Enough abounds
Our existence is the sum total of our thoughts and actions. Our senses sense things(!), the wrinkly muscle in our skull fires off a bunch of electro-chemical reactions, which create thoughts and, sometimes, actions. This process repeats itself in varying degrees of complexity until our final action – a long exhale.
I often get caught up in my emotions – the electrochemical reactions part. I take things personally that in hindsight clearly don’t call for it. I find myself unpicking and unravelling threads to understand how I came to be feeling stressed, anxious, angry, uneasy, hungry. It’s easy for me to give my emotions too much air time so when I read The 7 habits of highly effective people by Franklin Covey, who touts the benefits of adopting an abundance mindset, my heart sang, my head danced and I had a snack to quiet the hungry.
What’s an abundance mindset?
An abundance mindset views the world as having ample resources and opportunities for everyone. Sounds obvious, right? The opposite – a scarcity mindset – can often be our default outlook and the cause of some ugly emotions – jealousy, anger, and frustration, among others. Scarcity tells us situations are inherently win or lose. Someone must come out on top at the expense of the other. From a young age we are conditioned to embrace our evolutionary desire to win, to outperform others – it taps into our lizard brain’s drive to survive. But for many of us, very few situations in life are about survival. So how can we retrain our brain to see abundance where we once saw scarcity?
Practical gratitude
Recognising abundance takes practice – retraining thought patterns isn’t easy but it can be done. Start by consciously looking for the positive in every situation. When enough abounds, that means there’s good everywhere – sometimes it’s hard to find but it’s there, keep looking until you see it. This practice naturally leads to gratitude.
Adopting an abundance mindset introduces gratitude into the fabric of your existence. Your senses still sense the same things, which still fires those electrochemical reactions. But then you send them through an abundance filter, which creates different thoughts – instead of a finite amount of good, success or reward, you’ll see enough abounds, which helps you frame up situations as win-win rather than win-lose. I recently applied for a writers retreat and I was shortlisted but ultimately didn’t get it. A scarcity mindset tells me I wasn’t quite good enough – there weren’t enough places for me. I was in competition with other writers and they won and I lost. An abundance mindset celebrates the opportunity to go through the application process, it celebrates getting shortlisted and sees the motivation in narrowly missing out even gets excited about applying next year. It’s grateful for the praise of being shortlisted.
Abundance changed that situation from win-lose (you’re accepted into the retreat or you miss out) to win-win (you’re accepted in or you learn something/are reminded of the things you have to be grateful for). When you realise there is an abundance of resources and opportunity, you give more freely and take advantage of more opportunities as you understand they’re not all win or lose. Shifting your perception of the world to one of abundance can change your life – it’s changed mine that’s why I wanted to share it with you.
Why adopt abundance?
Once you see there is enough, it can make you realise what you do have, and be grateful for it, rather than adopting the super unhelpful conditional happiness mindset. I’ll be happy when… I have this, I’ll be successful when I achieve that, all my problems will disintegrate when I solve that thing. Remembering the resources and opportunities and strengths you do have, rather than focusing on what you don’t have is a simple but powerful lesson in gratitude and goes a long way to clearing your mind so you can focus on working towards your goals.
Less conflict, more resolution
An unexpected benefit of an abundance mindset is its ability to facilitate conflict resolution. One of the most helpful tools for conflict resolution is identifying the exact nature of the conflict. To do this, you need to understand and articulate what both parties want. Often this simple process will be enough to resolve the conflict as you realise you’re arguing across each other over different things. And if that’s not the case, you can use your new mindset to realise that both parties can get what they want. Even if it does involve a little compromise, ample resources and opportunities abound so giving a little so that everyone’s happy seems like a great option.
It’s rare to win an argument – to completely convince the other person they are wrong and you are right. It’s not because you’re bad at debating either, it’s because conflict has more shades than right and wrong. Too often in arguments, we believe only one side can be right (win-lose) and in the pineapple on pizza debate you might be right – I love that sweet burst and will gladly go to hell for it. Usually, arguments are more complex than right and wrong and an abundance mindset can get you a long way to resolving it. You’ll be surprised by the tension melting capacity of acknowledging the parts of their argument you agree with and keeping your desire to prove them wrong in check. You can disagree without being disagreeable by making the situation win-win instead of win-lose.
Find opportunities
Empowered by the belief that enough abounds, start training your brain to look for opportunities when you feel defeated. It’s good to acknowledge when things feel hopeless but before you despair, look for opportunities to positively impact your situation. And if you can’t see any, practice gratitude and be proactive. Luck is attracted to action so if you can’t see your next opportunity, optimise for chance by doing something – anything – that helps you take a step towards your goal. Be proactive so when opportunities arise, you’re already in motion and ready to jump at it.