I’ve had some insecurities throughout my life so far, but the biggest potential threat to my business comes from worrying about a box of Lucky Charms.
Growing up, finances were always tight- my dad was in law enforcement, my mom was home taking care of me all my two brothers (middle child, here), so there wasn’t a lot of flexibility in our budget. My parents are smart and we always have enough food, but me and my brother bored with generic bagged cereal.
Every once in a while though, Mom will find a sale good cereal, and take home a box or two of Lucy Charms (or even better, Waffle Crisp!).
I remember stressing out when I watched my brother pour *big bowl* of cereal (both had greedy appetite). Because… once the box is gone, it’s gone. And I want to make sure I get my fair share.
I carried that mentality with me through the years- more for him definitely means less for me.
And it took me a long time to realize that it made me REALLY! Especially as a self-employed artist.
I am constantly living in scarcity – “never enough”, I am constantly looking for others who might try and take what I feel is “mine”. It made me grumpy, suspicious of others, and introverted.
In short, I’m not one to push to be around.
But when you look at the actual numbers, it is scarcity mindset doesn’t actually hold water:
There are ~31.7 million small business in the US. (source)
There literally impossible I could once serve them all.
See all the small business IG feeds, TikTok bio photos, and website About pages featuring selfies, or iPhone photos with filters in them.
View all sales pages with impersonal stock photos.
Look at all the professional websites with outdated team photos!
There is more than enough to go around.
That scarcity mindset do you live in a constant state of fear – fear of not having enough, fear of others getting what is “yours”.
On the other end of the spectrum is abundance mindset- move forward in thought + action with the belief that there will be enough for you, that “more for them” doesn’t have to equal “less for you”.
Learn to choose abundance mindset sometimes it feels like a physical chore- it’s easy to fall into the mindset of scarcity, and sometimes, it’s really a matter of either/or, neither/and. But choose to believe there is enough to go around (again, 31.7 million small business owners in the US!)it turns me into a kinder, more compassionate, more generous person.
Because I no longer look back, worrying that at any moment, someone will pass me by. Energy is spent worrying don’t have enough it directly hampered my ability to think creatively, which is part of what makes me so highly qualified.
What will change for you, to move forward in 2023 with focus what is possiblevs. contemplating limitations?
This is not an overnight process, train your mind to focus on abundance vs. scarcity.
But I’ll tell you this- it’s worth every effort.
Want to hear more? Check out this episode of The Artisan CEO Podcast where we dive deeper into just how much a scarcity mindset can cost you
