Never Enough?

“There’s never enough time.”  “I’m never going to have enough money to do the things I want.”  “There are children starving in the world, I need to finish the food on my plate.”

How often do you find yourself wishing you had MORE of something?  For example, I frequently find myself wishing I had more time, and I can almost 100% guarantee my husband wishes he had more money ?.  Humans tend to focus on what we don’t have more than focusing on what we do have, which is referred to as a scarcity mindset.  If you have done any business-related reading you have likely encountered information regarding the scarcity versus abundance mindset (The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People comes to mind).

From a therapy point of view, these two types of mindsets come up frequently in our view of our lives and our happiness (e.g., scarcity of time: “I’ll be happy when I have time to exercise and eat right so I can lose weight”).  We typically value things we believe are scarce as more important than the things we believe are abundant.  I don’t want to go down a research rabbit hole with this blog and you can get yourself quickly lost in Google Scholar if you type in scarcity abundance mindset (feel free to check it out!).  That said, research suggests that if people view time as scarce it can be motivating to enjoy the present moment; however, there comes a point when this view of time as scarce becomes problematic rather than helpful.  For example, I can quickly become frustrated and irritated when I focus on not having enough time for self-care with all the various obligations that come up during the week.  I become resentful of the people in my life because they always want more of MY TIME.  If I can switch myself from a scarcity mindset to an abundance mindset, I am able to focus on the abundance of love in my life (which is awesome to have) AND also requires me to be mindful of how I spend my free time.  There is always time for self-care if I choose to make time (e.g., 10 minutes of yoga instead of scrolling through Facebook).

There are times where we do have a scarcity of something.  For example, if you are having significant financial difficulties which require you to decide which bills to pay and which bills to not pay, it may be nearly impossible to switch to an abundance mindset as you are severely lacking a resource.  Instead, we can focus on abundance in other areas of our life (e.g., love, support, faith). One important caveat is that we must believe ourselves; do not go overboard with abundance to the point where what we are telling ourselves doesn’t feel real or authentic.

Focusing on abundance helps reframe our thinking patterns which, in turn, can influence how we are feeling.  When I focus on scarcity of time, I experience more negative emotions; however, when I focus on abundance of time, I tend to experience an improvement in my mood.  As we head into a long holiday weekend, my challenge to you for the week is to notice when you are in a scarcity mindset and try to gently shift your focus towards abundance.  Feel free to share your thoughts and experiences in the comments below!