Skill vs. Luck: Who really deserves success?

Humans possess a basic aspiration to understand the relationship between cause and effect. This is why we often struggle in life to understand why some good decisions lead to bad outcomes and vice versa. We tend to wonder about the role that luck plays in our success or failure – whether in business, at work or in our personal life.

Why is that the most skillful do not always win? And are the most successful people mostly just the luckiest people in our society? 

When thinking about success one needs to keep focus on whatever is in one’s control – our capabilities, skills, performance.

How is a skill being developed?

Learning a new skill follows three stages – a cognitive, an associative and an autonomous one – remember how you learned to drive a car. It is found that most people need around 50 hours of practice to develop a new skill.

Do you consider yourself lucky?

When perceiving the causes of success and failure, people often use different biases in their way of thinking. Researchers in the field of social psychology have worked to explain various “mistakes” our mind tends to make. From the attribution theory to the self-serving bias – they all try to shed some light and help us assess our thinking that leads to a particular behaviour so that we perform better.