4 things to do to be luckier in your career.

1. Stay open to opportunities

From his study of lucky people, Richard found that they are more open to opportunities. They do have some finite end goal that they want to achieve, but they don’t seem to be really firm about the process of achieving it.

They sort of seem to grab anything that works for them, they use the wind in the direction it is flowing to sail their boat.

Now comparing this to a UX designer's career, I feel that since UXers are more process-driven, I can see very few people having this attitude. But it’s something that, for sure, you need to consider in your career.

As Richard said, it is good to have a finite goal, which means you can have a goal of working at a particular company in the future or aiming for a certain role in 10 years, but your next role doesn’t necessarily need to be a step forward in the same direction.

Similarly, for junior designers who are starting their careers in UX, it is better to keep all the doors open for new opportunities. If I talk about my experience, I had a hard time finding my first UX job in Canada, just like most of my friends.

I found my first job through the hiring manager messaging me on Linkedin that she had seen my profile on Dribbble and wanted to set up an interview with me.

Right before I accepted the offer, I remember looking at my Indeed profile and finding that I had applied to over 150 total jobs, and the one I was hired at was the one I had never applied to.

It all happened because I was lucky, according to my friends. But in reality, it happened because I was regularly uploading on Dribbble and also because I set up my profile as "open to work," which I didn’t even remember doing. Also, I worked on extra projects on weekends just to upload them on Dribbble, and one of those projects happened to be about the NFT marketplace, and the company that hired me was looking for someone with knowledge of blockchain. At that time, blockchain was really new, but I made an extra effort one weekend to learn about it and work on the project just so I could upload one or two shots on Dribbble, or, in other words, to be lucky.

2. Trust your intuitions

Richard Wiseman found out that lucky people tend to follow their gut feelings. They seem to listen to their inner voice, which has helped them a lot. Another thing he suggested is to do meditation and mindfulness to easily communicate with these gut feelings.

Now, returning to my story of finding my first job, I recall sorting three different ideas to work on for my Dribbble shot: a grocery delivery app, a social media app, or an NFT marketplace app.

I still remember thinking about going with either of the first two as it will take less time for me to research, and since a ton of those apps are available, I can use those as an example.

In fact, I remember thinking that working on the third idea might take the same amount of time as the combined amount of time it will take to work on the first two.

Despite these thoughts, my inner self wanted to work on the third one, which I did, and it played a major role in finding my first UX job.

Similarly, you need to listen to your intuition. For example, if you have two job offers at hand, one being at a higher position with a higher salary and another one at a smaller company with less salary. If your gut feeling says to go for the second one, then go for it.

In a certain period of your career, you might feel like going for the first one is the better choice, but in the long run, it might not be the right decision. A study by Harvard Business School shows 9 out of 10 people are willing to earn less money to do more meaningful work.

3. Be optimistic

The third principle he mentioned is that lucky people are really optimistic. Our brain has a reticular activation system, which means whatever we focus on, we see more of it in our lives.

Now, this is something that I am not actually good at; just like a lot of other people, I struggle to see the good things in life. I struggle with imposter syndrome, and because of that, I sometimes feel demotivated.

As Richard says, these are the things that we can improve. So, I decided to start working on it to improve my luck factor. During his studies on lucky and unlucky people, he used to tell people to keep a luck diary.

All the participants are supposed to write about all the lucky things that happened in the last 24 hours every night.

By keeping a written record of all the good things that happened in their lives, he observed that it changed their perception of life, which affected their behaviors, which ultimately affected their well-being, physical health, and financial health.

So to do a similar thing in my life, I have started keeping a luck diary. I've set an alarm for 10:30 p.m. to remind me to write down three things that went well that day. You can do a similar thing to be more optimistic and lucky.

You can also use the same technique in your career by writing about three positive things that happened at work that day at the end of your workday.

4. Be resilient

The fourth principle is about being resilient in life. Lucky people seem to bounce back whenever something bad happens to them.

Richard mentioned that while he was interviewing (self-identified) lucky people, he remembered one person breaking his leg between the two rounds of interviews.

So, during the second interview, Richard said, “I bet you don’t consider yourself lucky anymore.”

To which he replied, “Are you kidding me? You never know; last time I went to the hospital, I fell in love with the nurse, and now we have been happily married for 25 years.”

Being resilient keeps you motivated and working hard, which then brings more opportunities and more luck your way. So, all the people who sadly have been laid off, just remember,

Steve Jobs was fired from his own company.