Make Things Happen
Some people say “It’s smart to be lucky.”
My favorite boss used to say, “I’d rather be lucky to be smart.”
I’ve always said, “You don’t need luck, if you can make good things happen.”
Everyone hears about someone who has all the luck. That person who is “in the right place at the right time — almost all of the darn time. How does that someone do that?
It’s not fate. It’s not an accident. It’s not even a lucky star.
That someone knows how to make good things happen.
It’s not hard — change some things and it could be you.
Making Good Things Happen
It’s true. You don’t need luck if you can make things happen. Lets’s face it, making things happen is so much better than waiting for things to happen for us. It’s a matter of having control. It takes time and some attention, but buying a lottery ticket takes that and money too.
We don’t need hocus pocus or feel good energy stuff. I’m talking about our habits of using the information that the world offers, doing the math and making it work in our favor.
Want to make good things happen for you? Here’s what you do.
1. Pay attention.
- I don’t mean sit up straight and listen like in school. Make a habit of interacting with your envronment. Notice when things happen around you. Keep track of what is going on. Information you notice now will be there for you later on.
2. Think what you do matters. What you think changes how you feel and what you do. What you do has an impact, believe that. Recall your own experience, I bet someone has had a BIG impact on you and never knew it. It works the other way around too.
Be aware of the potential of your impact. The way you look, the smile you give, the answer on your cellphone — each causes a response in someone you might never know about. Everything you do has an impact on the world.
Argue for the difference that you make, and sure enough you’ll be making one. Believe you’re not, and well, how could you?
Why not make your impact positive?
3. Imagine opportunities everywhere you look. Lucky people know that opportunity doesn’t knock often. In fact, they know it doesn’t knock at all. People make opportunities from little things they see. Opportunity hides in the details.
Look, listen, read, and search for ideas and trends between your niche and your skill set. Then bend and twist and turn those ideas to see how they might become uniquely yours.
Make a practice of looking at everything to see how you might improve it . . . how you’ll make it more fun, faster, cooler, friendlier, easier, quieter, more musical, lighter, more romantic, more exciting, more inviting, more anything . . . or less something.
4. Make yourself a magnet for things youââ¬â¢re good at and tell everyone you know. Don’t be shy about your skills. Be generous with your help and counsel. Find opportunities to share that offer a chance of return to you. Look for the tiniest ways to match your uniqueness to what the world really needs. Then give yourself away as often as you can so that people know that you exist and that you are the best at what you do.
5. Keep count and measure the opportunities you find that suit you — even the nano-iota-teeniest-glimmer of an idea that strikes you.
If you focus and watch opportunities that fit — the number, size, and worth of those opportunities grow. Research shows that things we watch and measure get bigger and more plentiful. So start attending to what suits you.
PLUS ONE: When you’re faced with a decision, don’t hesitate. Take the opportunity that shows the most promise and use it to grow the skills that got you that far. Remember every thing is a new line on your resume, your personal brand brochure. And as we used to say in college, “if it gets you a story then the experience was worth it.”
Don’t wait for luck. Go on, make good things happen. You might be surprised who starts pitching in to help you.
–ME “Liz” Strauss
Related articles:
Just Say YES!
Knowing How People Think As a Business Tool
7 Steps & the Key to Spotting Trends
Trendspotting: How to Crawl into People Heads
