Why Is Maintaining an Abundance Mindset So Challenging?
An abundance mindset often stands against real and imagined aspects of reality.
I recognize and acknowledge that my life is good.
Not to brag, but in the grand scheme of things, my life is good. I have an incredible partner, jobs I like, a career I love, friends, a roof over my head, and many things above and beyond basics.
For this, I am deeply grateful. So many people in the world are not in this position.
There’s room for improvement. But that’s largely true of life overall. We grow, evolve, and shift our paths and desires because nobody is meant to be stagnant. Also – change is the only constant in the entire Universe.
Along this line, I am seeking to create greater abundance in my life. Allow me to be more specific. I’m not looking for tremendous wealth, luxury, popularity, or anything like that. What I seek is an abundance of financial stability, time, self-care, peace, friendships, and love.
All of us are worthy and deserving of such things. But faced with a fear-based society and frequent messages of lack, scarcity, and insufficiency – maintaining an abundance mindset is challenging.
But in the interest of choosing our own paths in life – an abundance mindset is utterly necessary.
What’s more, an abundance mindset is a great counter to our fear-based society’s collective consciousness.
To begin, we must acknowledge that the Universe is one of almost unimaginable abundance.
How is the Universe abundant?
This is often hard to see because our immediate surroundings frequently contradict this notion.
We see people struggling to make ends meet, hear about shortages and “supply-chain issues”, lack of this, that, or the other thing, constantly.
But the truth is that all of those are built on artifices.
Take money, for example. The dollar is not real. It’s been accepted by fiat as currency. It’s backed by nothing – save the US government. It might be paper or digital – but in either case, our legal tender is totally made up and artificial.
That’s why money always manages to be found in the billions for crises, bailouts, subsidies, and whatnot.
All of this comes down to the tangible. Even the digital dollar appears on the apps for our bank accounts and credit card statements.
At the root of all of it – and absolutely everything in the Universe – is energy. And it is abundant beyond our comprehension.
Every single atom and all the stars in the cosmos are made of energy. There are something like 6.5 octillion atoms in a human body and about 200 billion trillion stars in the Universe. If that’s not direct proof of abundance and an abundant Universe – I don’t know what is.
The measure of it all is in numbers far, far beyond human capacity. That’s how abundant the Universe really is. And that’s proof of how the Universe is abundant.
How does an abundance mindset work?
In the simplest terms – this is a choice.
And it’s a particularly challenging choice when up against the overwhelming messages of lack, scarcity, and insufficiencies in our world today.
To be fair – there are issues in the supply chain and other world problems impacting specific things. But a lot of that is still artificial. I don’t know a good specific example to cite here – but given history and how today’s world works, it’s a safe bet.
An abundance mindset has very little to do with material abundance. That might be a result of it – but not how it works.
Simply put, an abundance mindset is one of potential, possibility, positivity, options, and the like. An abundance mindset looks at the world with wonder and creativity because you see abundance in all that’s available to us.
Its opposite is a lack mindset. That’s a mindset of impossibility, uncertainty, negativity, misfortune, and the like. A lack mindset looks at the world in fear and disorganization because you see lack and scarcity of both the material and immaterial.
That’s a choice we get to make. All the time.
Yes, I know sometimes lack is real. When there are 8 slices of pizza and 10 of you, 2 will go without. However, an abundance mindset would choose to cut in half two slices so that everyone gets some.
Choice is how any mindset at all works.
What’s the challenge?
Nobody is “on,” sharp, or otherwise 100% every single day. We all have off days, lousy days, circumstances and happenstances that catch us unprepared and unaware.
Welcome to the human race. We all have days of struggle when maintaining an abundance mindset in the face of so many messages of lack, scarcity, and insufficiency is nearly impossible.
It’s also extra challenging when a bill is due and your bank account is empty, when your calendar is double or triple booked, or when two things you deeply desire to do are happening at exactly the same time.
Likewise, it’s extra challenging when you get dumped, have a car accident, lose your home to a flood or fire, or otherwise experience an unexpected negative.
Each of these challenges can bring lack, scarcity, insufficiency, and negativity to the forefront of your mindset. Which makes maintaining an abundance mindset particularly challenging.
As good as my life is at present overall – some elements are not as abundant as I desire for them to be. Rather than reminding myself of what there IS – for which I should be grateful – the lack creeps in.
If I allow myself to read news and spend too much time on social media – even just reading news headlines – the lack mindset starts to become overwhelming. And – for added fun – there’s a sense of guilt.
Guilt? Yes, guilt. Overall, as stated at the beginning of this, my life is good. Especially compared to anyone under Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, women in states enacting laws removing their body autonomy, and any black person who gets pulled over – and has no idea if their life is now on the line.
All of this is a challenge to an abundance mindset. What can we do about it?
Mindfulness of an abundance mindset
Conscious awareness is the only way to truly know our mindset, as well as our headspace/psyche/self.
To be consciously aware we must be mindful.
Mindfulness is conscious awareness of what we’re thinking, what and how we’re feeling, our intentions, and the actions we take connected to that. When we practice being mindful, we allow our conscious mind to do the driving.
When we’re not mindful – our subconscious and/or our ego will do the driving. Both can operate by rote and routine – and get sucked down lack mindsets when we’re not being consciously aware of ourselves.
When we’re more self-aware we’re more aware of the world around us, too. And that’s why self-care, self-awareness, and everything related to them isn’t selfish.
An abundance mindset is a builder. A lack mindset is a destroyer. I’d rather build better than destroy what is. Particularly when it comes to my own paths and my life experience.
Things might be removed or destroyed as we walk our mindfully chosen paths in life. But this is about choice – and an abundance mindset, mindfully chosen, lets us be amazing builders for better things.
Finally – destruction wrought via a lack mindset is usually about undoing, changing, or redoing the past. That’s not possible – which is why a lack mindset and the idea of destroying for better defies logic and reason.
Working with and from an abundance mindset can consciously create an incredible reality and manifest seemingly miraculous things. There’s more than enough good to go around – and we’re all worthy and deserving of having and receiving it.
Do you work with an abundance mindset to face and overcome life’s challenges?
This is the five-hundred and sixty-first exploration of my Pathwalking philosophy. These weekly essays are my ideas for – and experiences with – using mindfulness and positivity to walk along a chosen path of life to consciously create reality.
I share this journey as part of my desire to make a difference in this world and empower as many people as I can with conscious reality creation.
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