How the Scarcity Mindset Limits our Financial Success

There are so many things in our life that resist us from achieving our full potential and productivity. Scarcity mindset is one of the characteristics of human being that is full of greed and fear of limited resources. At some point in your life, you may also have experienced scarcity as a reality on a personal scale. There may be some events happened in your life that now shape your thought process towards scarcity.

A scarcity mindset at its very core decreases our capacity of self-control. It limits our potential by giving us negative and suspicious goggles through which we see the world. The very first step to conquer this mindset is to identify it. Identifying and changing the limiting beliefs that are holding you back are easier than you think. In this post, we are going to reveal the major symptoms of this mentality but mainly in relationship to money.

Never Having Enough

With the scarcity mindset, you will find yourself focusing always on never having enough. Fear of limited time, money and resources will frequently revolve around your mind. You believe that all resources are limited and the more you have, the less others have, and vice versa. But this mindset is built on false beliefs, misinformation, and fear.

Our actions are based on fear when we are under the grasp of scarcity mindset. The fear of not getting our fair share and that someone else will reap benefits that we won’t. Such fear insists us to take illogical decisions that limit our potential rather than enhancing it. Accepting this fear forces us to acknowledge false theories, avoid the opportunities of real prosperity, and to suffer in bad jobs & lifestyles.

In the scarcity mindset, we think that our society does not have enough resources to fulfill the needs of everyone. This causes to worry more about the future than focusing on the present moment. You will remain concerned with what might go wrong than thinking of what could go right. You will sacrifice your current happiness in order to have more tomorrow.

Competition & Jealousy

For some people, the scarcity mindset manifests as competition, jealousy and spite. People with this mentality don’t just hold back themselves perhaps they try to pull down the people around them. With this mentality, people tend to see everything with win-lose perspective and that’s why it affects the way they interact with others. This type of mentality also limits our potential because we frequently reject the opportunities that could result from cooperation and sharing with others.

When we compete in scarcity, we try to do so at the expense of others. We believe that we can only win if someone else loses. Such mentality pits us against each other rather than supporting each other. Under this scarcity paradigm, everything is ground for competition and resentment. We perceive other people as competitors, as roadblocks in the way of our desires. It is easy to see how a society becomes ultra-competitive and selfish by accepting the concept of scarcity.

If we recognize the destructive nature of this mentality, we might explore a better ideology that wouldn’t cripple our ability to think and act productively. Always train yourself to celebrate and acknowledge the success of others. Instead of comparing yourself, try to inspire from others and focus on your personal growth and goals. Look for ways to improve your life while helping the peoples around you.

Soul Purpose vs Scarcity Mindset

Soul purpose is the mission that you were born for. It is your unique sets of talents, values and abilities that can make huge impact in the world when applied effectively. Many people know their passion and purpose but refuse to accept it because doing so may require some painful decisions.

Our society and educational institution has always taught us that it is risky to follow our passion. But when we prudently analyze such traditional advice, we begin to see how illogical it is. You can find a common point in the life of all successful persons that they have pursued their passion instead of ignoring it for the sake of security. Where would the world be if Warren Buffet, Walt Disney, Steve Jobs, and Bill Gates had followed this ridiculous advice?

It can never be risky to do what we love doing, provided it is ethical and creates value in the world. The essence of living soul purpose is to replace fear and worry with faith and responsibility. Scarcity mindset keeps us away from finding and living our Soul Purpose because it attracts fear and worry into our lives. Both of these feature decreases our ability to fulfill our responsibilities.

Magnification of Quantity

The illusion that prosperity can be quantified by math destroys both our passion and soul purpose. It resists us from considering the hidden factor in our financial decisions. The core purpose of our whole financial planning should be to create favorable conditions for achieving maximum happiness. The calculation of happiness based on numbers is completely illogical.

Our inclination towards quantity rather than quality causes us to make unwise and costly decisions. The more focused we are on our salary; the less likely we are to realize our full potential. The path to real prosperity is value creation. When we get caught up in feeling money has intrinsic value, we become less focused on more vital concerns like happiness and value creation.

Numbers can be useful tool when we perceive them in the right context. But they can cloud our judgment and negatively influence our decisions when we overvalue them. One of the major reasons we get into the fallacy about numbers is because we like the concrete feeling that calculations give us. It makes us more secure to make decisions when we feel that we have quantified our options.

Immediate Gratification

The scarcity mindset further directs our focus to instant gratification. In this world, there are so many people who find it difficult to wait for what they want. This is also because we are often driven by our emotions based on various events happening in our lives. If our life isn’t going according to the plan, we instantly turn towards money in order to make things right.

How could we suddenly go against the ideas that have been ingrained into our thoughts throughout decades? It’s very unlikely that after spending the major part of our lives being cheap and cautious, we could break out of that mindset overnight. It’s easier to imagine the enjoyable outcome now than it is at some obscure future point.

There are so many people who start their YouTube channel and blog with a desire of instant visitors, fame, and money. They never think about long term branding and feel demotivated when don’t get the instant results of their efforts. We want the instant gratification that we think money can give us, but we don’t always have the patience to take time to develop our long-term productive capabilities in the service of others.

Scarcity mindset is beyond our beliefs about money and material resources. It’s a mindset, a way of watching and interacting with the world. It determines who we are and how we act. It steals our dreams, hope, and trains us for living small despite of our unlimited potential to make the world a better place.

In a world of possible freedom and joy, a scarcity mindset insists us in recognizing not much more than limitations, poverty, and selfishness. The opposite of scarcity is the concept of abundance that teaches there are enough resources to fulfill the desires of everyone. This is the approach taken by many successful peoples and organizations while taking their financial decisions.

We cannot become financially successful until we learn the real facts and overcome the mentality mentioned in this article. Becoming empowered financially will help you to unlock your full potential and creativity. Let’s strive to unleash the genius within by education and investing in yourself.