of decisions already made. The road we choose appears familiar because our habitual conditioning has led us this way before. Why is this? Because invariably we take the easy option over the better one. We settle for the comfort zone afraid to venture into realms unknown and the excitement of unchartered paths. The easy choice means we don’t have to think or take action. If we did, we would have to take responsibility; a rare experience indeed.
The true purpose of Life is expansion and growth. When we take the easy option we are not being truthful to ourselves. We are settling for less than we are and our lives are forged by the dreams of others. What happens to us? We become ‘set in our ways’ and grow weaker through inactivity. When we don’t think for ourselves our brains become dull. When we are physically inactive we become weak. When we eat the wrong things our energy is depleted and we fall victim to bad health. And all because we choose the easy option!
We can’t possibly move forward unless we choose the better option. We can only grow by overcoming challenges, experiencing setbacks and taking responsibility. This is achieved by taking on things bigger than we are, by extending ourselves to become better than we were. There is no doubt we will experience defeat but this is just an inevitable part of the process. Successful people aren’t successful because they haven’t experienced failure. On the contrary, they generally have experienced failure more often than most. Neither are they luckier than most. As one famous quote by Roy D Chapin Jr puts it “Luck is the time when preparation and opportunity meet.” Opportunity is down the path we have never travelled not in the places we keep coming back to. Successful people are simply better prepared to make the most of any opportunity that comes their way. How are they better prepared? Because they chose a different way; when the going got tough they chose the better option.
How do we know what choices to make? When we know what our goals are the better option is immediately apparent. It is the option that leads us towards our goal in the quickest way possible. It is not some subtle distraction that takes our sight off the target or a well crafted excuse to procrastinate. It gets us from point A to point B via the shortest route even if that means leaving the comfort zone to do it. We forge new paths, experience new things and grow even stronger as a result. Do you see how we make our own luck? Treading the same path day after day is hardly the recipe for success!
Do yourself and everyone else in your life a favour. Go for your biggest dreams and make the world a better place. Choose the better option over the easy option every time.