Welcome back to our brand new guided interactive series – How to Flourish! If you’re joining us for the first time, make sure to go back and check out the previous week’s articles so you don’t miss a thing. This week we’re talking about Abundance Mindset, Generosity, and Gratitude. We’ll cover what they are and why they’re important to your flourishing. And we’ll also give you some very actionable how to’s.

How to use this guide: 

• For the sections entitled “questions” or “practice,” you can approach these a few different ways. You can just allow your thoughts to flow in a “brain dump” style journaling session, or using voice notes. Feel free to keep these to reflect later or even delete them once the thoughts are out of your head! You can also work through these questions with a friend or partner. 
• It may be helpful to do this work in short sessions daily or a few times per week. Get comfortable, make a cup of tea or coffee. Put on a soothing playlist or enjoy some quiet time. 
• You can also feel grounded by doing some deep breathing before you get started! An easy exercise to begin with is inhaling for 4 and exhaling for 6, pretending like you are blowing out through a straw. This will help you activate your parasympathetic nervous system, aka the “rest, digest, recover” part.

Abundance Mindset, Generosity, and Gratitude

Let’s talk about two major ways of thinking (aka mindset) – abundance and scarcity. We’ll start with scarcity since it is the one many people struggle with.

Scarcity mindset:

Your thinking is primarily negative, you’re focused on all the things that you don’t have or what can or has gone wrong. You catastrophize, you expect the worst case scenario, and emotions like fear, shame, and self judgment are the primary drivers of your behavior. You’re “in your head” too much, and you feel disconnected.

This is also called a “fixed” or “victim” mindset because in this mindset you tend to believe that things are the way they are and there’s little you can do to change them.

When you’re in this mindset, you avoid change and any risk, even if it’s a healthy risk. You’re more concerned with a loss of any kind, even when there’s the possibility of a much larger gain. You feel like whatever you have is not enough, and that there are limited quantities of everything, for example time, money, opportunity.

To learn more about how to stop letting fear make decisions for you, check out this article we wrote!

Abundance mindset:

Your thinking is primarily positive, you’re focused on all the things that you do have and what can go right! You expect the best case scenario, and experience emotions like happiness, love, and trust. You can tap into your creativity. You feel whole and connected, and a sense of balance between your thinking and the cues you receive from your body.

This is also called a “growth” mindset because in this mindset you tend to believe in possibility and change.

When you’re in this mindset, you notice opportunities and take healthy risks. You’re focused on the good and the good gets better! You live in self belief and have a sense of personal power and responsibility. You know that there’s always more.

Shifting into Abundance Through Generosity and Gratitude

There’s a popular saying that feels so on point here, “where focus goes, energy flows.” And it’s true that what you focus on magnifies. A great way to shift into an abundance mindset is to think about generosity and gratitude.

Generosity

When you believe that there’s always more, it’s much easier to share – whether that’s time, money, energy, or opportunity. And when you are generous, you also feel more abundant and positive. It’s the best loop there is for feeling good and improving your mindset!

Gratitude

Stop and think about everything that you already have. Everything that has gone right. And how often things can be even better than you realize. This is how you can quickly shift into gratitude.

You’ve probably heard that it’s a good idea to make a gratitude list or journal, and that’s true! Writing these things down helps bring your attention and focus to the abundance and positivity that’s already in your life.

Yes, you can just write a list of things you’re grateful for. Or, you can try a few twists: 

Turn gratitude into an experience

While you make your morning coffee (or tea, or whatever!), slow down and appreciate every step along the way. For example, the person who roasted the beans. Where the milk came from. The fact that you have running water, electricity, a coffee pot or kettle, and even perhaps your favorite mug.

Think about gratitude as a timeline

Consciously remember things from your past, ponder your present, and even consider future things that haven’t happened yet. This is a great way to ground and counterbalance the tendency we have to check a box and quickly move onto the next thing.

Go inward with gratitude

That’s right, have gratitude for yourself! This one might be a little harder, but that’s okay. What parts of your personality are you grateful for? Did you take a chance on something and did it work out better than you expected? What can you acknowledge that you’ve done well? Or, what didn’t go so well, but you learned from it and it made you even better?

And that’s part 5! We hope you enjoy taking time for your own self discovery as well as the homework assignments and the resources.

Next Steps

Feel free to reach out to us via email, instagram (or comment below!) with any insights, questions, or breakthroughs! We would love to hear what you love and what you’d like to see more of.

Come back next week for Part 6 of our interactive Flourishing series! Next week we’re diving into a few aspects of what we call Your Self Health, or your relationship with yourself. We’ll share a process for taking control of negative thought patterns and beliefs that you won’t want to miss!

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Looking for more personalized support on this journey?

Want to go deeper? As we always say, it may be called “the inner work,” but that doesn’t mean you’re meant to do it alone. We would be honored to be your guides! Book a free session with either of us here. It may be the most valuable thing you do to move forward in your personal development journey!