Sarah Arnold-Hall

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Be Your Own Lucky Charm

Did you ever see that 2006 Lindsay Lohan film, Just My Luck?

Okay, so Mean Girls gets most of the Lohan fan attention – and for good reason – but Just My Luck is highly underrated. Stay with me here, it’s worth it.

Here’s the deal:

New Yorker, Ashley, is a good luck charm. Everything goes her way, all of the time. Like, always. She’s just always lucky. Voted prom queen – at a school she didn’t even attend, wins every time on lotto scratchies, pouring rain turns to sunshine the moment she steps outside.

Even when it seems like something has gone wrong (aka, dry cleaning mix up right before an important event), it turns out to be a blessing in disguise (aka, mix up was with Sarah Jessica-Parker’s dress, so she gets to wear that instead).

Of course, she has a fateful kiss with a perpetually unlucky stranger (hello, Chris Pine), and ends up switching her luck with him and everything goes horribly wrong. It’s a brilliant girls night in film, watch the trailer if you don’t know what I’m talking about.

I digress. The point is, we should all take a leaf out of Ashley’s book. You know when things just go right? The traffic lights go all green? You find $20 in a coat you totally forgot you had? You get unexpected good news?

For that moment, you feel like the luckiest girl (or guy) on the PLANET.

But guess what? Good luck is happening all around you, all the time, you’re just not noticing it because it doesn’t seem out of the ordinary.

  • There’s exactly the right amount of oat milk left for a cup of tea. Nice.

  • You were running late to work but your boss was even later. Phew.

  • Your phone is on 1% but somehow lasts for another 15 minutes. Yas.

Even things that seem like they aren’t good luck initially can actually turn out to be good luck. For example, missing the bus but meeting someone amazing at the bus stop, or dropping your half-eaten icecream and being gifted a whole new one for free.

I like to imagine that, just like Ashley, I too only ever have good luck. I pretend, for a few hours, that I am the luckiest girl in the world. During that time, no matter what happens, I imagine I’ve just rolled a 6 at life.

Even if it seems bad, I try to feel lucky. Because even the bad things in life can be good if you look at them in a different light.

It’s kind of an alternative way to practice gratitude. Plus, it feels SO good, walking around feeling like the luckiest person in the world – choosing to feel like the luckiest person in the world.

Someone has to be the luckiest person in the world. Why can’t it be you?

P.S. If you need some inspiration for your Luckiest Person in the World Gratitude Practice (I can trademark that mouthful, surely?), check out the whole movie here.

P.P.S. The Luckiest Person in the World Gratitude Practice (man, it needs a better name), is in action in another phenomenal movie, Legally Blonde, as seen below: