A question I hear a lot in the world of personal development and goal achievement, is how do you deal with the element of luck when it comes to setting goals. Some people seem to have all the luck, right? So how do you factor this into your own equation? In this article I’m going to give the answer…
You don’t.
That’s it! A two word article doesn’t really help much though does it, so let me go into it a bit further, and it all comes down to how you define ‘luck’.
Here are 2 definitions –
1. Luck is good or bad fortune in life caused by accident or chance, which happens beyond a person’s control.
2. Luck is when preparation meets opportunity.
The first one has key elements in it, I.e. accident, chance, beyond a person’s control.
They seem like good words to get to my own personal definition of luck – it’s not something we can do anything about, so when it comes to setting goals, it follows that we can’t plan for something outside our control.
The second definition, about preparation meeting opportunity, is a quote I read many years ago. This is something you *can* do something about!
When you have a goal, and set plans to get it, the next step is to take action. You put in the work to learn the knowledge, the skills, whatever you need to learn to get you further towards your goal.
As you learn more skills, you will always be better prepared than before you learnt them. Better prepared for what? For the opportunities that will come your way, that’s what!
Goal achievement is a step by step process, with many of these steps being fully within your control. You choose, how, when, and if you take them. The more you take, if you have done your goal setting plan properly, you will be creating your own opportunities.
More of the important people in the relevant field will know who you are, and this is a key point, because it attracts opportunity towards you.
In that sense you are creating your own luck. Some opportunities will be on your goal map, which will not be unexpected, so maybe they shouldn’t be called luck, but other opportunities will certainly be unexpected.
You may call those luck, but if it was you that got yourself prepared for when they came, you are reaping the rewards of your own effort.
So to sum up, depending on your definition of luck, I’m not sure you really factor it in to any extent when setting goals.
The luck of chance outside your control may or may not come, and if you work hard towards developing or creating certain opportunities, surely it’s better to recognise that less as luck, and more as what it really is – hard work!
Creating your own luck is something I write about often. I wrote about it in my book ‘Transform Your Life in 21 Days!’ and it’s also covered in my free 8 step goal achievement formula.
