The research I can't stop thinking about

You’re probably wondering why this article is even about luck. To some people, luck is an unreliable, unscientific concept often associated with green leprechauns 🍀. But last year, I got lucky enough to find a research paper that completely changed how I think about luck — I literally think about it every week 😅

It’s called The Luck Factor.

The research studied two groups of people — one group considered themselves as lucky and the other group considered themselves as unlucky. They were instructed to flip through a newspaper and count the number of images inside. The unlucky group took on average 2 minutes to count all the images, but the lucky group only took 2 seconds on average.

Why was there a 60x difference between both groups?

Well, on the second page of the newspaper, there was a section covering half of the page with the message: “Stop counting. There are 43 photographs in this newspaper.” Interestingly enough, the unlucky group tended to miss this message, while the lucky group spotted it right away.

Later on in the newspaper, there was a second message: “Stop counting, tell the experimenter you have seen this and win $250.” Again, the unlucky group tended to miss this message. Perhaps, it was because they thought it seemed too good to be true or because they were so focused on counting the number of images that they missed these unexpected opportunities.

Do you ever go into the office with the thought “I’m just here to do my work”? You go to your same desk, talk to same people in your same department, or stick around in the same area. You might be missing chance opportunities of meeting new people in other departments — potentially new friends, new mentors, or simply having a chill conversation with somebody new. Or in your personal life, you might be so focused on finding the perfect partner at social gatherings that you’re missing the opportunity of simply enjoying the social gathering itself.

Unlucky people are generally more tense and anxious, which blurs their ability to notice these fringe opportunities. According to Professor Wiseman, the author of the research, “Lucky people are more relaxed and open and therefore see what is there, rather than just what they are looking for”.

I have to admit, my personal behaviors align pretty closely with the unlucky group. But *luckily*, Professor Wiseman has a couple tips to generate good fortune:

1. Add variety to your life: Professor Wiseman recommends to break your life routine. One of the self-identified lucky participants interviewed admitted that he had a special system to force him to meet different types of people. Before going to a social gathering, he picks a specific color and then only talks to people wearing that color. At some events, he’d only talk to women in red or men wearing black. This type of behavior can help you meet people you otherwise wouldn’t have talked to.

2. Reframe bad luck: Lucky people tend to have a softer emotional response to bad luck. Professor Wiseman presented a scenario to his research group: Imagine you’re waiting to be served in a bank. Out of nowhere, armed robbers enter the bank and fire a shot that hits your arm. Would this scenario be lucky or unlucky? Unlucky people would say this scenario is extremely unlucky, but lucky people tended to believe the scenario could have been worse. One subject said that “It’s lucky because you could have been shot in the head.” Professor Wiseman recommends to deal with bad luck by being thankful that things weren’t worse.

According to Professor Wiseman, nobody is born lucky or unlucky. We have the opportunity of living a luckier, happier, and more varied life.