I’ve been averse to the word ‘luck’ my whole life.
According to the Cambridge Dictionary, the definition of luck is:
the force that causes things, especially good things, to happen to you by chance and not as a result of your own efforts or abilities
Not as a result of my own efforts?! Are you kidding me!?
I never wanted to achieve something by luck. I wanted to earn it. Work for it. Deserve it.
If I was lucky, it meant I didn’t attain it on my own merit or talent.
Maybe it was the middle-class values I grew up with.
Maybe it was my dad’s words – “You work hard, you make money. You don’t work hard, you don’t make money.”
Maybe it was my ego.
Well….sh*t. 🙃
That last statement got me thinking.
What if my ego, the part of me that wanted to be perceived as someone who works hard for what she has, was actually keeping me from even more abundance?
What if this ingrained way of thinking of having to work hard to reap any benefit or success, was a self-imposed glass ceiling?
Storytime….back in 2018 my hubby and I set a 5-year goal to buy a house.
Every Sunday we’d venture to a new neighborhood, grab a coffee and walk our dog, Tater Tot, to narrow down where we wanted to live.
Every night we’d scour Redfin and Zillow, wine in hand, and pine over properties we couldn’t afford and dismiss the ones we actually could.
Every month we deposited money into our house savings account.
In June of 2022, we sort-of-kind-of-decided we saved enough and were ready to look for real.
Here’s what happened:
- June 12th – we had dinner with our dear friend Adam Schenk who’s a PHENOMENAL realtor (realestatejedi.com) and we told him what we wanted.
- June 17th – we got a magical piece of paper from the bank that told sellers we were able to buy their property!
- June 18th – we saw three properties including one that was just damn gorgeous and a bit out of our price range… but we LOVED IT!
- June 20th – we went all in and put an offer on the damn gorgeous home and hoped for the best.
- June 22nd – we found out it was between us and one other party 🤯
- June 23rd – we drank a lot of wine and decorated the entire house in our minds. 🍷
- June 24th (8am) – we found out we got outbid and did not get the house.
- June 24th (11am) – we found out we got the house! The other party wasn’t ready to go into escrow that day. Our realtor, Adam, made it VERY clear we were and the sellers changed their minds and gave it to us!
- July 26th – we closed!!! 🎉
We hit our goal of being homeowners before our 5-year mark! We were beside ourselves!
Did we work hard saving the money for a down payment? YES.
Did we work hard to have the lifestyle we wanted? YES.
Did we work hard narrowing down what we wanted and where we wanted to live? YES.
Did we get lucky finding the right property at the right time? HELL YEAH!
Did we get lucky that our mortgage broker lowered our interest rate right before closing because she could? HELL YEAH!
Did we get lucky the sellers changed their minds? HELL YEAH!
That moment changed my relationship with luck.
None of our ‘hard work’ could’ve made those things happen! We were indeed lucky.
And yet, when I think about it, all of our hard work led us to that point to receive the luck.
So for me… 2023 is the Year of Luck.
I still plan on working hard and moving toward what I want and desire. And this year, I plan on holding space for luck to appear.
Here’s my challenge to you in 2023 –
Allow for that bit of magic to manifest. Allow for unexpected opportunities to come your way just because they can.
I mean….why wouldn’t we?
