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September 2004
Success Harmony Newsletter
"FEELING LUCKY?"
One of my favorite possessions is a little plastic figurine with a grin on its face, messed up bright pink hair, and a bubble coming out of its mouth saying, "I wonder how much I can get away with and still go to heaven". If there's a motto for my life, I suppose that's it. I got to test it recently again when I forgot to put enough gas in the truck and embarked on a journey across the mountains.
It isn't like I forgot to check. I just forgot to remember to stop by the last gas station before the mountains began. Of course, I then hit bumper-to-bumper traffic. Idling a huge Dodge Ram truck in an uphill stop-go-a-foot-stop situation for even a few minutes eats up enormous amounts of gas. I was in this happy place for only a couple of minutes when my helpful "you're about to run out of gas" warning light came on. I figured that the slowdown was going to clear up in a short while so I wasn't worried. After thirty more minutes, which had moved me approximately fifteen feet further up the hill, I was terribly worried. I had asked another driver where the next station is. He said that it's another five or more miles up the hill. And, no, it would be even further if I turned around and went down the hill. Best to stay and hope it clears up. I idled the stops in neutral and had it in drive for the short movements forward. Of course, my cell phone had no signal and the indicator needle was getting further and further under empty. I was starting to prepare for the fun I'd have walking a few miles to and from a gas station in these mountains. All the same, I kept talking to the car, "let's make it, it isn't too far, let's make it."
And then came my savior. Actually, it was the emergency roadside assistance truck, just about to drive away from the scene of an accident in the other direction. I ran out of the truck, managed to stop him, and asked if he happened to carry a bit of gas with him. He laughed and said that of course he did. He gave me more than enough gas to get me to the next gas station and wished me luck with my travels. Luck? No kidding. Isn't that what I just had?
Luck is a fascinating thing. Mysterious, and yet some people seem to have more of it than others. Sometimes it happens a lot for a short period of time and then not at all for a long time. For some people, they are very lucky at work and unlucky at love. Or vice versa. So is luck just a mystery that happens without any pattern to it, or can we become more lucky if we try?
I believe that we can become luckier. There have been a number of books and programs taped about that very subject - anywhere from "Lucky You!" to the classic Napoleon Hill book "Think and Grow Rich", both statistical and anecdotal research shows that there are things that lucky people do that seem to increase their amount of luck. If you are interested in reading any of those, I list a few book suggestions on http://www.cprcoaching.com/resources/.
In my experience, there are three components that have had most to do with my own luck and the luck I've observed in clients and others. One has been desire or imagination - the ability to project a mental picture of the goal in mind. Done at a conscious level, this would be imagining a full tank of gas. Or maybe talking to cars helps, too. The second component is the "true need" aspect and the ability to listen to intuition. The last major component in luck seems to be the ability to feel and express gratitude. Not just a "yeah, thanks, where's my next thrill ride?" emotionless response, but almost a childlike "wow, isn't this world really an amazing place" type of an attitude.
For my part, the desire part and the gratitude part seem to be easy to understand. In fact, those two alone seem to increase lucky occurrences by themselves. The trickiest one in my experience is the "truth" aspect. In other words, sometimes the lucky thing is what we don't want consciously, that later turns out for the best. We miss a train that later crashes. The love of our love dumps us, just so that we can run into the one person we get married to. Sometimes the lucky thing is exactly what we desired and in the form we wished for, but it seems that part of luck is the willingness to put out what we want - and then immediately become detached from it. The more we "need" something out of an ego need, the less lucky we get. The more we "need" something because it's the right thing to happen, but we let go of needing it, the luckier we seem to get.
Would you like to get luckier? Try two small habits, daily for 90 days, one in the morning and one at night. Each morning, write down one affirmation, in one sentence of what you want more of in your life. It needs to be stated in the positive, present tense and it has to have the word "I" in. For example, "I now have a perfect new job that I love." Write down that affirmation a few times, at least three times, as many as you have time for. Then, at night, write down three good things that happened to you that day. Big or small, write them down. Then go to bed. Does this seem too weird and simple? It is. More importantly, it is effective. Whenever I've done it for about 3 months consistently, I get luckier. Whenever I stop for about 3 months, I have less consistent luck.
If you decide to give this experiment a try, during the next 90 days, you will find that there will come a day fairly soon when your brain will give you little, generally very quiet, suggestions. "Call Aunt Mary and tell her you're looking for work." "Go to the corner store to pick up the paper. Go now. I mean now!" Don't try to understand these, just go with them (unless, of course, these messages are telling you to go rob a bank or stuff your face with two pounds of ice cream in one sitting. Unless you're pregnant, then I guess you can still follow the ice cream suggestion…) You may find that Aunt Mary knows someone with the right job for you, or that you will run into a friend at the corner store who will give you a fantastic job lead. Of course, check your logic against the messages coming to you. If you wake up one morning, thinking "don't go to work" today, you will need to differentiate plain laziness from the "truth" to listen to even when it makes little logical sense. No worries. If you can't tell the difference right away, the better choice is to make the logical choice and go to work. With time, you will be able to tell when you should stay home - and that just might be the day you get the "you've won big" call from Ed McMahon that you have to answer personally to cash in on.
Happy lucky days, sunshine and smiles,
Pavla
"Keep your face in
the sunshine and you can never see the shadow
Helen Keller
"It
is better to be prepared for an opportunity and not have one than to have
an opportunity and not be prepared."
Whitney Young, Jr.
"You may delay, but time
will not."
Benjamin Franklin