What’s scarcity mentality?
Do you ever find yourself scrambling to protect what you have, in case there isn’t more available later? I know that’s an incredibly general question, and probably difficult to answer. But lately, I’ve found myself face-to-face with my scarcity mentality from a creative standpoint, and I’m beginning to realize that it actually dominates a large portion of my thoughts in other areas. So let’s talk about it.
According to Forbes, “Scarcity mentality refers to people seeing life as a finite pie, so that if one person takes a big piece, that leaves less for everyone else.” It’s the idea that there are limited resources in life, and the more you have, the less is available. The term technically refers to financial scarcity – poor people tend to make more mistakes surrounding finances and time than rich people because of their scarcity mentality – but it’s a phenomenon that also bleeds over into the rest of our lives.
(Side note – isn’t that depressing? That people who have less are more prone to making mistakes with what they have, simply because they have less? What a vicious cycle. It feels like Wile E Coyote and the Road Runner – the more the coyote fails to catch the bird, the more angry he gets, and the worse his plans become, causing him to fail even more spectacularly. Of course, I recently read that coyotes can outpace roadrunners any day of the week, so apparently our childhood cartoons weren’t based entirely on biological fact. Who knew?)
My Precious Energy
For me, the scarcity mentality shows up most obviously when I’m trying to create things. Let’s just take this blog for example. It feels like I have a certain number of good blog post ideas, and the more I use the fewer I have. In reality, the more I write, the more ideas I have. If I write a post every few weeks (or months) I struggle to come up with topics. In contrast, if I consistently write a post every week I end up having multiple ideas to choose from. Creativity actually creates creativity; blog post ideas breed like rabbits. Gross, but accurate.
But once I recognize it in that area of life, I start to see it elsewhere. The energy I have to get things done throughout the day and week is one of my most closely guarded resources. Because I can so easily expend more than I have for any given day (leaving my to-do list unread) I get stingy with my energy. I start avoiding unnecessary conversations or taking longer and longer breaks to “recharge.” I believe there’s a finite amount and I need to control every second of it.
And maybe there is a finite amount of my energy. But how am I to know what will refill the storage tanks? Maybe that avoided conversation would have been exactly what I needed to get through the day with more energy. Or maybe being generous with my time and resources would be just what I needed to realize that my to-do list is simply not that important.
Maybe.
What do I do about that?
It’s hard to see in those moments, but I’m starting to notice my scarcity mentality. And I don’t like what I see. Can I do anything about it yet? Mmmm…yeah that remains to be seen.
So, now that I’ve gone into more detail, what about you? Do you notice a scarcity mentality in the way you think of things? And if you’ve dealt with this before, what has worked for you to move toward a mentality of abundance?
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