Sometimes, as the adage advises sagely, a little luck is the best plan. Here are four things you can do to increase the likelihood that good things will come your way. Each one is designed to put you in a better position to advance toward whatever is your goal
1. Visualize, don’t wish.
One thing I’ve tried to never do is make wish lists. I try to have a very steppingstone mentality about this whole thing, where as soon as you make one step you visualize the next step, not five steps ahead. -- Taylor Swift
At the end of a particularly taxing day, feeling stressed and overwhelmed, a mentor asked me a simple question with complex answers: “Jason,” he said, “would you know a good day if you saw one?”
Open a notebook to a fresh page, and write tomorrow’s date on top. For just five minutes, write as much as you can to describe what would happen tomorrow, if it were a good one. At the end of those five minutes, read what you wrote and ask yourself, “What can I do today to get ready for tomorrow?”
Related: Richard Branson: To Be Successful in Business, You Need a Little Luck
2. Know when you’re at your best.
Every job is good if you do your best and work hard. A man who works hard stinks only to the ones that have nothing to do but smell. -- Laura Ingalls Wilder
One Sunday evening many years ago, I experienced one of “those” travel days. Near midnight, I decided to drive from Chicago to Cleveland Heights, Ohio, to fulfill my commitment to be “on stage” for a client the next morning. At about 4 a.m., halfway there, I stopped to fill the tank with gas. In those few minutes, I opened my notebook and on top of a blank page I wrote, “I’m at my best when…” Then, I filled in the blank lines with the kinds of things I could do over the following four hours to “increase the likelihood” that I’d have a good day with the client group that had hired me.
Do it. Write your own list of 5-10 “conditions” for you to be at your best. Make sure they are 100 percent in your control, and 100 percent believable that they could happen. Want some examples? Just visit the website: www.AtMyBestWhen.com
3. Build your team.
I am a member of a team, and I rely on the team, I defer to it and sacrifice for it, because the team, not the individual, is the ultimate champion. -- Mia Hamm
Just the other day I heard my wife and business partner, Jodi, talking about about founding her small-business advising firm. My wife explained, in great detail, the effect her previous job had on her overall mental health. She was stressed. She was sad. She was sick. Sunday afternoons she started feeling depressed. Thursday mornings she started living for Friday night. It wasn’t a healthy life…
Related: Can You Design Your Own Luck?
Today, make a list of the 10 people who play a positive role in your business AND personal life. Then, over the next month, reach out to each person, twice, in ways that develop the relationship positively.
4. Measure the right feedback."
I don’t care what people say about my relationship; I don’t care what they say about my boobs. People are buying my songs; I have a sold-out tour. I’m getting incredible feedback from my music.'' -- Katy Perry
Back about 15 years ago, I was a first-year high school teacher. The entire school district was focused on showing some marked, objective improvement that the students were making throughout the year. Each student was going to complete the same curriculum and be assessed the same way at the end of the year.
You have ask yourself, what is it all worth to you to experience the success you’re marching toward? If you take the time right now, some 15 minutes, that’s all, to identify a specific target you’re marching toward, you can break that down in to different parts. So, start that 15 minute timer ( click here ), take out some paper, and give yourself the gift of your attention and plan your future.
