Lately I have been thinking a lot about luck, and what causes it.

The idea that some people have a better fortune than others is a mindset that can be helpful or detrimental, depending which side you place yourself on.

In my own life, I tend to think of ‘luck’ as tiny threads of events that are helping me succeed. They are the chance meetings, the bizarre coincidences, and the tiny commonalities that link things together.

Think for a moment about how your parents met. The chances of them meeting, being attracted to each other, dating and you being born likely have a great deal of randomness involved.

Yet, it all happened as it did, and as a result you are ‘lucky to be alive’.

Some people tend to think of luck as somehow bestowed from above, by fate or by God, but I actually think of it as something that comes from within.

Luck, it seems to me, is buried deep in our perceptions, made real through our actions.

If we see the random events of life as leading us somewhere and we choose to adapt to and use them to our best advantage, they tend to bring us good fortune.

I guess another way to say this is that if we are proactive and constructive with life circumstances, then things tend to work out for us.

If however we choose to see the random events as leading nowhere and having little value, then that is what they end up being.

People are the main source of luck in our lives. The more we adapt and work with them, the better chances we have of growing our own good fortune.

Very often we choose to see something as fortunate or unfortunate. In reality it is neither. Only our perception makes it that way.

A friend taught me an amazing saying last year that has stuck with me ever since: “Things are not happening to me, they are happening for me.” 



This concept totally flipped my worldview. I believe this type of perception is what lucky people think and feel.

I also think that when you look at what is going right, it is much easier to build upon it. 

When you look closely, there are literally thousands of things going right in your life, and a minimal amount going wrong at any time. If you choose to use the things that are great as a foundation, it is amazing how empowered you can feel.

I realize all this could be written off as optimistic hyperbole. I know bad things happen to good people, and that at some stage all of us will be tested.

Yet it is those who choose to see life as ‘happening for me’ that seem to rise again, and rise higher each time.

Luck to me is a matter of perception, an inner belief that the random events that surround you are conspiring to help you live a great life.

The question is, will you choose to be lucky?