I recently read in the Amazon.com review of Malcolm Gladwell’s “Outliers,”:

“Examining the lives of outliers from Mozart to Bill Gates, [Gladwell] builds a convincing case for how successful people rise on a tide of advantages, “some deserved, some not, some earned, some just plain lucky.”

Another recent writer (wish I could remember who so I could give credit) stated that highly successful people tend to consider themselves more lucky than the average person, and their experience generally confirms this belief.

Success and luck… luck and success. Let’s assume for the moment that these factoids have some truth to them. The logical question, then, would be “how can we come to see ourselves as more lucky?”

Fortunately, there is an answer to that question. Today, guest author Alan Tutt gives us one simple, sure technique for…

Developing A “Lucky Streak” That Never Ends
By Alan Tutt

One of the most influential Self-Image beliefs is one that says whether we are lucky or unlucky. This one belief affects many other beliefs, including those beliefs that define whether we expect other people to respond well to us, and whether we expect to do well on task-oriented projects involving no one but ourselves.

Even if you reject the idea that our beliefs have an influence on the world around us, you can probably accept the idea that our beliefs affect the decisions we make leading to whatever results are produced by those decisions.

When a person believes they are ‘unlucky’, they are less likely to take action leading towards personal fulfillment and are more likely to give up when encountering an obstacle. They almost expect to fail, and who enjoys wasting their time on a project doomed to failure?

“Lucky” People Try Harder, Too

Those with a belief in their own good fortune are more likely to take action and to persist with the project until they get the results they want. Even if our beliefs did nothing other than affect our decisions, this alone demonstrates how a belief in good luck produces more positive results.

My own experience, and the experiences of many others, proves that our beliefs have a greater influence, and that they can alter the course of events outside ourselves as well. Someone who believes they are lucky will win games of chance much more often than someone who believes they are unlucky, for instance.

So where is your belief about how lucky or unlucky you are? To properly determine this, it’s important to calibrate a scale on which you can measure the strength of your belief.

The concept here is that when you ask yourself a question, such as “Do I believe I am lucky?” there is a feeling that comes along with the mental answer. This feeling changes depending on the strength of the belief. But before you can ask yourself the important question, you have to start out asking questions with absolute answers to mark out the endpoints of the scale.

Determining How True and False Feel

Calibrating a belief scale entails asking yourself a set of questions that are guaranteed to produce strong yes or no answers, such as “Do I believe I know my own name?” and “Do I believe 2+2=4?” to set the ‘yes’ end of the scale, and “Do I believe I live on planet Mars?” to set the ‘no’ end.

For the purpose of measuring the strength of a belief, we label the ‘no’ end of the scale at 0% and the ‘yes’ end of the scale at 100%. When you believe something 100%, you consider it an absolute fact, like 2+2=4 or knowing your own name. When you believe something 0%, you consider it nonsense, like the idea you’re living on planet Mars.

Once you have calibrated your belief scale, now ask yourself, “Do I believe that I am lucky?” How does the feeling that comes up with the yes/no answer compare with the endpoints established earlier? Is it closer to the “absolutely yes” end of the scale, or closer to the “absolutely not” end of the scale? If you had to put a number on it (from 0 to 100), what number feels right?

A 50% belief (halfway between ‘absolutely yes’ and ‘absolutely not’) shows that your belief is split equally between “I am lucky” and “I am unlucky”. Beliefs in this area of the scale indicate that your experience is balanced between positive surprises and negative surprises.

If your belief in your own good fortune measures low, such as under 30%, you can probably remember more unpleasant surprises in your life than happy ones. This belief that you are unlucky will create more obstacles than necessary and prevent you from being truly happy in life.

You’ll Need a Method

So how do you change a belief into something more helpful?

There are many techniques available, but perhaps the easiest one stems from a concept called “pacing and leading.”

Pacing and leading is a concept from NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) and is a technique taught to salespeople to persuade resistant prospects into believing that the product or service being sold is desireable. We can use the same technique on ourselves to persuade our inner minds into believing that we are lucky.

To use this technique, start with a series of statements you currently believe 100%. These can be anything, such as:

I know that 2+2=4.
I know that I know my own name.
I know that I am on planet Earth.
I know that the sky is blue.
I know that I am sitting in my office. (or wherever you happen to be at the moment.)

This series of pacing statements establishes a feeling of confidence and trust. You believe the things you hear, and your inner mind expects the pattern to continue.

Immediately after saying your list of pacing statements, say a statement that ‘leads’ towards what you want to believe. In this case, “I know that I am lucky.”

So now the full list of statements looks like:

I know that 2+2=4.
I know that I know my own name.
I know that I am on planet Earth.
I know that the sky is blue.
I know that I am sitting in my office.
I know that I am lucky.

Training Your New Belief

Repeat your list of pacing and leading statements a few times and then measure the strength of your belief in your own good fortune. You’ll notice that your belief that you are lucky is now stronger than it was just a moment ago.

As you repeat this process, the strength of your belief will automatically grow, and eventually when you ask yourself, “Do I believe that I am lucky?” the response from within will sound like “Yes! Of course!”

Alan Tutt, author of Choose To Believe: A Practical Guide to Living Your Dreams, has created a simple, step by step plan to discover and MEASURE your beliefs, then CHANGE them quickly and easily. Read more about how YOU can take charge of your beliefs… and your luck.

Back to Charles:
Just think about it. With a bit of simple adjusting, your mind could begin working very much like the luckiest, most successful people on earth. What would that be worth to you?

As you probably know, I wrote a book titled Command More Luck, which tells you how to quit waiting for luck, and instead to go out and take command of it. It’s an excellent book that gives insights, advice and practical steps to becoming lucky.

But I have to say, I love Alan’s book too. He comes at the subject from an entirely different angle and gives you simple, practical methods for controlling any belief. Methods that anybody can do. The results will leave you feeling incredibly empowered – perhaps for the first time in your life.

Just think, if it’s really that simple (and believe me, it is) then there’s actually nothing stopping you from moving straight into the ranks of today’s top achievers.

So I’m going to leave it at that. Now it’s your game.

Cheers from warm and smiling Thailand,
Charles

Related Posts:

1. How Lucky Can You Be?
2. How to Change Your Luck
3. 7 Simple Steps to Jaw-Dropping Good Luck
4. Reality – Do You Believe that Stuff?