Lucky-a simple skill that can be learned

From: http://www.yeeyan.com/articles/view/49269/63668

 

Welcome to The Daily Telegraph (Daily Telegraph) Chinese Version

I was lucky to start my research ten years ago. I want to investigate the impact of opportunities, good luck, and staying in the right place at the right time on people's lives. After many experiments, I believe that I have understood why some people are luckier than others, and I believe that it is possible to become luckier.

 

To start my research, I advertised in national newspapers and magazines, asking people who have been lucky or unfortunate to contact me. A few years later, four hundred special male volunteers from all walks of life participated in my study: the youngest was an 18-year-old student, and the oldest was a retired accountant aged.

 

Jessica, a 42-Year-Old forensic scientist, is a typical example of a lucky group. As she said: "I have a dream job, two outstanding children, and a good man who loves me deeply. This is surprising; when I look back on my life, I realize that I have been lucky in almost all aspects ."

 

Conversely, Caroline, a 34-year-old service assistant, is a typical example of an unfortunate group. She is prone to accidents. Within a week, she encountered a pitfall and gave her foot to her ankle. After another fall, she hurt her back and crashed into a tree in a drive class. Her emotional life is also unfortunate, and she feels that she is always at the wrong place at the wrong time.

 

Over the years, I have visited these volunteers and asked them to complete diaries, surveys, and intelligence tests and invite them to the labs. The results show that although unfortunate people have almost no idea about the real causes of good luck or bad luck, their thoughts and behaviors are the main factors of their luck.

 

Take opportunities as an example. Lucky people will always have such an opportunity, but unfortunate people will not. To see if this is because they have different abilities to identify this opportunity, I conducted a simple experiment.

 

I gave lucky and unfortunate newspaper respectively, asked them to read the newspaper, and then told me how many pictures there were in the newspaper. Unfortunately, people in the group spend an average of two minutes taking photos, while those in the lucky group only take a few seconds. Why? Because the second page of the newspaper has the following information: "don't count. There are 43 images in this newspaper ." This message occupies half of the page, with a font of more than 2 inch characters. It is staring at everyone's face, but unfortunately people often miss it, and lucky people often notice it.

 

I jokingly arranged the second message in the center of the newspaper: "don't count. Tell the experimenter that you have seen this information and won 250 ." Unfortunately, they missed the opportunity again because they are still busy looking for images.

 

Personality tests show that unfortunately people are usually more nervous than lucky people, and research has demonstrated that anxiety can disrupt people's ability to pay attention to accidents. There was an experiment that asked people to watch a Moving Point in the center of the computer. When no notification is sent, some large points occasionally flash at the edge of the screen. Almost all participants noticed these big points.

 

Then the second group repeats the experiment. The experiment provided a large material reward and asked them to observe the central point accurately, resulting in greater anxiety. They focus on central points, and more than 1/3 of people miss those big points that appear on the screen. The more you focus, the less you will see.

 

So is luck-unfortunately people miss the opportunity because they are too focused on finding something else. When they attended the party, they focused on finding friends and missed the opportunity to make friends. When They browsed newspapers, they decided to find specific types of recruitment advertisements and missed other types of jobs. Lucky people are more relaxed and open, so they see something there, not just what they are looking.

 

My research shows that lucky people have good luck through four basic principles. They are good at creating and taking note of opportunities; they are good at making Lucky decisions by listening to their instincts; they are good at creating self-fulfilling predictions through optimism; be good at turning bad luck into good luck with a flexible attitude.

 

I want to know whether these four principles can be used to increase the number of good luck people encounter in their lives. To find out the truth, I created a "lucky school", a simple experiment, to test whether people can be more lucky by thinking and acting like lucky people.

 

I invite a group of lucky and unfortunate volunteers to spend a month doing exercises to help them think and act like lucky people. These exercises help them recognize opportunities, listen to their instincts, expect good luck, and treat bad luck more flexibly.

 

A month later, the volunteers returned and described the situation. The result is dramatic: Now, 80% of people are happier, more satisfied with their lives, and more importantly, more fortunate. While Lucky people are even luckier, unfortunate people are also luckier. Take Caroline as an example. After graduating from "lucky school", after three years of hard work, she has passed the driving test and is no longer an accident-prone person and has become more confident.

 

After these studies, I think there are three simple tips to maximize good luck:

• Unfortunately, people do not make choices by intuition, while lucky people tend to respect their hunch. Lucky people are interested in their thoughts and feelings about various choices, rather than simply paying attention to the rational side of the situation. I think this helps them with intuition-A reason to seriously consider the decision.
• Unfortunately, people are often the product of silence. They often take the same route to and from work and talk to the same kind of people at parties. On the contrary, many lucky people try to introduce different lives. For example, someone tells us how he thinks of a color before attending a party, and then introduces himself to a person in that color. Such self-introductions in different forms increase the possibility of opportunities.
• Lucky people often see positive aspects of their bad luck. They would imagine that things would have been worse. During a visit, a lucky volunteer dragged his leg in plaster. He talked about how he fell down the stairs. I asked him if he was lucky. He happily explained that he felt lucky. As he said, he may have broken his neck.