How to Win the Lottery of Life

I don't have one friend who has won the jackpot in my state's lottery. I have four. Two friends shared $8 million, one won $3 million, and one won $12 million. I, on the other hand, have won as much as $6 on a $3 bet on Powerball. Am I jealous? Yeah, a little, but I am happy with what I have. Here's why.

The lottery doesn’t have a ticket that delivers you 15 minutes of happiness. There is no ticket that guarantees you will be happy ever after. Neither the lottery nor the Universe does the work of figuring out exactly what money has to do with your happiness. You have to figure that out for yourself. There’s no requirement that you have to be happy or know what makes your happy or that you chase unhappiness out of your life to win money—except if you are desperate for a win, you tend not to win. But everyone can use the power of positive thinking to create a happier life. People can also use the power of positive thinking for unhappy results. Your satisfaction with the life you create often depends on the goals you choose to achieve. People who are happy with the experience of positive thinking:

Count their blessings.

Counting your blessings lowers your anxiety (or, as psychologists put it, mental contrasting of a positive state with a negative future regulates state anxiety). The lower your anxiety, the easier it is for you to recognize “luck” when it comes your way, and the easier it is to refine your goals so you can turn them into future realities. If you’re nervous about the future, pay attention to what’s going well in the here and now.

Tackle “impossible” goals in baby steps.

The more complex our goal, the more we rely on our belief systems and the less we rely on logical processes. If you just can’t believe that something you desire is possible, and the way toward your goal requires you to overcome your biases, you will best engage your brain if you progress by small steps. Let’s face it. Winning a big prize with a scratch-off ticket is “impossible,” except several people do it with every game! In the next chapter, we’ll cover those baby steps.

Pursue happiness to become successful rather than pursuing success to be happy.

Some people are just naturally happy. Some people are born grouches. Psychological research finds that about 50 percent of the variation in happiness from person to person depends on their genes, and about 10 percent derives from circumstances. But that leaves about 40 percent of our happiness under our own control. You don’t have to fake happiness to attract money into your life. You don’t have to be super-happy to be successful with money, either. But you’ll attract more money into your life if you enjoy however little or much money you have along the way.

Use positive thinking to create experiences, not things.

Our brains edit our memories of our experiences so we have more happy memories. Things, on the other hand, wear out, get lost or stolen, go out of style, and generally lose their appeal as time goes by. When you have a history of happy experiences, you are more open to that flash of intuition that puts you in the right place at the right time. So don’t set your money goals in terms of just the things that you will buy, also think in terms of the experiences you will add to your life.

Use positive thinking to create shared experiences, not just solitary experiences.

Shared experiences probably increase your brain’s gray matter. The more isolated you feel, the smaller the volume of your “social brain” (your orbitofrontal cortex, dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, and lingual gyrus). The more connected you feel, the larger the volume of the parts of your brain that are involved in social interactions—where you experience “luck.” (Of course, there are no coincidences. There is no such thing as luck. But it sure seems that way!) Scientists don’t know why people with more social connections have more gray matter in their brains, or which comes first, the healthy brain or the social connections, but it only takes five friends to make a measurable difference in the function of your brain. People who have at least five friends are luckier than those who don’t.
Use positive thinking to create things they enjoy rather than just having lots of money. Why does this make people happier? You don’t really get happier by removing a negative. “I’ll never have to worry about bills again” is a way to fixate on bills. Bills have to be paid, but they don’t make you happy.

Express gratitude for everyday events.

All of us experience a phenomenon called extinction. When we first walk into a bakery, for example, we smell baking bread. If we work in a bakery, we don’t notice it. The same psychological principle applies to everyday blessings, a nice house, healthy meals, constant friendships, love of family, for instance. You don’t have to spend a lot of time recounting the blessings in your life. A minute a day is enough. But if you do, you’ll be happier, and more successful in reaching your goals, with or without conscious positive thinking. Otherwise, as the old cliché goes, you don’t you had it ‘til it’s gone.
Present themselves as honest and upfront about their failings and modest about their successes. This increases likability, which creates long-term relationships that nurture “luck.”

Avoid nursing grudges.
Forgiveness lowers your stress and increases your brain power. The opposite isn’t quite as true, that is, you can’t think your way into forgiving someone or something.

Don’t waste time trying to drive negative thoughts out of their minds.

The nineteenth century Russian novelist Dostoyevsky wrote in Summer Notes on Winter Impressions “Try to pose for yourself this task: Not to think of a polar bear, and you will see that the cursed thing will come to mind every minute.” A psychologist at Harvard University named Daniel Wegner decided to carry out a simple experiment to see whether this was true. He asked a group of volunteers to sit alone in a room and not think about a white polar bear. They were instructed to ring a bell every time the white polar bear came to mind. The resulting cacophony of bells showed that their efforts not to think about white polar bears were unsuccessful. People who try to suppress negative thoughts actually think more of them. (This also explains by many self-improvement programs, especially dieting, fail to bring their desired results.) You don’t have to have perfect faith to win the lottery. Fortunately, millions of other people who also have imperfect faith are driving the winner in your direction.

Get out and do something physical when they feel stuck in a rut.

Exercise, both aerobic exercise and strength training, helps you attain the frame of mind that allows you for close out an experience that isn’t working for you and move on. When you are frustrated that you haven’t found that $5,000,000 Super Platinum Vanna White Drives Out to Your House to Deliver Your Money ticket, don’t go to the payday loan place to get the money to buy 100 more tickets. Get out and do something different, something physical.
When they bury the hatchet, don’t mark the location. The more you can completely move on from a wrong you suffered, the less depression your experience, and the easier it is for you to attract. A friend of this author tells the story of a woman who “just knew” that a scratch-off ticket would pay $25,000 but she felt she would have to scrimp for the rest of the week if she bought it. The man behind her did—and won the $25,000. That $25,000 would have made a huge difference in her life. Happily, she was spiritually enlightened enough to wish the man well and carry the lesson with her to the next opportunity to buy a winner.

Write about their failures and unpleasant experiences rather than talking about them.

Talking about things that bother you, even with a professionally trained counselor or your best friend, won’t make you feel better. Writing about them, however, usually does. Talking and writing require different parts of your brain. When you write about something, you have to be structured and organized. You have to create a story line. You can’t dwell on just one aspect of your experience. Clinical studies show that writing about your deepest feelings just a few minutes a day improves mood—and opens your mind to new possibilities.

Share their gains.

There’s a brain-related reason sharing makes us happier. The act of voluntary giving activates two parts of the brain known as the caudate nucleus and the nucleus acumbens. These areas of the brain are also active when we are satisfied by food, sex, or shelter. Giving helps us feel secure and happy in our lives in ways that just having things doesn’t. Even people who don’t have money to spend on others can do nice things, such as helping a friend, sending a get-well message, or giving blood. Happiness researcher Sonja Lyubormirsky found that doing one nice thing a week increased ratings on a happiness scale by 40 percent.

So don’t just rely on doing random acts of kindness. Be a kind and generous person all the time. You’ll be happier. You’ll attract more money into your life. And guess what! The lottery of life actually wants you to win the jackpot of happiness.