Today I Choose to be Lucky – How to be Lucky

When Plans Fall Apart and Adventures Begin

We flew four hours to Denver to escape Florida’s oppressive heat, armed with detailed plans for hiking in the cool mountain air. The weather app had promised relief – a civilized 75 degrees compared to the 95-degree furnace we’d left behind. We had maps, trail guides, restaurant reservations, the whole carefully orchestrated escape from summer perfectly planned.

Then we arrived to discover it was 98 degrees in Denver. Ninety-eight! Our grand heat escape had led us directly into more heat.

Curtis looked at me with that expression that could have gone either way – frustration at the failed plan or amusement at the absurdity of it all. “Well,” he said, “that’s not exactly what we ordered.”

That’s when I discovered something profound about luck: it’s not about getting what you planned for. It’s about being open to what you didn’t plan for turning out better than what you originally wanted.

The Great Plan Rebellion

Instead of hiking in comfortable mountain air, we found ourselves wandering through Denver’s art district in blazing heat, ducking into air-conditioned galleries and quirky shops we never would have discovered if our original plan had worked. We stumbled upon a tiny sushi place with the best calamari either of us had ever tasted, run by a woman who’d moved from Portland specifically to escape the rain.

By afternoon, we’d completely abandoned our hiking agenda and decided to drive up into the mountains anyway, not for comfortable walking but just to see what was up there. That’s when real luck showed up: we rounded a curve and found ourselves face-to-face with a family of deer standing in the middle of the mountain road.

For ten minutes, we sat in our car while the deer decided whether to trust us. They eventually did, grazing peacefully within arm’s reach of our windows, completely unafraid. It was more magical than any hike we’d planned, and it only happened because we’d given up trying to control our experience.

Luck vs. Control: The Fundamental Tension

I used to think lucky people were just better at planning – that they anticipated opportunities, prepared for possibilities, optimized for good outcomes. But that Denver trip taught me that luck and control are often opposites. The more tightly you grip your plans, the less available you are for the unexpected gifts that want to find you.

Real luck requires a kind of strategic surrender. Not giving up on having desires or making plans, but holding them lightly enough that you can pivot when something better appears. It’s the willingness to let your original idea be the starting point of an adventure rather than the definition of success.

Dr. Richard Wiseman’s research on luck reveals that people who consider themselves lucky share certain characteristics: they’re more open to new experiences, more likely to notice unexpected opportunities, and more willing to act on chance encounters. In other words, they’re less attached to their original plans and more curious about what else might be possible.

The Art of Productive Flexibility

Being open to luck doesn’t mean wandering through life without intentions or accepting whatever happens passively. It means developing what I call “productive flexibility” – the ability to pursue your goals while remaining alert to possibilities you hadn’t considered.

Our Denver trip worked because we had enough structure to get us to an interesting place (the mountains) but enough flexibility to change course when conditions shifted. We didn’t just randomly drive around hoping something good would happen – we went toward something that interested us and stayed open to discoveries along the way.

This balance between intention and openness seems to be where luck lives. You need enough direction to put yourself in potentially lucky situations, but enough adaptability to recognize and embrace the luck when it appears wearing different clothes than you expected.

Recognizing Disguised Opportunities

One of the biggest barriers to experiencing luck is our attachment to how we think good things should look. We have specific images of what we want – the perfect weather, the ideal outcome, the planned experience – and when reality doesn’t match our image, we often dismiss it as bad luck rather than recognizing it as different luck.

That 98-degree day in Denver looked like terrible luck until we stopped comparing it to our 75-degree fantasy and started working with what we actually had. The art galleries were beautifully air-conditioned. The café owners were delighted to have customers seeking refuge from the heat. The deer appeared precisely because we were driving slowly and aimlessly rather than hurrying toward a predetermined destination.

Lucky people, I’ve noticed, are good at reframing disappointments as redirections. They ask “What’s possible now?” instead of “Why didn’t this work out as planned?” They treat unexpected developments as plot twists rather than disasters.

Creating Luck Through Curiosity

Curiosity might be the most underrated luck-generation tool available to us. When you’re genuinely curious about what might happen next, you’re automatically more alert to possibilities than when you’re focused on making specific things happen.

That afternoon in the mountains, our curiosity about what might be around the next curve is exactly what led us to the deer encounter. If we’d been focused on reaching a particular viewpoint or completing a planned hike, we might have driven right past them, too goal-oriented to notice the magic happening off-script.

Curious people create more luck because they’re constantly engaging with their environment rather than just moving through it toward predetermined destinations. They notice things, follow interesting tangents, strike up conversations with strangers, and generally increase their surface area for serendipity.

The Compound Effect of Small Opennesses

Luck rarely arrives as one dramatic moment of good fortune. More often, it’s the result of many small choices to remain open to possibilities, to follow interesting leads, to say yes to unexpected invitations. These small opennesses compound over time, creating a pattern of life that feels increasingly lucky.

The café we discovered led to a conversation with the owner that gave us ideas for our next trip. The art gallery we ducked into introduced us to a local artist whose work now hangs in our home. The deer encounter became a story we’ve shared dozens of times, each telling creating new connections with people who have their own unexpected animal stories.

None of these were life-changing events individually, but together they created richness that would never have emerged from perfectly executed original plans. The luck was in the willingness to let one discovery lead to another, to trust that being open to detours might lead somewhere more interesting than the planned route.

Practicing Strategic Serendipity

Make Plans You’re Willing to Break – Have enough structure to get yourself into interesting situations, but hold your plans lightly enough to pivot when something better appears.

Notice What You Notice – Pay attention to what catches your attention. That random conversation, that interesting building, that unexpected invitation might be luck knocking in disguise.

Follow the Energy – When something feels alive and interesting, even if it wasn’t part of your plan, consider following that energy and seeing where it leads.

Reframe “Bad” Luck – Ask yourself what might be possible now that wasn’t possible before. Sometimes what looks like a setback is actually a setup for something better.

Increase Your Surface Area for Luck – Put yourself in situations where interesting things could happen. Travel to new places, attend events where you don’t know anyone, take classes in subjects that intrigue you.

The Lucky Life

Living luckily isn’t about having everything go according to plan – it’s about being able to dance with whatever happens in ways that create meaning, connection, and joy. It’s the willingness to let disappointments become discoveries, to let failed plans become successful adventures.

Some of my luckiest moments have emerged from circumstances that initially looked like bad luck. The cancelled flight that led to an extra day in an interesting city. The wrong turn that revealed a beautiful neighborhood I never would have found otherwise. The broken plan that created space for something completely unexpected to emerge.

Today I Choose to Stay Open

Today, I choose to be lucky not by trying to control outcomes, but by staying curious about what wants to emerge. I choose to make plans that leave room for magic, to hold my expectations lightly enough that reality can surprise me in delightful ways.

I choose to believe that the universe might have better ideas than mine, that detours might lead to destinations more interesting than my original planned route. I choose to trust that staying open to what I didn’t expect might bring me exactly what I didn’t know I needed.

Because sometimes the luckiest thing that can happen is for your carefully laid plans to fall apart, creating space for an adventure you never could have planned – complete with deer who decide to trust you enough to share their mountain road, even if the weather isn’t what you ordered.

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