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Why Success Is a Function of Habit, Not Luck
Opportunities don’t happen, you create them.
Ralph Waldo Emerson has famously said, “Shallow men believe in luck. Strong men believe in cause and effect.”
Similarly, Bruce Springsteen once wrote, “When it comes to luck, you make your own.”
Dan Sullivan put it perfectly: “Luck and God favor those with good habits.”
In other words, there is no such thing as luck unless you create it. It’s something that comes after you’ve done the work, not before.
Many people want and expect it to be the other way around. They want to know that what they’re pursuing is a sure thing before they do it. They want everything to be perfectly lined up or they don’t do it.
However, no change or progress comes effortlessly. You first must endure the hard stuff to get to the easy stuff. To quote Benjamin P. Hardy,
“You’ve got to work a few years like few people will so you can spend the rest of your life like few people can.”
Indeed, it is only once you start moving the right direction that luck and miracles become commonplace.
