What holds us back from embracing the highly touted abundant mindset? Scarcity. The scarcity mindset makes you think small, settling for getting by instead of prospering. In contrast, the abundant mindset seeks progress rather than preservation, and sees promise in every circumstance.
Cause
Our survival instinct, tendency to compare, and fear incline us toward scarcity.
While we are no longer primitive hunters and gatherers, we must secure and steward resources to meet today’s and tomorrow’s needs. The ongoing needs drive us to preserve what we have.
Repeated exposure, particularly through social media, to those with more than we do creates an artificial scarcity; it contributes to the feeling that our provision is meager and heightens our desire to safeguard it.
The fear that we cannot recover anything lost or obtain more makes us even more risk-averse. Note the similar spelling of “scarcity” and “scared.”
Effect
Ironically, instead of protecting resources, scarcity causes loss by discouraging investment. Under the guise of prudence, we buy a particleboard coffee table instead of a solid-wood one. Predictably, it chips easily, and we are forced to replace it with the one we should have bought in the first place. It is not a question of available resources. It is why a millionaire buys cheap shoes that injure his back. Scarcity costs more in the long run.
Scarcity deprives you of pleasure by equating expenditure with loss. When you splurge on a hotel room with a balcony, do thoughts of the extra money spent prevent you from enjoying the fresh air and brilliant view? These thoughts reinforce the scarcity mentality. “I didn’t enjoy it; I shouldn’t have spent the money, and I won’t do it again.”
Scarcity makes you reluctant to invest in a relationship, fearing that what you give is spent instead of invested. Was your tepid overture responded to for what it was? You cannot reap what you do not sow. Worse, this situation may fuel the belief that your “love” will forever be unrequited.
Scarcity blinds you to opportunity in situations of apparent loss. When you plan dinner with a friend, eagerly anticipating her undivided attention, are you disappointed when she invites someone to join? Do you fixate on diminished companionship and fail to consider what the “interloper” might add?
Investments in value, even if lost, are not wasted. You do not risk your current position to pursue a different career or an entrepreneurial venture and deny yourself the rewards those endeavors could provide. Abundant thinkers understand the new endeavor might not yield the desired outcome, but is superior to remaining in place. A friend recently told me, “Reversal is better than regret.”
What to do?
The objective is not to eradicate scarcity thinking (impossible) but to confine it to its rightful purpose. Scarcity can make us prudent stewards of our resources. There will be rainy days, hopefully golden years in retirement, and thieves of our time and energy.
As with the fine line between love and hate, perspective determines whether scarcity or abundance prevails.
We can lower our tendency towards scarcity by practicing gratitude. When we recognize and appreciate what we have and how we came to have it, we can see that the risk is not so great and that our ability to recover is better than we originally thought.
The mindset shift begins by noticing scarcity. When presented with an opportunity, do you first or primarily consider the potential for loss? If so, resolve to consider how it could produce a rewarding outcome.
You can also adopt a “burn the boats” mentality and invest at a level that requires growth. Perhaps you buy a budget-straining home in a better school district, which compels you to advance your career and income.
We can also take comfort that we are accorded more provision than birds that do not sow, reap, or store.
Finally, fully accept your investment, emotionally release the resources, and enjoy the balcony that enriches the experience.
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Decide to subdue scarcity and its limitations by shifting from miserly preservation to investing, accepting its consequences and rewards.
