My lovelies this is my first post. Currently I am on a continuous journey of getting to know myself, loving my authentic self, and becoming the person that God and the universe know I can be. These past few years I have felt disconnected from my self and have felt like all the dreams or goals I’ve had in life are not longer possible. This lack mindset sent me down a spiral of low self confidence, lots of crying, and constant anxiety and stress for my present and future life. My biggest struggle has been overcoming this lack mindset and regaining control of how I think about or view things. I guess to me, no matter how much I pretended that everything was ok, in my mind I could tell I was lying and I didn’t believe my own lies. Today, although not everyday is perfect, I choose to focus on all the things I appreciate and am grateful for. I realize that there is no timeline for life and that I’m not competing against other people to create the best life. Instead I’m creating my best life, which looks different for all people.
So that brings us to todays blog which is how to overcome the lack mindset.
- Accepting that you have a lack mindset
The hardest thing to do when you have a lack mindset is accepting you have one and realizing there is something you can do to change your mindset. In the past few years, I tried so many different things to bring back the old version of, the version that I though could get my life back on track. My mistake was that I was avoiding the actual problem which is that I was sad and I couldn’t see the positive in anything. I was moving through life mindlessly and doing nothing to better my mental health.
How do you accept you have a lack mindset?
For me writing helped a lot. I made a list of things I often had negative thoughts about. Ex: I’m not making enough money, my grades aren’t good enough, I don’t have enough time, I don’t have any friends… ect. From this list I wrote down how each statement made me feel. Ex: my grades aren’t good enough, this made me feel sad and defeated because I used to be really good at school but university was beating me and I didn’t know what to do. Next I would write the opposite statement and how it would make me feel. So sticking to the school example: my grades are good enough. Creating a positive statement that I would then repeat everyday to myself if I ever felt down about school or the other things on my list. I had to stop seeing my problems as problems and instead see them as opportunities to improve, BUT FIRST, I had to accept that my mindset was in lack and needed to change.
2. Problems are not Problems they are OPPORTUNITIES
In a lack mindset state, every problem we have leads to worrying and anxiety and unnecessary stress which actually makes our problems seam bigger than they really are. Once I accepted that my mind would see every problem in that way, I told myself that I need to get my problems out of my mind on a page so I can visually see them. This helped me realized that every problem I had is not actually a problem but an opportunity. Think of your problems as life’s free promotions. Problems make you smarter, stronger, and more confident in your abilities. This get me thinking about how as a child I didn’t see anything as a limit to my life’s possibilities, my mind was abundant and creative and anything seemed possible to me no matter how big or small. An example I often gave myself especially when it came to school/ university was that younger me, although not always the best student, pushed herself to become the best student/ smartest student in her own way. She was confident in her abilities to learn and the grades she got before she was getting A’s didn’t matter. Now lets connect that to problems. You have a problem but you don’t see problems as a stresser, instead you tell yourself this is an opportunity to improve my life and myself. Ex: Problem: I don’t have any close friends I feel connected to. Instead write it as an opportunity: I have the opportunity to find close friends that I feel connected to. This is an abundant thought that give you something in life instead of taking away, which is what problems do.
3. Set small goals for yourself
Now that I had a little more control of my mindset and saw my problems as opportunities I was able to move to the next step of setting small, doable goals. Why do I say small doable goals? Well I think they give you that momentum you need to get back into the groove, life is about climbing one step at a time and we don’t want to just up 10 steps just to fall back down to the first step. Taking it day by day, small goals by small goal is a great way to take one step a day and move towards our big goals in life without being overwhelmed by them.
4. Treat yourself/Have fun
We are all a little to hard on ourselves sometimes and forget the importance of socializing, not just with other people, but with yourself, either is great. So now that we are setting small daily goals, seeing problems as opportunities, and resetting our lack mindset we deserve some positive reinforcement. Positive reinforcement helps the brain associate your actions with a good reaction. I do this, I get this. Ex: lets say you set a goal to go to the Gym everyday for 7 days, give yourself a reward like treat yourself to brunch, or buy yourself a nice outfit, or go to a movie, or anything else, your reward could really be anything as long as you see it as a reward or something fun that you enjoy.
5. Visualize who you want to be/become
As my mind became stronger I was able to envision a better life for myself, this is where I am currently in my life/steps, visualizing who you want to be and becoming the person you visualize. I first started by writing down who I want to be, you know who is Cynthia, what does she do, how much money does she make, what are her non negotiable.. ect. I used this to envision who i wanted to be and where i was going in life. This is kind of like your blueprint, you can always change it or make it better but its just a little guide to what you can be because now you know you can be whatever you want. There really are no limits except for your ability to put effort into actually becoming this person. If you are willing to be patient and put in the time, you can be the person you want to be without any limits. Am I being a little too optimistic, maybe but honestly its better than the self hate, lack mindset, and dark clouds of sadness that had constantly followed me around. I prefer to be overly optimistic than overly sad and depressed, but you can chose to put limits down for yourself if you want.
This is all I have for now, but as I discover and use new methods, I will add them to my steps/list. If you have any of your own stories and methods that helped you overcome the lack mindset, I would love to hear from you either through comments or through social media.
Thank you for reading, I can’t wait for many more posts.