Reading The Psychologist over bank holiday breakfast and came across a piece on how lucky charms work. Not the breakfast cereal but the ‘lucky’ knickers we wear on a first date; the ‘lucky’ trainers we wear on race day; the ‘lucky’ earrings for an interview and so on. I stopped believing in luck and started to focus on hard work and perseverance in my late teenage years when I began a degree in psychology and it seems that’s what’s behind the success of ‘lucky’ charms. From September’s The Psychologist:

“In a series of studies involving dozens of students, Lysann Damisch and colleagues at the University of Cologne have demonstrated the following: playing with a ball described as lucky improves participants’ putting accuracy; telling participants you’re pressing thumbs for them (the German equivalent of crossing fingers) improves the resolution of a balls into holes dexterity task; and the presence of their own personal lucky charm boosts participants’ performance on memory and anagram tasks.

Further analysis revealed these benefits came about because activating good-luck superstitions increased participants self-efficacy – that is, their belief in their own ability. In turn this increased participants’ persistence, thus fuelling superior performance.”

I’m a scientists and know this to be true form the work I do coaching people to achieve what’s important to them and from my own life. Yet still I harboured thoughts of the new trainers I’d bought bringing me enhanced speed this morning. Not quite a personal best for a 10K but better than I’d run all week in my old trainers.

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