Scarcity mentality is a state of seeing everything in your life as limited and scarce. It makes you hang onto a bad relationship, bad job, etc., because a bad one is better than none at all, where an abundance mentality is a state of seeing everything as a journey to better and better things, knowing that you can create your opportunities and do what is necessary to reach your goals.
Take two people, one with a scarcity mentality and one with an abundance mentality, and give them ten thousand dollars. The one with scarcity mentality will live in fear of losing his money, and will most likely spend it on things that bring him no real value rather than risk losing it, or will never spend it and enjoy it because he's too busy keeping his options open to ever exercise one of them.
However, the one with the abundance mentality will see the opportunities that cash presents, and use it to make even more money, and will reach financial independence if he is diligent in the conduct of his business, or if someone manages to steal it from him or his market takes an unexpected turn against him, he will say, "Wow! Now I know how to do this right, and can protect myself from it next time. I'm going to raise capital and try it again!"
A lesser man might make it that far, but when faced with failure, have scarcity sneak in on him and cause him to decide, "Well, I'm just not cut out for this, and any business I start is going to fail, so I'm just going to not bother trying again."
That same thing happens in relationships. People take responsibility, have a great relationship for a while, things go sour for some unexpected reason, and in a fit of emotional weakness, they say, "Well, I had the wool pulled over my eyes, and relationships aren't worth it after all," instead of just acknowledging the reality that either they made a mistake or their partner did, or maybe even both of them, and sitting down to discuss it and making repairs to the relationship or exiting to find a better one.
Personal responsibility coincides with abundance mentality, and a lack of personal responsibility coincides with scarcity mentality. It's consistent, but is there a single cause-and-effect relationship, or does the door swing both ways, meaning, will taking personal responsibility induce an abundance mentality and will an abundance mentality also induce personal responsibility?
SH....have a look at that book? No More Mr. Nice Guy? FIB
Me 55; XW 47; 2 kids (S13, D11) Bomb 05/19/06 Original thread http://tinyurl.com/yg2ou2t Last anniversary 04/25/10, Divorced 5/12/10 Status: Loving father of 2 beautiful children;
