Does it seem like some people have all the luck? They lead happy lives filled with abundance, vitality, successful careers and rewarding relationships. Are they just born lucky? Maybe, but what matters most is knowing if we have the ability to change our own luck and improve our lives. People seem to think luck is a matter of chance. But imagine if all you had to do was learn a new set of skills, and then allow yourself time and patience to practice them. Consider what you could create if you knew luck was on your side! Below, in condensed format, are some basic skills needed to increase luck:

1. Identify, Visualize and Affirm

Luck is a matter of knowing exactly what is wanted, combined with strong inner beliefs which allow the right opportunities to present themselves. Our responsibility is to fill ourselves with exciting ideas. Take the time typically spent on disruptions, inner criticism, worrying and distractions and find a few exciting ideas of how you would wish life to look. See yourself in your ideal home, decorated exactly the way you want it look and feel. Visualize joyful partnerships, a rewarding career, or a life filled with abundance. Picture yourself being recognized and appreciated by people. See the look of validation and respect on their faces. Every day, spend some time sitting quietly and bringing your dream to mind. See the details, hear how wonderful it would all be. Feel the excitement. Write it down. Put together a simple picture collage of your dream. Imagine the benefits that you are able to bring about in the lives of others with your newly created dreams.

2. Expect Miracles Everyday

Expect good things to happen to you. Be receptive and open to good things happening for you. Have hopeful intentions about exciting new opportunities. Expect good fortune. It may not happen overnight, but decide to hold onto your expectations for as long as it takes. Eventually your thoughts become your beliefs, which then become a self-fulfilling prophesy. When we are willing to believe, really believe in miracles, then they will take place in your life. This willingness to believe is what takes time, persistence and effort. Change inner language to reinforce optimism and seeing the glass as half full instead of half empty. Replace the words, just my luck when something undesired happens with a more balanced outlook: Sometimes undesired events happen, but more often desired outcomes come my way. Every time you notice something wonderful happening, tell yourself, I'm such a lucky person!!

3. Recognition

Begin searching for luck. What we focus our attention and thoughts upon tends to increase. By deliberately deciding to notice luck more often, we see or recognize it more often. Be observant and make a big to-do about even the smallest lucky situations. Find a penny on the ground and excitedly say, Wow, abundance is at my feet. It often takes effort and retraining to notice whats right in our lives instead of focusing so intently on what is wrong. Notice the little (or big) lucky occurrences that happen each day. Write them down. Read over them and allow yourself to feel good inside. To teach myself how to pay more attention to luck, I kept a running journal section entitled, Intuitive Success -- Breakthroughs in Health, Abundance, Magic and Miracles. Throughout the day, I noticed and wrote down the wonderful events and synchroncities in each of these areas. Success builds on success and like attracts like. By focusing on the lucky circumstances, and deliberately feeling good about them, it becomes much easier to attract more of these wonderful experiences.

4. Listen to Your Lucky Hunches

Listen to the voice from within often referred to as a hunch, gut feeling, intuition or sixth sense. Act on hunches about people or situations. If you fail to follow your intuition, no need for self-criticism. Instead, have an exaggerated, overly friendly conversation with intuition. Enthusiastically tell it you heard the hunch. It was amazing! And exciting! Validate that you heard the hunch and this time you just didn't follow through. Then let it know that you are willing to allow more intuitive hunches to come into your world. Share your love and appreciation with your intuition and just watch what opens up!

5. Find Yourself Deserving

To allow good things into our life, we must find ourselves deserving. We dont have to earn luck, or prove our worth to get more of what we want. To be deserving, we simply must decide we are worthy. Sometimes we believe we do not deserve more success, happiness, mon*ey, blessings, miracles, etc. In this case, we owe ourselves the effort of inserting a new belief into worthiness bank. A belief that excitedly states, I am worthy! I deserve to have my dreams. I deserve love. I am worth it. I deserve to take the time to allow my luck to be good, to feel good and to surprise me.