For those of you who believe in it – here is how you create your own luck

Awareness – the key to creating your own luck

As members of at least one culture, we all engage in identifiable culture-specific behaviour almost as if we were running on autopilot.

We grow up imitating our elders, and so we learn behaviours that we do automatically without even realising they are happening. We tend not to think about these acts but just perform them. Sometimes this behaviour comes in sequence and forms a pattern, which can vary between contexts.

For example, when you hear a telephone ring, you might have an urge to pick it up. When you hear a doorbell ring, you will probably feel a desire to go and see who is there. If your culture places great store on courtesy, you might stand up when someone you consider senior enters a room you are in.

This is called anchor in the fascinating world of NLP. It is nothing new to you or anybody else; you just did not have a name for it even if you observed it happening.

But how is this relevant to anything, or how can this affect your everyday life?

Scientific research about luck and how it is perceived

Here is some research shown in an article called Bad Luck Begone published in Scientific American Mind magazine by Tori Rodriguez to help you understand.

In her research, it is shown how triggering an anchor, in this case the western world anchor referred to as ‘touch wood’ to prevent or reduce the likelihood of inciting disaster, can affect the way in which you experience luck.

Investigators at the University of Chicago and the National University of Singapore first engaged participants in small talk, then turned the conversation to a topic pertaining to a specific misfortune. In one experiment, for example, a researcher talked about car accidents and then asked:

Do you think that there is a possibility that you or someone close to you will get into a horrible car accident this winter?

Some subjects choose one of three neutral answers; others choose one of three answers that could be construed as presumptuous, such as:

No way. Nobody I know would get into a car accident. It’s just not possible.

A pre-test had confirmed that these answers effectively triggered the sense that participants had temped fate.

“For participants who knocked on a table, however, the perceived likelihood of an accident happening was reduced to a level similar to that of people who had not temped fate”.

Surprising, right?

How can doing something like literally ‘touching wood’ have any relation to how you perform in your own future events?

It makes no sense. However, some people live by such systems of belief, and in the believing, they can create the very opportunities they want to avoid.

Create your own luck

In the world of NLP, those who have been properly trained have the capacity to display an array of states that are congruent with their intentions within a context. They are either free of or minimally aware of externally set anchors on their behaviour, and that gives them the flexibility to act or not upon those anchors being fired.

In other words, they have learned to create their own ‘luck’.

Now it is your turn. Take your next step towards Exceptional Effectiveness, and learn how to start creating your own luck. Remember to be aware of those things around you that elicit a response in you. You will be amazed of what you find out.

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