What is an Abundant Mindset? How Can I Apply this Mindset During Covid-19?

An Abundant mindset is where you believe there’s plenty for everyone. There are plenty of wealth, health and happiness to go around. This mindset is where you believe the pie is growing larger and larger and everyone can be part of this expanded pie. This is a win-win mindset. This is different to the scarcity mindset.

Scarcity mindset is the belief that the pie is finite. For example, money is limited, the future is bleak, you’re afraid of missing out. This is a win-lose or lose-win mindset.

In general, someone who worries about competition has a scarcity mindset whereas, someone who collaborate and see opportunity for growth has an abundant mindset.

At the time of writing over 4 billion people are in some sort of lockdown across the world due the Covid-19 Pandemic. This must have profound effect on everyone’s lives physically, financially and mentally. With the mainstream media flooding viewers with doom and gloom news over the next few months and the foreseeable future it is very easy to slip into the scarcity mindset. This is why I decided to research more about the Abundant Mindset and see how I can apply this t myself and share my learnings with everyone.

“When you are grateful, fear disappears and abundance appears.” ― Anthony Robbins

What are the Benefits of Having an Abundant Mindset?

There are many benefits to having an abundance mindset. Everything made by humans around us all starts with our mind and our imagination. What we have in our minds drives what we do. So, if we fill our minds with certain thoughts say “abundance”, we will think in terms of “plenty “, we will be more open-minded and look out for more opportunities. If we have a mindset of scarcity, we will tend to try to save money (not saying this is a bad thing), think about limited opportunities, and think of the world from a scarcity lens – narrowing our view and limiting our ability to look for opportunities and options.

In general, an abundance mindset helps us:

1. Live an unlimited life of joy – this is where we focus on our lives and maximize the time we have.

2. Focus on what matters and forward –  focus on what is important in our lives and what we can control. This allows us to focus on what counts in life.

3. Be more creative and inspired – having an abundant mindset opens up our minds to more options and opportunities. This in turn will allow us to try new things and open new opportunities.

4. Feel secure and more confident – An abundance mindset gives us more options and more pathways to move forward. In the start of the recession, someone with an abundance mindset will see opportunity and take advance of it rather than just misery

5. Eliminate unnecessary stress and anxiety – by being more confident and feeling there are more opportunities, this naturally reduces daily worries and anxiety.

Characteristics of Someone with an Abundant Mindset

So, do I have an abundant mindset of if I don’t how can I cultivate this mindset? Let’s explore some key characteristic of someone with an abundance mindset.

1. Someone in control of the situation and not the victim – You control have your destiny. If you do not like your current job nobody is forcing you to take this job. If you want to start a new business, you can try and start one today. Be in control and not blame others for not changing your job or starting a new business.

2. Being relaxed and present – Someone who is generally relaxed and present are good signs of someone with abundance. Someone who is not tense, breath easy and calm. These are characteristics of some who knows where they are at life and where they are going.

3. Positive and empowered – Being positive, empowered and working on something focus on the bigger picture and not anxious, frustrated and overwhelm are good traits

4. Clarity, adaptable, flexible and someone who can see from multiple perspectives rather than focusing on what’s not working, or feeling stuck

Transition Plan

How can I shift from a Scarcity Mindset to an Abundance Mindset?

Beware of Your Thoughts

Your thoughts drive your actions and behavior. It is important to beware of your thoughts and notice whether the thoughts in your head are leaning towards scarcity or abundance. By taking notice of this, you can shift your thoughts towards abundance.

ACTION: Surround yourself with uplifting, positive music. Read biographies of positive and successful people. Avoid watching the news.

Focus on What You Have

If you want to take the next step and want to leave your corporate job and start a new business and haven’t been able to for whatever reason stop focusing on why you can’t and instead focus on why you can. Don’t think about what you don’t have and instead focus on what you have. For example, don’t focus on … I don’t have a finance degree, or I don’t know how to the required experience to start something. Focus on the fact that you have 15 years’ experience in customer service and know what your customer needs and you don’t need a marketing degree when you can find others to help you online.

ACTION: List all the skills and personal traits you have that you can move you ahead. Expand on each of these points and after this exercise, you can have a map of all your strengths. For this, you can see how much you have to contribute or to use to build a new business, a new project or your next job.

Surround Yourself with Abundance Minded People

I know most of us are stuck at home but it’s very important to surround ourselves with similar minded people. You can read books on people who have abundance mindset like Tony Robins, listen to podcast and TED Talks

ACTION: Listen to Motivational Speakers or watch at least one Inspirational Video a day.

Always Look for a Win-Win Situation

How you think will dictate where you will end up. Think that the world has infinite opportunities and these opportunities can be shared.

ACTION: Next time you’re negotiating with someone or dealing with someone at work, try to work out a win-win outcome for both yourself and the other person

Look for New Opportunities

Try new things, learn new things. By broaden your mind and with it how you view things by being expose to new learnings you mind will be open to abundance.

ACTION: Schedule a time each week to pick and research a new interest area, a new business idea, a new creative project each week for the next four weeks. See what opportunities will come up and you can start taking action on.

Practice Gratitude

Practicing gratitude is one of the most powerful and widely recognized tools for creating abundance and happiness. There are numerous studies on the power of gratitude on well-being. Tony Robbins is quoted for saying, “When you are grateful, fear disappears and abundance appears.”

ACTION: Keep a gratitude journal and write down what you are genuinely grateful for every day. You can start with writing 3 things you are grateful for. Anything from the fact that you have a healthy life or the last meal you ate.

Final Thoughts

I recommend the following books to read if you want to start thinking in Abundance!

Think Rich and Growth Rich by Napoleon Hill
Success Through a Positive Mental Attitude by Napoleon Hill
Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R Covey
Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol Dweck

I’ll end with a quote from Gandhi…

“Your beliefs become your thoughts,
Your thoughts become your words,
Your words become your actions,
Your actions become your habits,
Your habits become your values,
Your values become your destiny.”― Gandhi