Can I Change My Luck & Learn to Take Risks?

I read in a book recently that “lucky” people* are often just more open to new opportunities. Of course, not all opportunities are good ones, but being open is the first step to finding those that are. 

If you ask me, we could all use a bit more luck these days, so I want to be open to new opportunities.

But the truth is, new things scare me. They always have. Though I spend so much time thinking about self-improvement and growth, I’m actually terrified of taking a chance on any new habit, career pursuit, exercise, hobby, and more.

Because for me, new opportunities unearth new ways to fail. 

And though I do believe that the greatest growth comes from failing, that doesn’t make it any easier to go through. 

I’ve never been good at failing. As I recently wrote about in my strange addiction post, my Myers-Briggs mediator personality does not do well with criticism. Logically, I know that feedback can only help me reach the level that I’m striving for. I’ve also had countless personal experiences in which critical feedback has shaped my personal growth. 

And yet, the thought of someone being disappointed or unhappy with anything I do fills me with dread. Like a pit in my stomach. Like if I hear those words or see that I’ve not met the standards that others were seeking, I’ll be disowned by that person. 

It’s taken me years to find the courage to speak up when I know I should take responsibility for something that has gone awry. 

Of course, all of this also has to do with the fact that I’m outwardly motivated rather than internally motivated—which is another issue that maybe I’ll write about in the future. 

But I want to come back to the idea of luck.

Another thing the book mentioned was that “lucky” people tended to have a unique, optimistic way of perceiving the world. When faced with failure or unwelcome circumstances, these people still considered themselves lucky because they were gaining something, no matter how dismal the situation. 

I desperately want to adopt this attitude, and I’m trying. But it hasn’t been easy. I find it hard to remove myself from my immediate feelings of disappointment and defeat. These overwhelm me when I’m faced with things not going as well as I’d hoped. 

And so, I’m less likely to take risks. 

And the only way to see a big reward is to take a risk. 

I should know… I took a risk moving to San Francisco in 2013. Now I live in a studio downtown. I’m writing in a city that Jack Kerouac, Dave Eggers, and Mark Twain (among many others) wrote in. I am able to do interesting work. I can compost my food scraps (something I mistakenly thought every city offered). I live near longtime friends. And, prior to the pandemic, enjoyed everything the city had to offer. 

Before that, I took the risk of studying abroad. Now, this may not seem like a risk to many of you, especially because the program I chose consisted of staying with a group of other students from my school in a house that the university leased from the monks of Salzburg, Austria. Still, it felt like a risk for me. I was leaving the familiar campus that I’d lived at for the past four years. I was joining new students who I wasn’t already friends with (I did have one friend luckily < see what I did there?> who came on the trip with me). I was going to a new country whose language I didn’t speak. For me? That’s a risk.

And it was perhaps one of the best experiences of my life thus far. I was able to see so much more of the world than I would ever have been able to had I passed on that experience. 

I took the risk of traveling for my 30th birthday alone to the Northwest Territory of Canada to explore in the snow and spot the Northern Lights and a frozen waterfall. After searching for the lights (truthfully just an excuse to keep traveling to these northern areas) in Iceland and Finland, it was a magical moment alone on a lake—apart from others on my tour group who dared stay out in the cold—watching them dance across the sky. 

And yet - even with those positive risk-associated outcomes, I am still frozen in the face of taking on a new opportunity. 

Will this part of my personality ever change? Will I ever be able to shape my luck by opening myself to new opportunities (within reason)? Or will I have to learn to fight through my fears and meet new opportunities with committed trepidation?

I’m not sure!