By: Sophie Isbell
Why Your Mindset Matters More Than You Think
Your mindset plays a significant role in living a fulfilled life that’s aligned with your greatest dreams and goals. Your mindset not only affects your confidence and happiness, but it also plays a role in how you learn, how you handle stress, how resilient you are, and even how strong your immune system is.
The term “abundance mindset” was first introduced in 1989 in Stephen Covey’s popular book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. Since then, the concept of fostering an abundance mindset has become widely recognized as an important tool in finding more satisfaction and success in life, and strengthening your resilience and determination in the face of life’s challenges.
Aside from the huge impact your mindset has on your own personal success and happiness, it also plays a role in your relationships and how you show up for the people you care about. We all have the opportunity to intentionally choose the mindset we embody each day, and it can either help us or hinder us. So how can we learn to foster an abundance mindset that serves our highest goals and potential?
Understand the Power of Your Thoughts
To cultivate an abundance mindset, you have to recognize just how powerful your thoughts are in how you carry yourself through life. Our thoughts directly influence how we feel, how we make decisions, and how we act—in other words, our thoughts are ultimately the basis of how we experience our entire lives.
By cultivating an awareness of the types of thoughts that cloud your mind, you can learn to notice the thought patterns you carry that hold you back or keep you in a negative state of mind. Stoic philosopher Marcus Aurelius’ quote puts this in a simple but powerful way: “It is the quality of our thoughts, then, that create the quality of our life.”
Practice Gratitude
Gratitude is one of the best tools available for cultivating an abundance mindset. When you make time for gratitude, even if it’s just for a few minutes in the morning or before you go to bed, you’re actively directing your mind to focus on the good in your life instead of the bad.
As you practice gratitude, you’ll realize that it’s impossible to feel fear, worry or anxiety while you’re expressing what you’re grateful for. The more you focus on what you have to be thankful for, the more you train your mind to seek out hope and positivity in every area of life. This ultimately increases your resilience, determination and courage in the face of difficulties.
Use Daily Affirmations
Simply deciding you want to adopt an abundance mindset isn’t enough to make it a reality—it also requires consistent practice in action, just like learning any other skill. To shift your mindset for the long term, you have to create new thought patterns that align with the mindset you want to adopt.
A great way to do this is by using daily affirmations or mantras. Mantras are phrases you repeat to yourself that help you embody the thoughts and feelings of the person you want to be. If you want to be more positive, you must plant the seeds of positive thoughts and return to them each day until those thoughts become second nature.
The secret to having it all is believing you already do—and to adopt that belief, you must feed yourself the positive thoughts that can shift your mentality in big ways. You can cultivate an abundance mindset for any and all parts of your life, whether it’s your finances, career, relationships, or overall happiness. Check out this visual for more insights on manifesting abundance, as well as examples of daily mantras you can start using in your daily routine.
Author bio:
Sophie writes on behalf of CreditRepair about finance and productivity. Specifically, she is interested in removing the barriers of complicated financial topics and teaching financial literacy in a way that is accessible to all. Her most recent piece is on seven important lessons for teaching kids about credit.
