How to Develop an Abundance Mindset and Overcome Scarcity Mentality

It’s easy to go throughout the world thinking that “there’s not enough to go around”, making an abundance mentality seem like a pipe dream. But is it true?

Many of us live in an environment with more opportunity and available resources than even a king had 1,000 years ago.

But still, many of us think with a scarcity-based mindset rather than one of abundance.

I’m here to tell you that if you want to succeed and live an amazing life, you’re going to need to develop the abundance mindset

This article will teach you just that. Here’s what you’ll also learn:

• The key differences between an abundance mindset and a scarcity mindset
• The different areas where this is affecting you
• Six powerful ways to start creating abundance in your life

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What is an Abundance Mindset?

An abundance mindset is a perspective and worldview that sees life as a series of opportunities to be had, often in near unlimited quantities. In contrast, a scarcity mindset sees life as inherently limited. This is also similar to the difference between a growth mindset vs. a fixed mindset.

You are what you repeatedly do and think all day.

Therefore, if you have a mindset of limitation and scarcity, you will experience that in your life. The reverse is also true.

Scarcity vs. Abundance Mindsets: The Root Causes

The seeds of scarcity and abundance usually show up in our childhood. Why?

Because childhood is our earliest source of programming.

Have you heard these?

• We can’t afford that
• You’re worthless
• You’re stupid
• That’s not for people like us

Later on in teenage years/early adulthood (even later adulthood), this manifests as:

• You can’t go to that college, you’re not smart enough
• You can’t start that business, you don’t have the business skills
• You can’t be a good public speaker, you’re not charismatic enough
• You can’t get that girl, you’re not handsome/popular enough

Notice that all of these are rooted in “I can’t”. I call it the “Cult of Icantism”. 

The next so and so years of your life will be dedicated to removing yourself from the Cult of Icantism.

You need paradigm shift if you truly want to change your beliefs.

What Areas of Life Are Affected By a Scarcity Mindset?

Virtually all aspects of life are affected by our mindset. But it shows up glaringly obvious in three main areas:

• Money
• Relationships/Dating
• Physical and Mental Capabilities

Scarcity mindset in money creates poverty, in dating it creates “nice guys”, in physical and mental capabilities it creates laziness and apathy.

Here’s what an abundant mindset would look like in this area:

A girl rejects you? Oh well. Literally billions more where that came from.

You missed out on a high paying job or lost it? Oh well. Many more jobs that you’re qualified for that would love to have you – or even starting your own business.

There’s always the next train, the next bus, the next destination. You aren’t stuck. You’re not a tree. Don’t act like one.

You will only rise to the height of your limitations. All of us have an invisible mental ceiling.

That ceiling inches up higher and higher the moment we prove to ourselves:

“I guess I actually can do that.”

It will move if you decide to focus on improving it.

Selective Focus and Developing an Abundant Mindset

I mentioned this earlier – you will get more of what you focus on in your life.

This is the main turnkey behind what is known as the “Law of Attraction” and other similar thought modalities.

Your brain has a system which is called the Reticular Activation System or RAS for short.

It scans the environment for threats and opportunities based on how it’s programmed. It also filters important vs. unimportant information, again based on how it’s programmed. Key part: based on how it’s programmed.

You and I can look at a blank canvas or a dry patch of land and we will see two completely different things. Why? We are programmed differently.

I may see possibility where you see…nothing.

This is the difference between those who succeed and those who don’t. 

If you want to develop an abundance mentality, you need to consistently and constantly program your mind to focus on opportunities and areas for growth. After a while of doing this, you will start to see life as one big opportunity for growth and that’s a very productive mindset to have.

You want to increase your focus so you get more of what you do want vs. less of what you don’t.

The One Area Where It Helps to Be Scarce

Having an overall mindset of scarcity can be detrimental, but there are some areas (though very few) where being “scarce” is useful.

In the Millionaire Next Door, Thomas Stanley describes self-made millionaires and their strategies to achieve millionaire status.

One of these strategies is what is known as “creating an environment of artificial scarcity”. The key words are “artificial scarcity”. This means living on less, sometimes much less than they earned and using the rest to pay off debt, save, and invest.

This artificial scarcity helped them create eventual financial abundance.

How can you use this in other areas of your life?

You’ll notice that lots of people fresh out of school have a “burning fire” to succeed. They have a hunger, a drive, a passion.

This “hunger” evolves from the fact that most of these people are in a “scarce” position. They are figuratively on the precipice and need to do whatever it takes to succeed.

They work hard, work smart, and work efficiently. After a period of years, they find themselves in a position of abundance and lose that fire inside to succeed.

If you want to perform at a top level, you need to have what I call a “day one mentality”. You need to capture that feeling of being “the low man on the totem pole”, bottle it up, and keep it close.

That’s the only mindset coming close to scarcity that I recommend.

Here’s a deeper insight into that mentality:

How to Develop an Abundance Mindset: 6 Key Tactics

These are six of the best ways that I’ve found to develop a mentality of abundance and shove scarcity to the corner.

1. Expand Your Possibilities

Human awareness is very limited. We can only see a small percentage of total light on the spectrum and hear a small amount of the total sounds that exist.

You are not aware of what’s going on on the other side of your town much less what is going on behind your back.

Could there be things that you’re not focusing on? For sure. Could it be possible that you’re not focusing on your ability to grow and evolve as a person given the right circumstances? Of course.

Give yourself the room and the possibility to think about who you could become with positive reinforcement and some motivation. You owe yourself that.

2. Ask the Right Questions

Your brain will spit out the answer to any problem, you just need to ask the right question. Even “I don’t know” is an answer.

Start by asking yourself proactive questions. Here’s what this may look like:

Why am I not motivated?

Because you have nothing in your life to be motivated about.

What can I get motivated about?

The possibility of connecting with people, of traveling, of making more money…

Your brain is the most advanced supercomputer in the universe. Let it do its job by figuring out the answers to problems.

Take out a pen and a note book and start having a dialog with yourself.

3. Develop Mental Toughness

There’s only two real guarantees in this world: time is going to pass and you are going to die.

It doesn’t really matter how you live your life, the end result is the same.

But – at the end of a person’s life, people come and give an account on that person’s life.

They don’t talk about the cars, the money, or the clothes they wore. They talk about the impact that person made.

In order to make an impact, you’ll need to develop mental toughness.

You have one life, so live it and live it well.

4. Be Proactive, Not Reactive

This is a concept from Steven Covey’s book 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.

In life, you have two options when confronted with a problem: you can let the problem lay down the final gauntlet or you can attempt to fix it.

Being proactive is the latter. When you develop a proactive attitude, you create a life of momentum, of forward motion.

You want to always be moving forward in life. You want to always learn, grow, and strive to grow.

Nothing in life is static. Things change for the better or for the worse. You might as well change for the better. Once you develop momentum, good things will start happening to you. This will start to create a powerful mindset shift.

5. Be Dissatisfied

This is related to that “day one mentality” I mentioned earlier.

When you start seeing what’s possible for you when you start taking action, you will see that there are things in your life that shouldn’t be there at all.

It will be like a fog has cleared, it’s amazing. You’ll say to yourself:

This? This is what I settled for?!?!?!???

Then you’ll probably start getting mad. Anger is a wonderful spur to action. It will make you want to wake up early (the early bird gets the worm, after all), stay up late, cut out toxic relationships, and do whatever you can to get your piece of the pie.

That’s what happened to me several years ago. I got mad as hell and felt like I was cheated out of things that should have been mine.

6. Get Your Piece of the Pie

As of 2020, the total amount of money in circulation in the world is an astounding 95.7 trillion dollars. If you live in the US, there is 1.5 trillion dollars in circulation. While there is still a massive gap between the richest people in the world and the poorest, world poverty has sharply decreased over the past 20 years. More and more people are gaining access to the Internet and more people are attaining a standard of life that was almost unthinkable even 50 years ago. 

If you’re reading this, chances are you are in a first world country of some sort. Think about how much money is being spent day in and day out on goods and services. Think about what skills and services are in demand. Then, think about how much opportunity there is for you to generate cash (work for an employer, start a business, investing, passive income, consulting, etc.).

The only question remains: when are you going to get your piece of the pie?

Conclusion + Next Steps

An abundant mindset or one based in scarcity will determine how much success you have in this world. You’ll see opportunities where others see failures, wins where others see losses, and in general – it will spur you and orient you to lead the life you want to lead.

You have been programmed from an early age to accept suggestions based on scarcity or abundance and these then became incorporated into your overall worldview.

You can develop an abundant mindset by being positive, being proactive/pragmatic, asking the right questions, and being fearless.

For your next steps, I want you to take action on at least one of these and incorporate it into your daily life for the next month. With this expansive and abundant mindset, you’ll be able to get into more opportunities as they present themselves creating even more abundance.

What ways are you planning on bringing more abundance into your life? Let me know in the comments.