PERSONAL SPECIAL 5 ways to improve your bad
luck
You can’t control external circumstances, but you can take
action to get you to a place where you might find opportunities.
Luck can operate in strange ways. Sometimes,
what feels like a curse ends up being a blessing, or a seemingly amazing
opportunity turns sour and causes nothing but fear and stress. Other
times, an unfortunate incident leads to more bad luck, and then more, and more.
In these situations, it’s easy to feel disillusioned and powerless.
But while you can’t control external
circumstances, you can take action that helps you regain hope
and a sense of optimism. While the following actions might not turn things
around immediately, it can put you on better footing to create opportunities.
1. PUT YOURSELF IN UNFAMILIAR SITUATIONS
When setbacks hit, it can be tempting to
retreat from the world and do what’s comfortable and familiar. In some cases,
this is a necessary first step of moving forward. However, you shouldn’t let
yourself retreat for a prolonged period of time.
Richard Wiseman, a professor of psychology
and author of The Luck Factor, told Stephanie Vozza in a previous Fast Company article, “Lucky people
often go to considerable lengths to introduce variety into their lives.”
Because of this, Wiseman said, they put themselves in situations where they can
take advantage of “chance” encounters, and increase the odds of coming across
unexpected opportunities.
2. DO SOMETHING THAT LETS YOU PROCESS YOUR THOUGHTS AND EMOTIONS
Bad luck tends to bring bad feelings. When
you experience it, your first instinct may be to try and suppress those
feelings or push them away.
But you’ll be in a better place to move
forward if you take the time to process those feelings productively. When
writer Dana Robinson was laid off in 2007, she spent a lot of time writing
about the uncertainties of her life. Not only did it offset the stress that she
experienced, it also gave her the energy to pursue freelance opportunities,
“which brought in a decent amount of pocket money,” she previously wrote in Fast
Company.
3. FIGURE OUT HOW TO COURSE-CORRECT YOUR DECISIONS
Sometimes unfortunate things happen because
you made a bad decision, which you can’t always foresee. Rather than beating
yourself up for taking the action that you took, it’s best to devise a plan to
move forward.
That might involve giving up and taking a
different route. Mike Whitaker, author of The Decision Makeover: An
Intentional Approach to Living the Life You Want, told Stephanie Vozza in a previous Fast Company
article that successful people “course-correct”
bad decisions quickly. “Most people don’t act; it’s painful . . . When
successful people have enough evidence that they’ve made a bad decision, they
don’t look for more. They’re willing to shut down a business, for example, and
go in a different direction. They fail fast, move on, and then they don’t talk
about it again.”
4. LEAN INTO THE FEAR
It might be counterintuitive to lean into
negative emotions, particularly one that is as anxiety-inducing as fear. But
for designer Jon Contino, embracing fear and terror propelled him to take
action and create work that he was proud of. As he wrote in Brand by Hand:
On many occasions, I’ve sat down with
business owners struggling to make decisions over the design treatment of their
brand. In typical Jon Contino overly dramatic fashion, I like to say: ‘We’re
all going to die, so let’s do something awesome.’ I have no intent on harming
the client, but at some point, Father Time is going to do his job and take us
all out. I’ve seen what it looks like to be on the brink of death, and there’s
no amount of copy revisions or new sketches that will change that. We all have
a desire to build something, and I’ve made it my mission to help people explore
that.
He went on to say that creativity often comes when one is in an uncomfortable
emotional state. “The minute we second-guess our ideas is the instant our gift
of creativity dies. The moment we throw away hesitation and face our fears of
failure and uncertainty, the real-life magic happens–innovation happens.”
5. TAP INTO CHILDHOOD MEMORIES
For designer and Fast Company contributor Ted Leonhardt, thinking back to a childhood memory allows him to
remember what matters and motivates him to take action whenever he faces a
professional setback. The key, according to Leonhardt, is to think of a time
that “originally gave [you] the feeling of pleasure and fulfillment that you
built your career on.” For example, a photographer may look at the photo she
took with the camera that her dad first gifted her, and a writer or book
publisher may remember the feeling they had when they first stepped foot in a
library.
He went on to say, “Time and again, these
memories hold revealing clues about where to go to rekindle that fire. They’re
the recollections that show us where to look for sustenance when our
professional lives demand it most.”
BY ANISA PURBASARI HORTON
https://www.fastcompany.com/90299821/how-to-get-rid-of-bad-luck?utm_source=postup&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Fast%20Company%20Daily&position=9&partner=newsletter&campaign_date=02072019
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