Practice Living in Abundance Instead of Scarcity

In Episode 9 of The Business Mamas Podcast, I introduced a Framework for Enhanced Well-Being - Focus on Beliefs, Relationships & Making Heart-Guided Decisions. This is the framework that I've conceptualized and implementing this framework has been giving me so much more joy and peace in my life. I return to it when I need nourishment, encouragement, and sometimes a shift in perspective.

In Episode 11, I am diving further into beliefs and I want to speak specifically about the belief in abundance. Choosing to see the world as filled with abundance and opportunity is just that, a choice. Every day, each of us gets to choose where we will focus our energy. Even in this strange time we're living in right now, there is still an opportunity to choose an abundant mind state over a scarcity mind state. That's not to say that scarcity won't creep in. It creeps in for me sometimes.

When the stay-at-home orders started to become law in California and I could no longer operate my law office at the brand new office space I had just expanded into on March 1st, 2020, my first instinct was to feel scarcity. I had just taken on a larger monthly rent that I had committed to for at least the next 12 months. I had just hired a new full-time employee starting in March 2020, and so all of my expenses had increased.

Suddenly, with all of the uncertainty in the economy, I wondered if instead of expanding my law practice as I had been preparing for, I should be preparing our business to figure out how to weather the storm with the additional expenditures we had taken on. Navigating the unknown felt scary. My husband was also working inside of the law firm as well. If the law firm wasn't bringing in the finances that our family needed to sustain us, then we could be looking at a challenging financial situation that we weren't anticipating. I know that so many people found themselves in that uncertain place when COVID-19 hit and we were required to figure out how we were going to best respond to the new and unanticipated global crisis.

After spending a little time allowing those scarcity thoughts to run amok in my mind, I realized that there is always a way to look at the current situation from an abundant perspective. In addition to being grateful that myself and my employees could largely perform our job duties from the safety of our own homes remotely, we recognized that even if there was a slow-down in business, that such a slow-down would also be an opportunity to jump on those big back-logged projects that we just hadn't had the time to tackle when business is busier.

So, we took inventory, we prioritized our projects, and each week our team dedicated ourselves to focusing on something that could move the needle forward in our business. Plus, I realized that in slowing down, I had the time and the space to write about important topics that had been on my heart. I know that reflecting and sharing my reflections gave me the opportunity to touch many other lives that I otherwise wouldn't have been able to touch.

I'm not saying that once you practice living in abundance, you won't slip back into scarcity. I think everyone does slip into scarcity sometimes. However, the more you practice seeing the abundant opportunities in life, the more those opportunities reveal themselves to you and the less consumed by scarcity you become.

My call to action for you that will help you develop your belief in your ability to create an abundant life is that you 1) develop a daily gratitude practice and 2) that you begin recording and celebrating your wins for the day or the week.

1) Develop a Daily Gratitude Practice

I do this as part of my morning routine.

Can you integrate a gratitude practice as part of your morning routine?

You can do this by just saying or writing down one thing that you are grateful for in the moment.

2) Begin Recording and Celebrating Your Wins For The Day Or The Week

Another way I practice living in abundance is by always reflecting on my wins.

I usually do this as a weekly practice, although, I think it would be a great thing to do on a daily basis as well.

I do this with my law firm team members at our staff meeting and I ask everyone on our team to share their wins for the week.

I also record my wins for the week myself as a weekly reflection before I start planning the week to come.

I love to actually write down the wins for the week. Acknowledging and celebrating our wins, makes such a big difference in feeling more abundant in our lives.

Your abundance is waiting for you to call it in. I hope you will begin implementing these two simple practices to begin practicing living in abundance rather than in scarcity.

If you enjoyed Episode 11 and this blog post, I would love it if you shared it with someone you think could benefit from it. I would also be incredibly grateful if you could leave an honest rating and review of this podcast on Apple iTunes as that helps more people find the show and it helps me in sharing this message of practicing self-love and self-care with more people whose lives I know could be enriched by hearing it. Until next time and with gratitude, Kara Stein-Conaway, @karasteinconaway on Instagram.