Well, while positive thinking is by no means a cure-all for all of life’s hardships, research shows that it can help people find more joy1 and derive meaning from their lives. By this logic, adopting an abundance mindset can translate to a more abundant life in some ways. Here’s your guide to cultivating more abundance without sugarcoating the hard stuff. As neuroscientist and author of The Source Tara Swart, M.D., Ph.D., explains to mbg, “An abundance mindset means taking a risk. An abundance mindset is positive, optimistic—you believe there are enough resources out there for everyone.” Scarcity, she adds, is the opposite. “There’s a balance, or you could even say a struggle, in our brains between abundance and scarcity all the time,” she notes. Here are a few common ways it might play out. “Because of the evolutionary wiring throughout the ages for the survival of the species it’s natural for the scarcity mindset to prevail,” she explains, adding, “We’re 2.5 times as likely to want to not lose anything as we are to want to gain something.” Simply getting in the habit of slowing down, noticing things more deeply, and appreciating little things can help you to keep better track of your negative versus positive thoughts. If you write down every golden moment of your career that you’ve had, for example, you’re much more likely to think that raise or promotion can happen. And of course, once you think something is possible, Swart adds, you start acting like it. While it may not be easy, and will surely require a degree of patience and grace, working to shift from a mindset of scarcity to one of abundance is so worth it.
