Luck Is Believing You Are Lucky

Luck actually works — not through magic but through psychology. There is now scientific support for the usefulness of believing in luck.

Lucky Charms Activate Magic

A scientific study was initiated to test the power of lucky charms to evaluate the actual effect that they have on people’s luck, lives, and happiness.

The research revealed believing in luck can bring you real benefits.

For half the participants, they said “Here is your ball. So far it has turned out to be a lucky ball,” and for the other half they just said, “This is the ball everyone has used so far.” There were no other differences between the groups, yet, on average, the lucky ball group made significantly more putts than the non-lucky ball group. – activating this belief of luck they were able to boost performance at a skilled activity.

In a second trial, volunteers performed a tough hand-held dexterity game; however, half of them were told, “I’m crossing my fingers for you.” Those “feeling lucky” did much better than did those with no magic on their side.

There is lots of evidence that believing in the power of a pill can have important health benefits — even when the pill (placebo) contains no medicine.

It was clearly demonstrated that believing a ball could be lucky can improve your skill with that ball.

Believing in luck may not get you to pick the winning lotto numbers, but it might help you make a good impression at a job interview and it just might help you serve better on the tennis court.

So good luck charms did clearly improve performance, but how?

Those that had their good luck charms with them went into the performance with a lot more confidence. As a result of their increased confidence, the players were able to establish greater personal goals and expectations for themselves, as well as stick with the work for longer periods of time, resulting in excellent performance. The bottom line is; Whenever there is skill involved, believing you have luck on your side makes you more self confident, creates internal positive energy with improved performance.

The Luck Factor

“Research has suggested that people who think of themselves as lucky actually are lucky, because they are more willing to take advantage of opportunities.”

Believing in luck can serve a useful function. psychologists say.

those who believe they are inherently lucky tend to be of an optimistic bent, and get more optimistic about the likelihood of future success after a seemingly lucky event – a “lucky break” makes them more confident and optimistic.

Positive thinking creates positive energy.

It may seem superstitious or even silly to rely on good luck charms, but they do work. Researchers discovered that when a person who believes they have luck on their side, they had higher “self-efficacy”—“ positive thinking” the idea that we can accomplish our goals—and that this belief actually improves mental and physical performance.