Abundance thinking vs scarcity thinking

Do you want more out of your life?  You may not realize that your thinking (mindset) affects you more than you know. Here is one such thinking.

There are times when we live small due to scarcity thinking. Examples of this would include thoughts like, “I am not capable of achieving this”,  “I don’t know how to get there”, “I don’t trust this person” or perhaps,”I don’t know people who can help me with this challenge.” Scarcity thinking pulls you down and dis-empowers you.

Abundance thinking lifts you up, inspires you and maximizes your success. It is a whole different plane. The universe is full of individuals with abundance thinking, if we are open minded to look for it. Here are some examples:

1) Meeting someone at a networking event
My friend (who runs a successful small business) was at a seminar listening to great speakers. One of the speakers was a highly successful business man, who could potentially be one of his biggest customers (i mean big in a huge way). After the speech my friend goes over to meet him for a little chat. The speaker extended an invitation to my friend to visit his corporate office, offered to review the business and answer any questions he may have.

2) College students donating blood
My dad had a major surgery recently in India. The hospital wanted us to find volunteers to donate blood. My brother arranged for a couple of college students to help out. I spent some time talking to the students to thank them for the huge help. They said they donate blood every few months and that this was the first time they are meeting someone related to the patient. They typically don’t even know who they are donating to. I asked them why they are doing this to help strangers who they don’t even know or meet. The answer was modest and polite.

3) Rejection Therapy story
One of my friend’s friend left his job at a major computer manufacturer and decided to pursue his passion. He did was experiment with what is called rejection therapy. The idea is that lot of us are afraid of hearing a ‘no’ as the answer so we don’t even ask. This young man decided to go ask for one crazy thing every day for 100 days, i guess to test out his ability to face failures. If you have not seen this, watch this viral video (5M views) of his experience ordering Olympics shape donuts. This shows that we would get more ‘yes’ answers than we think.

Think of an area in life where you have scarcity thinking. It may be related to how you are dealing with a family member, friend, colleague or even how you are dealing with your own self. Pick some thing small to start with. Try shifting to abundance thinking and enjoy the experience, every second of it.

by Nirmal Chandrasekaran, August 3, 2014