Happy Accidents.

Probably the thing I am spending most of my time,thoughts and energy on at the moment is the training of my dog. Since I am an extremely lazy person I am working night and day in order for Larry to be the dog that I want later. I think the things that I have learned most from this experience is that being positive and caring gets you a lot further with social creatures than anger and punishment, and the importance of happy accidents.
Happy accidents are things that just happen for no particular reason, but are good. The best thing that happened to me was not planned as being good for me, moving to the USA was not a decision I made for myself, and I had no inkling whatsoever that my parents moved in order to have any effect on me at all. But the move changed me as a person, it gave me confidence, it made me much more outgoing and social, it gave me perspective on different people and different cultures.
"Successful people" (perhaps someday I will comment on this term, I find it rich in bias and meaning) are optimistic. What that essentially means is that they think they might get lucky, they think that things may work out. As a consequence when things do work out they are ready to see that it does, and to take advantage of it. Unsuccessful people generally spend their time explaining how things won't work and concentrating on how things fail.
In the ongoing molding of Larry from the Face of Evil to loving companion the greatest step I have taken, the one with the most dramatic and incontravertible success is being aware of the happy accident. A puppy is pretty close to a random action machine and as such they occasionally do things that are good and right. When I'm tired and cranky it is hard to notice these things in between the chewing, the biting, the defecating, but occasionally I do notice and I praise and love the wonderful little doggy and then he wants to do the good thing again.
So, my suggestion is to try to open yourself up to the possibility of things just going well, of even the worst person doing something nice, even by accident. It's a pleasant default position, if you don't do it naturally you might be surprised by how much does go right, and you can tell yourself that it's good for your life and career.