Would you rather earn a million dollars or win a million dollars?
It can be a challenging question for many but somewhere in the answer is the idea of living in an abundant mentality or one of scarcity.
I often ask the question to my clients and I love the answers I get. Many say they would rather earn it because then if they lost it, they knew they could earn it again. Others were quick to say, ‘win it!”, because of how they thought it would change their life.
But having a lot of money in your bank account does not equal what I think of as abundance. Abundance is a mindset.
I look at my parents. They both were born into rural farming communities in the 20s and the stories I heard were always about humble beginnings and a lot of hard work. Yet they always saw the possibility. My father was a serial entrepreneur, way before that was a thing and I saw businesses take off and businesses fail. But there was always another day, no matter the outcome.
Our minds tell us what to focus on and our physical worlds are often a reflection of that focus. What is the difference between people who focus on what they have in comparison to what they lack? We all know or have heard about people who have become successful yet who are still miserable. Or people who have made a lot of money but who still find themselves gripping to it. Many of us had parents who grew up amidst the depression, or who fled here to escape a country where life had become unbearable. We have seen firsthand how that can translate on the daily. But within their population, there were those that found a way to prosper and those who always struggled.
Being skeptical has its advantages, but people who live in that mode rarely find success because they are always looking for the problem.
So much of it comes back to the meaning we attach to events in our lives. We all have a story we tell about ourselves. But for so many of us, that story holds too many thought errors that masquerade as protection. And while they might feel comforting at some level, they are probably holding us back.
Neuroplasticity describes the brains ability to be re-wired. It is the retort to the idea that you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. So, if one of the ideas in your story is ‘this is just how I am’, well? Perhaps it’s time to reconsider.
An abundant mentality applies not only to wealth, but to relationships, love and so much more. And it is something available to anyone. But first you must be aware of how you see the world.