Stop me if this sounds familiar…”I didn’t sleep enough”…”I wasn’t present enough with the kids”…”I didn’t get enough done”…”I don’t have enough money”…”I don’t have enough time”.
If you’ve never said this to yourself, stop reading now because you’re already one of the lucky ones and part of the small minority that has broken the cycle. For the rest of us, however, these are monthly, weekly, or even daily mantras we inevitably find ourselves repeating. I know most of these phrases have been uttered in my house in the past week alone.
It’s called “The Scarcity Mindset”. In a great read (How to Overcome the Scarcity Mindset), blogger Khe Hy suggests that the scarcity mindset originated from and is a holdover feature of our eat-what-you-kill, survival-of-the-fittest past.
More interestingly though, he breaks down the biggest scarcity myths we still allow ourselves to believe: there’s not enough, more is better, and it’s the way it’s supposed to be. Look at your significant other, look at your co-worker, look in the mirror…most of us are guilty of believing these myths in one form or another, whether we’re aware of it or not.
Before you get another chance to tell yourself something’s “not enough”. I highly encourage giving the article a read to better understand where these myths are truly coming from and how to change our mindsets to one of sufficiency rather than scarcity.
Here’s what caught my eye this week:
MONEY: The Will To Survive (Of Dollars and Data)
“…the key to being a successful investor was not in winning, but in not losing. By avoiding the big mistakes that befall most investors, you can come out ahead in the long run. This means avoiding leverage, short-term thinking, and a host of other behavioral biases that have plagued investors since the dawn of capital markets. So, don’t try to win. Just survive.”
LIFE: The Fearsome Nightmare Entrepreneurs Never Talk About (Inc.)
“Discreetly, a surprising number of entrepreneurs, even very successful ones, confess that they clearly remember their bouts with it. For many, it appears regularly and even becomes an undercurrent of their life. For others, it is an intermittent visitor, unpredictable, and unwelcome.”