Can you prepare to be lucky?

This photo is a result of pure luck. It’s the shadow of a wooden artists figure and a paper hole punch which were on the windowsill of my office. I noticed that the shadow they’d created on the wall made it look like the figure was trying to balance on the hole punch and it amused me so I took the photo.

It got me wondering about the role that luck plays in creativity. You can see it in photography, the chance shot taken in perfect light or catching a subject in just the right moment. This takes nothing away from the skill of recognising and knowing how to capture the shot, but what about other forms of creativity?

Can you attract luck?

According to Twyla Tharp, one of America’s greatest choreographers, we can attract good luck by being generous.

In her book, The Creative Habit, Tharp says: “If you’re generous to someone, if you do something to help them out, you are in effect making them lucky. It’s like inviting yourself to a committee of good fortune. I cannot overstate how much a generous spirit contributes to good luck.”

Seneca, a Stoic philosopher of Ancient Rome, a statesman and dramatist, supposedly said “Good luck is when opportunity meets preparation”, and Twyla Tharp agrees. She says that in order to be creative you have to know how to prepare to be creative and gives examples of preparation rituals that many different types of creative people have developed to suit their own type of art, their personalities, environments and circumstances.

Whatever your ritual, the thing all preparation habits have in common is that they propel you into action — if you follow the routine, you get a creative payoff.

What’s your “lucky” routine?

Do you make your favourite tea or coffee, clear your workspace, go for a walk, putter about, play your favourite music, do warm up exercises, do some yoga, meditate?

How do you prepare to meet good luck?