Lead With Abundance Not Scarcity
A few weeks ago, as I sat writing this article, I was about to hit the publish button, when to my utter horror I accidentally deleted the entire 2,000-words.
I was beyond frustrated and wondered how I could create it again. Laughable, when I was writing about ‘choosing abundance over scarcity.’ I realised that if I was going to put my money where my mouth was, this would have to extend not only to jobs, relationships and wealth, but also to the abundance of internal resources we have to create more of what we require at any given moment.
So I shifted my mindset from scarcity to abundance — Not easy when you’re staring at a blank computer screen which 5 minutes earlier had contained your precious words all neatly placed in exactly the right order.
In fact, my daughter who was watching me as I struggled with this mindset, piped up with;
“I’ve had the same thing happening to me, and I find that what I write second time around can often be even better than the first time.”
It’s great how children can pick up a nugget of wisdom that can totally make sense. Her comment inspired me to re-write it, knowing that there is always more. None of us are dense, empty objects. We are a well of wisdom, potential, creativity and powerful beyond measure.
And so I sat again and re-wrote the whole thing again, albeit with a shift of perception.
A few years ago, I would have given up at the first hurdle, convincing myself that only once could I churn out an article about this subject. Limited mindset creates limited actions, limited possibilities and limited decisions.
Our mindset impacts what we become attuned to.
You either operate from fear (scarcity) or trust (abundance). Fear and trust can’t live in the same room. One must leave the room for the other to step in.
We tend to go up and down within mindsets during the day. When we feel low, our resources are dwindling and self-belief is waning, the scarcity mindset rears its ugly head.
During this time, everything feels limited, all roads lead to nowhere and possibilities are closed off and out of bounds.
This has a tremendous impact on how we show up, the choices we make, the people we choose to hang out with, and the jobs we feel forced to endure.
It also translates into the conversations we have during the day and the body language we use. Becoming more needy, anxious and negative in our responses. That is the mindset of scarcity. We’ve all been there, no one that I know has been immune to this.
We grab what we’re given as one takes the last item at the Harrods sale. As if it’s a once in a lifetime opportunity, never to be repeated, so seize it tight and don’t let go.
But we forget that Harrods has a sale each year. There is more stock where that came from.
When we live with the blinkers of ‘scarcity’ fixed between our eyes, life is limited. Regardless of the fact that there is an incredible amount of abundance of everything we want (and more) out there.
I recently coached a client who was a tremendously talented and multi-faceted divorce Lawyer, but he continued to respond to work opportunities which were far below what he was capable of.
The reason why he would be open to these was through a lack of trust that something better would come along. He was so anxious about missing out in case nothing else was offered, that he would take anything that came his way, often feeling devalued in the process.
He lived with a scarcity mindset, (it had nothing to do with his bank balance). In one of our sessions, he was struggling with a particular decision about taking a job offered by a CEO who was devaluing him in his e-mail communication.
So I asked him.
“Imagine if you knew that there were five CEO’s desperate to employ you, would you even persevere with what you’ve been offered.”
He answered “No” before I could barely finish the question.
My client began to imagine what life could be like if he operated as if he knew there would always be more offers in the pipeline.
His body language changed, he breathed deeply, he came alive.
It would mean he would have to network strategically at events where he could meet the right business contacts, use Linkedin more to nurture the right business relationships and get recommended and referred by the right people. But the ball was now in his court, and it was up to him to create the right opportunities which were all out there.
This was not about sitting back aligning all the chakras and burning incense in a jar to bring in the right vibe. This was about really living from this space and taking the action required from an energy of abundance, not of lack.
It was also not about being delusional. My client was incredibly dynamic, intelligent, accomplished, well travelled, spoke a few languages, was articulate and well qualified.
He deserved far better than to end up devalued due to fear of there not being anything else out there. Because it simply is not true.
Yet we’ve all been there, devalued our worth due to anxiety and mistrust. So we compromise, we lower our standards and we wonder why 30 years down the line, life looks the way it does.
Regardless of whether we are a Harvard graduate or a high school dropout. An academic education is useless in this regard, I have seen my daughters go through the academic process and I’ve seen clearly how it does not prepare them for the bigger game.
Because there is a bigger game at stake.
It’s the inner game.
Elevating your standard, and creating a life out of conscious thought spills over into the choices you make and impacts all that is created from hereon.
Imagine going up a glass elevator.
Initially, you can only see a limited panorama, but as the elevator rises and you move up, you begin to see a broader landscape, more vast than you ever thought possible from where you stood down below. Your thinking works in the same way. As you rise up in conscious thought, your thinking expands and you begin to see more opportunities, which were never visible to you when you were stuck on the first floor.
As children, we had the phrase ‘A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush’ drummed into us by teachers and parents. Which basically translates to — It’s better to be content with what you have than risk losing everything by seeking to get more.
The Medieval era brought with it a certain level of settling with whatever we were given, and only taking the ‘secure’ choices at all costs, never mind if it left us spiritually cold and uninspired.
Imagine if the bird in our hand is a dud, can barely fly and is sick. What if the ones in the bush can lead us to something bigger and better?
It’s a risk, but it’s fun and (more importantly) allows you to learn and grow.
Once you experience the world as having more than enough of what you need, it doesn’t matter because you know you’re good to go. And nothing can damage this.
In years gone by, and before I was aware of this, I would get stuck in doomed relationships and jobs that left me uninspired. The moment I knew I deserved better, my frequency changed, and I began to attract opportunities that would never have been in my line of vision before.
I can now see clearly the contrast between the before and after. What life looked like with each of these mindsets hovering above me.
In my years working as a Therapist, I believed that for the rest of my life I would be destined to be a divorced mother, with a limited paycheque, seeing patients who were depressed, suicidal and addicted. Prestigious though my work was, I never dreamed anything more would be possible. Although I secretly hoped I was wrong.
The elevator I was on had been stuck on the ground floor, so all I saw was a one-dimensional life, nothing wrong with it, but in my gut, I knew I wanted more.
It was a chance meeting with a coach whilst still practising as a therapist (more from curiosity than anything else) which blew me away and allowed me to visualise more of the panorama that could be available to me.
In my wildest dreams would I have imagined as I sat in my clinic in North West London, that a few years later I would have left the Therapy profession, become a Coach making eye-watering coaching proposals, become a public speaker, work with incredible professionals abroad and publish my first book.
And I know there is more to come, I always have to believe that, even when self-doubt strikes.
If it’s possible for me, it’s totally possible for you too.
If you knew that all that you wanted was there and all you needed to do was reach for it, what would you reach out for?
If you instinctively knew that the possibilities were endless, what would you no longer tolerate?
As we’ve entered the new year, it’s not just a time to jump back into life hoping and praying that things will be different. It’s a time to reflect on what you want to create this year. Raising your level and reaching out for all the incredible opportunities that are out there waiting to be grasped.
When reflecting on this article, can you see areas in your life where you operate from a scarcity mindset? If you do, how does this impact your life?
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