How to Make Yourself Lucky
Orison Swett Marden
What you, my friend, may right now be calling your hard luck, may
be the result of some weakness, some bad habit, which is thwarting your
efforts, keeping from you the prosperity you desire.
You may have peculiarities, objectionable traits, which are bars to
your progress, stumbling-blocks in your path. Your bad luck may be lack of
preparation, a poor education, insufficient training for your special work.
Your foundation may be too small for any sort of a respectable life
structure. Or, your bad luck may be indolence, a love of ease and pleasure, a
desire to have a good time first of all, no matter what happens.
Good luck is the very opposite of all this. Every successful man
knows that good luck follows the strong will, the earnest, persistent endeavor,
good hard work, thorough preparation, the ambition to excel and a
dead-in-earnest purpose.
The "lucky" man is the man who has been a closer thinker,
a harder worker, than his "unlucky" neighbor. He is more practical,
his life has been ruled by system and order. Luck is like opportunity, it comes
to those who work for it and are ready for it.
Make the best possible use of your time, this will make you lucky.
The men who are made of winning material do not talk of hard luck
or cruel fate; they do not talk of being kept back by others.
If a man has yeast in
him he will rise; nothing can keep him back. Clear grit will attract more good
luck than almost any other one thing I know of.
It is usually the lazy, the indolent, the pleasure-loving
good-for-nothings, the weaklings, who are the firmest believers in luck.
The mere fact that a man is always talking about his "hard
luck," blaming his non-success, his defeats on someone else, or on
unfortunate circumstances, is an admission that he is a weak man.
It shows that he has not-developed independence or strength of
will, the mental fiber which overcomes obstacles. There is everything in
forming this habit of thinking of yourself as lucky, fortunate, of always
seeing yourself as you would like to be, not as one who is inefficient and
always blundering.
There are multitudes of hard-working people who are continually
driving away from them the very thing they are trying to get, because they do
not hold the right attitude of mind.
They lack the enthusiastic man's optimism, his faith and
self-confidence,—all friends of good luck.
If you persist in looking and acting like a failure, or a very
mediocre or doubtful success; if you keep telling everybody how unlucky you
are, and that you do not believe you will win out, because success is only for
a favored few, those who have a pull, someone to boost them, you will be as
much of a success as the actor who attempts to impersonate a certain character
while looking, thinking, and acting exactly like the opposite.
Talking disparagingly about yourself, depreciating yourself, is
self-deterioration. The constant suggestion of your inferiority, of your
defects or weaknesses, will interfere with your success in anything.
You can't be lucky, you can't be successful, if you are all the
time talking against yourself, for this will undermine your confidence in
yourself and in your efficiency.
Hold a good opinion of
yourself. Think highly of yourself. Learn to appreciate your ability and to
respect yourself, not egotistically or from a selfish standpoint, but because you
appreciate your marvelous inheritance of divine qualities.
Remember that every time you talk depreciatingly of yourself, no
matter if you do not really believe it, if you do it for effect, that is,
telling others of your hard luck, admitting that you cannot get along as do
other people, that you cannot make money and save it, that you don't seem to
have any money sense, you are lowering your estimate of yourself, your ideal of
yourself, and this is the pattern for your life building.
Always think of yourself as lucky. Never allow yourself to think of
yourself in any other way. Say to yourself: "I am good luck. I must be
lucky, because I am a part of the divinity which can never fail. I partake of
omnipotence because I am a child of Omnipotence, a partner of the Almighty. It
is my nature to be lucky. I was made to be lucky. I was born to win. I am the
child of the King of kings.
You should no more harbor a fear thought, a worry thought, a
jealousy, envy or hatred thought, a selfish thought; than you would listen to
the temptation to steal.
These things rob you of your peace of mind, your power, force and
vitality, your poise as well as your comfort.
You would not allow a thief to ramble through your home to steal.
Why should you allow your enemy thoughts to roam through your mind without a
protest?
Nothing can defeat you or rob you of success but yourself. No
conditions, however inhospitable, can swamp you, or thwart your life aim—if you
have a life aim.
Your own weakness only can do that—your lack of determination, your
lack of energy, your lack of backbone, your lack of confidence in yourself.
Nothing in the world can make you a nonentity; no mischance’s, no conditions,
no environment, nothing but yourself can do that. You can be a nobody if you
will, or a somebody if you will; it is right up to you.
You can make a success of your life; you can send your influence
down the ages, or you can go to your grave a useless nobody, without ever
having made a ripple in the current of the life of your day. Your luck, good or
bad, is in yourself.
If we think of ourselves as being always lucky, we may not be
extraordinary examples of good luck, but we shall always be happy, smiling and
contented, believing that everything that comes to us is the best that we could
possibly attain.
