This week I remembered an awesome session with one of my clients. The topic was about mindset concerning abundance. More specifically, money abundance.
There are a lot of people who have a specific relationship with the idea of having money. Some see it as evil. Others, as too hard to get. Some associate it with scarcity. Others, with power. Different associations are infinite.
How we relate to things is how we interact with them. For example, let’s say you have an acquaintance that picks her nose often. You think it’s super gross. Every time you have to deal with her, you have a disgusting feeling, and immediately you reach out to your hand sanitizer after the interaction. Your feeling is disgust, and your action is sanitizing. That acquaintance might trigger in your thoughts like “I am running out of sanitizers; I need to buy more Lysol; I forgot to vacuum my house this week.
With abundance and money, similar things may go on. You relate to money in a way, and this leads you to certain triggers and/or actions. Because you are in auto-pilot, very often, you might not even notice what these relations in your head are and how they are impacting your life/work actions.
So here are some strategies that I noticed working for some of my clients and friends. Remember: not all things work for everyone. Be critical, and see what works for you. What works for you is best for you.
1-Define what abundance means for you
Defining what abundance is for you is the same as saying what attributes your next smartphone should have. If you are not clear what you want from your smartphone, whenever you buy one, you will have no idea if it was a good or a bad purchase. You will learn on the go, as you experience it. And maybe when you experienced it enough and are ready to say if it was a good or bad choice, it’s too late. It might be time to buy your next one again.
Delineating a definition of Money Abundance means you have a clear picture of what you want and what you believe in when you think about this topic. My client, for example, believed that abundance exists; it is available to everyone and is connected to gratitude. She believes you can only see abundance when you are in a gratitude state. Many “gurus,” today, say something similar for a reason. If you are in a scarcity state, you cannot see abundance; you can then only see what’s lacking. It’s like being in a pool – you will see and feel the water around you, and not the earth around the pool.
Whenever you realize that you are pointing out everything that is lacking in a situation (including but not limited to criticizing things), it means that you are probably in scarcity mode, not abundance. The cue to raise your awareness about when you are in the wrong state is that your thinking mode is “this is not enough.”
You don’t have to stop identifying what’s wrong. Defining what’s wrong is the first step to improve. But if you keep your mind in what’s wrong without quickly moving to solution and action to change what’s wrong, you are in a victim mode: the mode of scarcity.
In order to flip to an abundance mindset, one has to be aware of things they are grateful for. And, yes, sounds cheesy, but it is true. We simply forget all the things we are so grateful for because we take them for granted. Imagine you complain about your kitchen. Your kitchen is small, doesn’t have as many cabinets as you wanted, and the appliances are old. Hold this thought.
This week I saw Srikumar Rao in a presentation making a very interesting suggestion. He asked the audience to imagine certain things being taken away from them. Imagine a thunder stroke in your house, and you lost all your appliances, and your house caught fire. You lost your entire kitchen. How grateful are you for your kitchen now?
I don’t fancy very much catastrophizing in order to realize how grateful we should be. However, if you are in a state where victim mode is so entrenched, then try using that. Try using anything at your disposal that moves you from victim/scarcity mode to abundance mode.
Here are a few ideas:
- Make a list of things you are grateful for
- Read your “I am grateful for” list often
- Write a little letter to your Creator, saying why you are so thankful for a certain experience. If you are agnostic, write a letter to your future self. Or anything that works for you.
- If you are thankful for someone’s existence, hug them, and say, “I am so thankful that you were born, and I was able to meet you.”
- Work on your miracle mindset. Read my post about this fantastic topic.
- Meditate about things you are grateful for. If this is a bit hard for you, you can always pick some audible books to guide you through a meditation. I recommend Glenn Harrold’s meditations. He is great.
There are many books and articles out there exploring new ways to accomplish this. I am sure you must also have many other cool and creative ideas on how to explore this topic. Share some of them with me! I would love to receive an email from you with some extra ideas.
2-Create and monitor your household budget
Everyone must build a solid and reliable household budget. Here is why:
- It gives clarity on your Financial Profile:
Budgets help you clearly understand where you are spending money, how you are spending money, and why you are spending money. Clarity and awareness is the first step in understanding your financial profile. And it raises your awareness about things you should be grateful for and forgot.
What do you mean by “financial profile?” To put it plainly, your financial profile is how your personality and actions reflect in your finances. You might be a huge spender, without ever investing in anything. You then can never see your dreams accomplished, because there is hardly any money left all the time. So you feel you live in scarcity all the time. Or conversely, you are such a big saver, that you never spend any money having some fun and a good time, and you feel you are living in scarcity all the time because you never allow yourself anything good to happen.
Finding the sweet spot is key here. And this is where budgeting comes in place.
Budgeting is very connected with abundance/scarcity mindset, because as mentioned above, how we relate to things is how we interact with them. So, in a nutshell, preparing and following a budget will help you get clarity on how your personality is affecting your finances. It will also help you with outlining your abundance definition. And, it will help you take action on things you can improve to make your move from scarcity mindset to an abundance mindset.
- It increases your financial confidence
When you have a well-constructed budget, and you follow it and monitor it, you know exactly how much you can spend every month. Let’s say you want to buy a new TV. If you have a budget, and you have a clear picture that you save 400 dollars every month, you will be confident that you can, say, save the next three months to buy that TV that you want. You know your trade-offs, and you know how long things will take. It gives most people a lot of confidence because they know exactly what to expect, what to do, and how to do it. In this case, you expect to have your TV in 3 months (expectation), by saving 400 bucks every month (how) from your monthly surplus (what).
- It helps you plan better
We live in a world of options. In today’s world, there are too many options. Many of us feel it’s hard to make a choice when so many options are available to us. When you have a budget, you can plan better and make choices more easily, because you already have a guideline to follow. It means if you have to make a choice not contemplated in your guideline, you have something to refer back to, before making decisions. Why was it not contemplated? What trade-offs will you have to make if you were to say yes to that choice? What benefits might you have? Is this a choice of impulse or a choice of benefit?
For example, let’s say your budget did not contemplate a trip with your friends to – say – Bahamas. You think it’s a good opportunity to connect with those friends again, have some fun and take a break. You decide that you will withdraw the money needed for the trip from your savings account, but in exchange, you would have to “fill it back up” in the next four or five months with your monthly surplus. Once you are back, you may feel grateful you had an opportunity to go to the Bahamas, and this might make you feel abundant. And because you have a plan to top off your finances back again, you feel confident.
So having a budget and a clear picture of your financial profile helps you making decisions and planning your life with confidence.
If you have some trouble creating your own household budget, stay tuned for our upcoming training on domestic and personal budgeting.
3-Manage the chatter
“Your mind chatters. It chatters ceaselessly.” I love this line from my previous post. Your mind can be your worst enemy. But it can also be your best friend. I had even seen clients mention that it almost sounds like their minds have split personalities.
What happens is that your mind will chatter about whatever your current state is in. If you are in a state of scarcity, you mind will chatter about judgments, criticism, failures, and all that’s wrong. If you are in a state of peace or gratefulness, the chatter will also sound more gracious.
Managing the chatter means managing what messages you are allowing yourself to receive. Either from the chatter in your own mind or chatter from other people. Naysayers, naggers, and people with this sort of “vibe” can be your worst enemies as well, even if they are your parents, loved ones, friends. Some people verbalize their own mind chatter and project them onto you. They think their kitchen sucks, so they point out in yours everything that they see wrong.
There are very few people immune to naysayers and naggers. The best strategy is to avoid them. And if you can’t avoid them, confront them. Not with hatred or anger. But with love and attention. “I noticed you’ve been complaining and criticizing a lot, and this is making me very uncomfortable and restless. I would rather talk about the nice and good things. Can we focus on that?” If you see it goes on, excuse yourself and clearly say why you are doing so. Sometimes, we need to set boundaries for the people around us. They need to know you are setting boundaries. Otherwise, it is pointless, because they will keep doing it in the future. What’s important here is that we realize that we are at choice. We can choose what messages we want to hear or not.
Chatter and mindset are very connected. Even if your mindset is positive, if you allow your mind’s chatter or anyone’s chatter flip that, you soon will be in the opposite state. We all must realize that our state of mind is something that we can choose. I recommend reading a book called NeuroWisdom, by Mark Robert Waldman.
Recently, during my house-hunting process, I lost two houses in a bidding war. When I’ve heard the first negative message whispering in my mind, I immediately shut it up. Sometimes you have to be assertive with your mind and tell it what to do. In my case, I said, “stop it right there. I will not tolerate this way of thinking. Chap chap and go work on ways to find me a home.” If you stay in the “poor me” mode, you know what you’ll get? Nothing. Actually, you will get something: misery. And you will end up just connecting with more misery.
Once you realize you are at choice in terms of what you allow to happen around you, and once you realize you are in command of your mind, things become easier to manage. Step up and put the chatter in a leash. Putting it in a leash has different strategies. There are many propositions out there on how to deal with this. Choose one that works for you.
Summary
Let’s wrap up with a brief summary of reframing your mindset for abundance. Or for anything else, for that matter.
First, make sure you are defining what abundance means for you. The definition is important because it gives you clarity about what you are aiming for. Aim means direction. Without aim, you have to direction. Without direction, you are lost.
Then, work your way toward your definition by having a budget and strategizing on it. In other words, have a plan and act on it. This will give you the confidence to navigate ambiguous situations and make the best choices for you.
Finally, make sure you are managing your chatter, or in other words, the messages you are allowing yourself to receive and accept – both internally and externally. Your goal is to move to a state of mind that serves you.
Does it mean that by having these things done, you will have an abundant life based on your definition of abundancy? Not necessarily. But it means you will suffer a lot less when you are focusing on things that work for you and that are serving you instead of things that are degrading you. Your chances of being abundant will arise naturally if you are feeling good because you will see opportunities where before you just saw darkness.
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