When you think of your future, do you look forward to it from a feeling of peace and ease, or do you fear it and expect the worst?
Many of us are living in constant, chronic fear of the future.
What if we lose our jobs or the economy crashes?
What if we don’t have enough for retirement or get sick, or are all alone?
When I was a kid, I remember some adults in my life saying things like,
I’m going to have to live in the poor house when I get old, or I’m going to have to eat dog food because I won’t be able to afford groceries!
As you can imagine, I unconsciously adopted a fearful mindset and learned to always expected the worst.
This is a scarcity mindset.
A scarcity mindset is believing there isn’t enough to go around, and you aren’t going to get enough of whatever the limited resource is.
It doesn’t feel good. It often feels nervous, tight, rushed.
And it can apply to every area of your life, like,
money, time, love, and professional success.
Scarcity thinking leads to feelings like anxiety, fear, jealousy, envy, resignation, apathy, and helplessness.
When we believe there isn’t enough for us, we act in ways that make it more likely to be true.
Do you ever feel like you just can’t get ahead? You work so hard to get out of debt only to build it back up again?
Do you struggle with not having enough time, constantly feeling behind, busy, rushing through your days?
Do you wish you had better relationships? More connection, depth, understanding, or fun?
The answer is learning to shift from a scarcity mindset to an abundant mindset.
Someone with an abundance mindset believes there is an abundance of and enough of everything in life for everyone, whether it’s time, money, love, or opportunities.
Here are a few exercises that helped me shift from scarcity to abundance:
Focus on what’s working. What you have. What is enough. Retrain your brain to see the good and the abundance in your life, instead of constantly focusing on the negative or the scarce. Do you have clean drinking water? Food? Electricity and heat? A home? A reliable car? A cell phone? You are living in abundance.
Question your thoughts. I used to think things like: It figures. This always happens to me. Nothing ever works out the way I want. But when I began to question my tricky thoughts, I realized that things worked out for me way more than not. I realized that my life was continually getting better and better. Why wouldn’t I expect that to continue? I began telling myself; everything always works out for me. And you know what? It does. Because I can see the good in it all.
Practice feeling appreciation. We can feel appreciation for almost anything. It’s a powerful practice that literally rewires your brain. Your brain will find and create evidence for what you believe. Do you want to believe that your life is abundant or scarce? You are always creating what you believe.
Shifting out of scarcity thinking is some of the most challenging and necessary work we can do.
It doesn’t happen overnight. It often requires a deep dive.
I know it did for me. And my life is better now than I ever imagined it could be.
I unconsciously trained my brain to see what wasn’t working, what wasn’t enough, and consequently, I would create that over and over.
I chose to retrain it.
That’s what I help my clients do.
To intentionally create whatever they want with their minds.
My intention is never to tell my clients what to think but to teach them how to think on purpose and more skillfully.
But I will tell you that when you learn to think more abundantly,
you appreciate more, feel more confident and joyful, develop deeper relationships and have a bigger vision of the future you want to create.
Consider moving out of Scare City and into Abundant Town.
It’s a much nicer place to live.