10 ways to improve your luck!

We all know someone who if they didn't have bad luck would have no luck at all. I have a feeling that sometimes it can be avoided by a bit of preventative maintenance.

Here are 10 suggestions that I came up with - there are probably loads more!

1) Prune back over-tall trees that stand close to buildings or powerlines

2) Change your engine oil at least annually if not in line with mileage recommendations

3) Keep rechargable batteries charged up.

4) Keep gutters and drains clear of leaves and other debris

5) Use good quality fixings (thanks Jay!)

6) "Stitch in time" mend small tears before they can spread

7) Get potential medical issues checked out in a timely way before they can become more serious issues

8) Keep your chimney well swept (if appropriate)

9) Keep loose objects weighed down or put away if wind is forecast

10) Pluck out nuisance weeds (such as trees) when they are small

pruning back trees from phone line

This thread was inspired by #1. We have strong winds today and my hawthorn has grown up a bit around our overhead telephone/internet cable. I was hoping to be able to prune it back properly once it was fully dormant in winter, but have given it a good hacking back today anyway to be on the safe side!
edit: added photo

This message really resonates with me; it reminds me that I have neglected a few honey-do list items that could bite my if I don't find the time.

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure

(Benjamin Franklin, 1735)

Basic maintenance goes a long way toward staving off 'bad luck'. Many new homeowners learn this the hardest - and often, the most expensive &/or dangerous way possible.

This is an easy one : Have a good attitude and expect good things to happen. Keeping our eyes open works for both the quantum and Newtonian governing laws.

If it wasn't for bad luck we would not have any at all .. or something like that.

Those are good suggestion.  

I have always believed that hard work the good things that we do are more important to success than luck.

Years ago I told dear hubby that he would be better off saving his money rather than buying lottery tickets.  I still feel that way and he does buy lottery tickets.

To elaborate. We do like to judge events as good or bad. That can be limiting.  It takes a lot practice to marginally improve that strong instinct. " That apple fel on my head. Ouch!" That is pretty easy to interpret as bad. But if we take a step back and try to open ourselves through time to what possibilities that a negative event offers and how it might apply to the other things going on in our lives, persuading us to action in this way or that, we may later come to see that "Ouch!" as a good thing and very fortuitous. Doesn't that make sense? The apples are ripe for cider.

Nancy Reading wrote: 5) Use good quality fixings (thanks Jay!)

In Canada we use the term hardware or fasteners.  I had suggested Nancy splurge for stainless steel nuts and bolts for a project she's been working on.

Stainless is more brittle, and it's good to use a bit of grease on the bolts as the nuts are prone to jamming  (technical term spalling maybe???)

Regular steel is stronger for some jobs, and in our wet climate, my neighbor will say it isn't possible to use too much grease. He's been known to have to take docks apart in the pouring rain, and bolts he installed with lots of grease come free easily. He would definitely say that's a case of improving your luck!

Nails are a pain to remove in my opinion, but they bend where a screw may break which makes them better for certain jobs where "damaged" is better than "broken". Using nails and hurricane straps when attaching a roof is definitely improving your luck if high winds come through! (Canadian speak - Simpson strong ties)

"I'm a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it." —Thomas Jefferson.  This is only sometimes true. Sometimes it's a case of working smarter not harder! For Permaculture, that would be, "work with Nature, not against her". However, all of these help you improve your luck in my opinion.

Jay Angler wrote:

Nancy Reading wrote: 5) Use good quality fixings (thanks Jay!)

In Canada we use the term hardware or fasteners.  I had suggested Nancy splurge for stainless steel nuts and bolts for a project she's been working on.

Stainless is more brittle, and it's good to use a bit of grease on the bolts as the nuts are prone to jamming  (technical term spalling maybe???)

Regular steel is stronger for some jobs, and in our wet climate, my neighbor will say it isn't possible to use too much grease. He's been known to have to take docks apart in the pouring rain, and bolts he installed with lots of grease come free easily. He would definitely say that's a case of improving your luck!

Nails are a pain to remove in my opinion, but they bend where a screw may break which makes them better for certain jobs where "damaged" is better than "broken". Using nails and hurricane straps when attaching a roof is definitely improving your luck if high winds come through! (Canadian speak - Simpson strong ties)

"I'm a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it." —Thomas Jefferson.  This is only sometimes true. Sometimes it's a case of working smarter not harder! For Permaculture, that would be, "work with Nature, not against her". However, all of these help you improve your luck in my opinion.

Grease is also valuable on toilet seat bolts.  I've had to use the hacksaw more than I'd like to remove them before I grew a bit wiser.

Depending on the situation, going to grade 5 or grade 8 bolts can also be of value and the added cost can be considered the price of more peace of mind.  While plastic is involved, nylock nuts can also be of value.

We dodged a bullet this week. I went down to our shop (a tiny convenience store) to find that several of the electrical appliances (fridge, freezer, water boiler) were off...Luckily it's cold and so the temperatures were still good. On investigation, we found one of the shop circuits had tripped so all the oldest mains sockets were off. Having eliminated a fault on the shop wiring (not an unlikely scenario) we isolated the fault to the front display fridge by plugging in one appliance at a time  - looks like the compressor failed. However, my husband had replaced the mains consumer box a few years ago to one with circuit breakers and it is probable that if he had not done so we would just have come down to a smoking shell of a shop.


image source

The older style wire fuses would not have failed in time to stop the machine catching fire. Since we are at least 20 minutes from the fire brigade, and the problems happened overnight to boot, in all probability that would have meant the loss of the shop. We are now shopping for a new fridge, but it could have been a whole lot worse!

Nancy Reading wrote:The older style wire fuses would not have failed in time to stop the machine catching fire. Since we are at least 20 minutes from the fire brigade, and the problems happened overnight to boot, in all probability that would have meant the loss of the shop. We are now shopping for a new fridge, but it could have been a whole lot worse!

"A stitch in time" maybe doesn't just mean mending! Budgeting for and upgrading and replacing infrastructure that's past its prime and a known risk, fits under the same category, as you've just identified!

So glad you had and didn't loose anything!

My house is surrounded by a number of very large trees. They are critical to keeping my home cooler in the summer.  I also live in tornado country, and each of those trees has the ability to destroy my house. I made a point of removing one large junk tree on the north east that had a high probability of coming down.   I have trimmed all the others to shift their center of gravity away from the house. This is a matter of reducing the risk rather than eliminating it.

John F Dean wrote:My house is surrounded by a number of very large trees. They are critical to keeping my home cooler in the summer.  I also live in tornado country, and each of those trees has the ability to destroy my house. I made a point of removing one large junk tree on the north east that had a high probability of coming down.   I have trimmed all the others to shift their center of gravity away from the house. This is a matter of reducing the risk rather than eliminating it.

We do something similar - there are a number of mature spruce trees between my house and the road. They are probably large enough to be a problem in an exceptional storm, but also in a moderate wind protect the house from windchill and keep it warmer, maybe deflect some potential wind damage to the roof tiles too. Every year or so we take the top off one of the trees (makes a good xmas tree!) so keeping the risk of the whole tree going down lower. They regrow from the trunk again - so it's like high level pollarding.

Some years ago, I took a police drivers' training class. After the gory films on what happens in vehicle accidents, the participants (3 to a course-car plus an officer), took the wheel and drove at high speeds through a large obstacle course. Even experienced drivers hit a surprising number of cones!
These three lessons have stayed with me in driving and in life:
Always have an escape route
Looking ahead and adjusting speed early beats accelerating and breaking
Don't let aggressive drivers set your pace
"Luckily" I have never had an accident.

Amy Gardener wrote:"Luckily" I have never had an accident.

Hubby claims most car crashes aren't "accidents" - they're collisions and totally avoidable by the sort of training you took, driving defensively and not allowing people to distract the driver.

So please "make your own luck" by doing everything you can to drive safely and be alert and prepared to take evasive action if someone else makes a mistake.

Nancy Reading wrote:We all know someone who if they didn't have bad luck would have no luck at all. I have a feeling that sometimes it can be avoided by a bit of preventative maintenance.

Here are 10 suggestions that I came up with - there are probably loads.

Truly fantastic thread. Thank you all for your actionable and wise contributions. I have much to do now.

Speaking of Luck!   I just had a series of fortunate unfortunate incidents.  At my wife’s urging, I sorted through some electrical supplies that had accumulated in a kitchen junk drawer.  I went down into  my basement with them and found our water heater leaking. Even though there was a rapid drip, from the small amount of water on the floor, it had obviously just begun.  I got a new water heater, threw the breaker to the heater, and began to swap them out. My eye caught the box of electrical supplies with the meter on top.  I tested the wires; they were still hot..220.  I threw the main breaker and continued with the help of a flashlight.  As I was finishing, I dropped the flashlight. It hit the water intake ahead of the shutoff and the pipe began spraying.  I shut off the water at the meter. Fortunately it was a 6” nipple that burst. It was easy to replace with parts on hand.  The old nipple was thoroughly corroded.  

If I had not sorted the junk drawer…if I had not gone in the basement….if I had not checked the wiring …if I had not dropped the flashlight….if it had been the intake pipe  that burst instead of the nipple….if the nipple had burst without me being there…   I guess, this is an example of the glass half full.  Even though many  problems presented themselves, the end results avoided numerous disasters.

I agree with what's said here in general: it isn't about 'luck' or 'bad luck' (or an 'accident'). In many cases we can prevent bad things from going to happen. In Dutch we say 'beter voorkomen dan genezen', meaning it's better to prevent than to cure/heal.

At the other side there are things we can do to feel 'lucky' (or happy, I think that is a better word). Like someone here said (sorry, forgot who it was) you can save your money instead of buying lottery tickets. When you have savings, you know you have the money, so you feel happy. But when you spent your money on the lottery you are waiting for the win that probably never comes, so you aren't happy.
That's just one example.

I hope you understand what I mean, somtimes I can not find the right English expressions to say what I want to say.

Be observant. With all of your senses, not just visually.  Notice things around you, listen, snif the air, pay attention to how things look/feel/sound/taste/etc.look for oppertunities, and for things which may become a problem later.

Jay Angler wrote:

Amy Gardener wrote:"Luckily" I have never had an accident.

Hubby claims most car crashes aren't "accidents" - they're collisions and totally avoidable by the sort of training you took, driving defensively and not allowing people to distract the driver.

So please "make your own luck" by doing everything you can to drive safely and be alert and prepared to take evasive action if someone else makes a mistake.

I'm with your hubby.  Short of a mechanical failure (which may or may not have been somewhat preventable), collisions are generally from someone either ignoring rules of the road or driving too fast for conditions.

Regarding lottery winnings - a large proportion of lotto winners are back to where they were (typically effectively broke) within a few years as they don't know how to handle financial capital.

So back in December of 2024 I had very bad luck at work. One issue after another and worst my boss was not very happy with me. So one day I just got a broom swept the floor my thought was "it would be hard for something to go wrong".  It did help a little but my luck as of today January 2025 is mixed at best, sometimes talking about or writing about bad luck can change to good luck.

Further thoughts:
When oppertunities come your way consider how to procede, ask for advice, but be prepared to go against it if said advice doesn't add up for your situation.  Be willing to take calculated risks, sometimes risks can bring rewards, but don't do something if your gut tells you no.  When an oppertunity comes along follow it, do your research.  For me prayer also comes in during the "research and advice seeking time.  Don't let something good pass you by because you're afraid.  But conversely don't pursue something because you feel pressured to do so when you know its not right for you.

I would consider myself to be someone with "medium luck" meaning I win some and I lose some, in every way.  On the lighter side, I love raffles, so when I buy raffle tickets I tend to buy one if they're more spendy, but if they're aprox. $1 per ticket I usually choose the "six for $5" option and I don't win every time but I win often enough that said strategy has proved useful.