Changing from a scarcity to an abundance mindset can help you with your financial goals.
Your Money Mindset is a set of attitudes and beliefs you have about money. Those attitudes and beliefs impact your behaviour with money.
Knowing when, how and why you do certain things with money is the first step to making positive changes.
Having a mindset of abundance allows you to feel good about managing your money. But first, you need to address certain attitudes and beliefs.
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Related: How Your Money Mindset Makes You Rich or Poor
Related: 4 Lessons From Rich People
My Journey to an Abundance Mindset
Before I speak about how you can change your money mindset, I want to tell you about my mindset journey.
I first became conscious of my scarcity mindset and the impact it was having in 2020.
I felt anxious and fearful about money. As a result, I started working myself to exhaustion and being EXTREMELY frugal.
At my worst, I wouldn’t even buy myself basic toiletries. After much exploration, I realised that I felt this way for a number of reasons.
Firstly, I was raised in a low income household, where money was scarce. I would often hear phrases such as “we can’t afford that”. So from a young age, I was aware we had a limited amount of money.
Furthermore, I had just left a financially abusive relationship. During the relationship, I had become unemployed and my partner at the time made me sell all my gadgets. In the end, I was completely dependent on him.
I feared finding myself again in a position where someone else has control of my money. Another fear was me becoming unemployed again.
Those thoughts were the root of my money anxiety. I soon realised that it was unhealthy and unsustainable to constantly feel that way.
So I started working on changing my mindset so I can have an abundance mindset.
How to Have an Abundance Mindset
1. Gratitude
Instead of looking at things you don’t have, be grateful for things you do have.
A study showed that people who had gratitude had greater levels of self control when it came to money.
It shows that being grateful can increase willpower and reduce bad financial habits such as impulse buying.
To practice gratitude, you should list at least 3 things you are grateful for each day.
2. Give
Gratitude can also lead to generosity.
I recently wrote an instagram post about how giving to charity whilst I was in debt developed an abundance mindset.
My generosity was driven by gratitude. Some things I was grateful for were:
- Having a full time, secure, well-paid job during a pandemic.
- Me & my family’s good health.
- Being able to pay off my debt
- Discovering the debt-free community.
I was motivated to give and to help those less fortunate than me. Instead of keeping every penny I made or thinking there wasn’t enough, I continued donating money.
Giving helped by making me realise that there is an unlimited amount of money in the universe and donating even £10 will not make me broke.
3. Read Finance Books
Reading exposes you to different ideas and concepts.
Through it, you learn tools and habits wealthy people have used for their success.
Reading played a big role in my thoughts and attitude towards money.
Here are some of the most influential books I read.
Rich Dad, Poor Dad – It speaks about lessons rich people tell their children.
The Psychology of Money – Morgan Housel examines the psychology behind decisions we make about money.
Think and Grow Rich: A Black Choice – It tells stories of black entrepreneurs. It also tells you how you can break barriers of structural inequality in order to become successful.
Get Good with Money by Tiffany Aliche – Tiffany tells you how to become financially whole. She speaks of and provides guidance of 10 practical steps of financial wholeness.
Those books are also available as audiobooks from Amazon.
4. Forgive Yourself for Past Money Mistakes
You may look back on decisions you made in the past with regret. I know I’ve made plenty of money mistakes.
The feelings of regret may lead you to have negative feelings towards yourself and your money.
But you need to forgive yourself in order to move forward. Forgiveness allows you to make a fresh start. It also allows you to learn from your mistakes and prevents you from repeating them again.
5. Visualise Your Future Self
Visualisation is a powerful tool used by athletes, peak performers and the wealthy. One of its big advantages is the internal motivation it creates. Visualisation is one of the the 18 things I did to pay off my £18,000 debt.
It also allows you to focus on specific goals and increase your chance of achieving them.
Your goal can be to become debt-free, to have savings, live in your dream home or have financial freedom. Whatever it is, the power of visualisation has the ability to shift your mindset from lack to abundance.
Conclusion
Your money mindset has a big impact on your money behaviours. Changing from a scarcity to an abundance mindset is beneficial for your finances. There are 5 ways in which you can change your money mindset.
Have you worked on developing your money mindset? What techniques did you use to make the change?
