So far in the How to Be Lucky Challenge we’ve covered:

• Increasing our awareness
• Creating and noticing chance opportunities
• How to tap into our intuition
• Creating positive self-fulfilling prophecies

Today we’re covering how to turn bad luck into good.

We all have difficult challenges, stress and sometimes trauma that happen in our lives. These things can make us feel very unlucky.

But is there a way to turn bad luck into good?

Let’s talk about strategies to handle those challenges so that we can persevere, grow, and come out better for it.

This isn’t about putting on a happy face or finding the silver lining, although if you can do it, those can be helpful.

Instead, this is about becoming resilient.

Growth Mindset

One of the best ways to be resilient is to adopt a growth mindset. With a growth mindset, we know that we can grow and change for the better through any challenge.

Ask questions like,

“What can I learn from this?”

“What steps can I take to move forward?

“What have I overcome in the past that can help me now?”

“What is one small step I can do today to improve my situation?”

It’s not unusual for someone to hit part of their life where it really seems the world caved in on them, but to be able to look back and see how good things came from it.

Growth mindset sets us up for being able to turn bad luck into good.

Reframing

By reframing how we see an event, we can change the way we feel about it. Try to look for the good in the challenge.

For instance, there’s a woman in my writing class who had to start using a walker because of her mobility issues. That’s a tough transition. It would be easy for her to see the walker as a symbol of her declining health. Choosing to see the walker as a tool that provides freedom is a way to reframe the situation. She’s still able to go out and do the things she loves, because the walker provides her stability.

A less serious example is having to sit in traffic on a commute. Reframing as an opportunity to listen to a good podcast or call a friend, turns this little bit of bad luck into good.

Gratitude

Gratitude pops up frequently as a tool to live a flourishing life. It helps us be more resilient and weather difficult situations, because we see just how much we have to be thankful for, even in dark times.

Gratitude helps us build positivity and resilience.

Ask for Help from Others

Asking for help when we need it, brings other people closer to us. It helps us feel that we’re not alone. That sense of belonging and love can help us during difficult times and may also strengthen our relationships with others.

Action

If you’re going through a challenging time right now, spend a few minutes journaling through these ideas – Growth Mindset, Reframing, Gratitude and Asking for Help.

List a few specifics for each category. You may find a good next step or a way to change your mindset. You will probably see that there’s a lot of good to be grateful for, even in the midst of a hard time.

Life is a mix of bitter and sweet. We often encounter both of those feelings held within a single moment.

Knowing that the good hasn’t left us altogether, even when things seem very dark, can help us flourish and be resilient.