Cultivate an abundance mindset, the gurus say. I say yes to that – but the abundance needs to be anchored in reality.
I learned many lessons in 2024 – but one of the biggest is not to make assumptions about the behind-the-scenes realities of other people’s lives.
At the start of 2024, I lost a contract which had been bringing in a major part of my income, on a regular basis. That meant we were subject to the vagaries of income as it happened, and sometimes it didn’t. And that meant there was many a month where we were just scraping by. We were two tins of tomatoes and packet of pasta away from having very little to cook for supper. (We always recovered; money always came in; but there were some scary days there.)
And yet, to the outside world, we look like standard middle-class South Africans, sure to have a decent bottle of olive oil to hand, along with a well-stocked freezer.
So when someone said something like “I’m always happy to pay more to get a ripened avocado – where do you get yours?”, assuming that of course I had a vegetable tray full of plump and gorgeous avocados (instead of a couple of slightly aged onions), there was little to do except smile politely and try to move the conversation on. (To the family and friends who said: “Come for supper – bring nothing” and meant it – thank you!)
Having lived through a year of scarcity, while appearing to have an abundant life (at least in South African terms), I’m now much less inclined to hand out advice or recommendations that I think will help people because I know now that I don’t know what their capacities are.
I’m especially not likely to encourage people to cultivate an abundance mindset.
This nugget of wisdom turns up a lot, often on platforms like LinkedIn. You know the sort of thing: inspirational picture with a meaningful quote, and a carefully constructed bit of text just beaming positivity.
What is an abundance mindset anyway?
Stephen Covey, author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, is credited with coining the term, along with its sidekick, scarcity mindset. A definition, courtesy of meditation app Calm.com:
An abundance mindset is the belief that there is enough wealth, happiness, and success in the world for everyone. It’s a perspective that views life’s possibilities as limitless, encouraging us to approach situations and challenges with optimism and generosity.
While scarcity mindset looks like this, according to the University of Florida:
Scarcity Mindset is the idea that there is “only so much” to go around. Or… there’s only one pie out there. If someone else gets a piece of the pie, that means there’s less pie for everybody else. This is a mindset characterized by fear and anxiety.
Let’s get real
The thing is that a spirit of optimism and generosity can be particularly hard to conjure up when you just aren’t sure how you are going to pay the debit orders at the end of the month.
I did a lot of work on this last year on this last year, and found the act of focusing on really small things for which I was grateful to be really helpful.
And then at the end of the year, I had an email from business coach Jenni Gritters, whose Substack page I highly recommend. Her take on “abundance” seemed to me to frame it in a way that works in real life, in the mess and chaos that we all encounter from day to day.
The text of the email is not on her website (or at least I can’t find it) so I am quoting her fairly extensively. Noting that evenings are drawing in in her part of the world (the United States) and owning up to worrying about inflation over the holidays, she says:
I know scarcity is probably kicking in… Scarcity = there’s not enough. Not enough money. Not enough time. Not enough work. Not enough love.
Not enough, not enough, not enough. Capitalism thrives on “not enough,” so much so that most of us are attuned to every single place in our lives where we feel that “not enough” energy.
The flip of scarcity is abundance. So often, people will say “Jenni, I’m trying to cultivate an abundance mindset!” But while they say it, they’re standing in a space that is bereft of opportunity. I see this so often in media; pay rates plummet and people try to proclaim that they will still embrace abundance. The reason why it doesn’t work is that it’s a false match. Abundance doesn’t mean ignoring what’s going on! Honey, that room is not abundant.
Rather, abundance is the idea that you go looking for where there’s already enough. You find places where you are safe and you leave places that aren’t safe. Abundance isn’t about blinders; it’s about truth.
She recommends this: “Every night, before you go to bed, write down 3 things you noticed that day that felt abundant (ie: moments when you could visibly see that there was enough).” That’s because when you focus on abundance, even for a moment, it trains your brain to look for more more opportunities, more moments of joy, more money.
That is indeed what I found (and my own coach said the same): focusing on the places where I did in fact have enough was often a way to move forward.
May I wish you, then, not the abundance that the universe will mysteriously give you. Rather the abundance that you already know, the ability to focus on the present, and the ability to make a meal with a withered onion and a tin of tomatoes. Because that’s enough for today.
OTHER THINGS I’VE WRITTEN
Learning the power of gratitude | Safe Hands
Here’s to 2016 – without magic | Safe Hands
What will we give up to fix a broken world? | Safe Hands
Nope, you can’t have everything (and that means everyone) | Safe Hands
Main picture: Katerina Niuman, Unsplash
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