How To Release Scarcity & Adopt An Abundance Mindset, For Real

Here's your guide to cultivating more abundance without sugarcoating the hard stuff.

"There's a balance, or you could even say a struggle, in our brains between abundance and scarcity all the time," she notes. Here are a few common ways it might play out.

"Because of the evolutionary wiring throughout the ages for the survival of the species it's natural for the scarcity mindset to prevail," she explains, adding, "We're 2.5 times as likely to want to not lose anything as we are to want to gain something."

Again, it's not that an abundance mindset can solve all your problems. It can, however, make those problems feel more approachable or manageable when practiced over time. Here are Swart's tips for beginning the journey from a place of scarcity to one of abundance:

"You have to cultivate the practice of being in an abundance mindset because the natural thing is always to think more in terms of scarcity," Swart says. So, every time you notice yourself having a scarcity-based thought, "you have to try to replace it with an abundant thought until it becomes more natural for you."

If your thoughts are a bit chaotic in your head, writing them down can help you recognize which ones are coming from a place of scarcity and which are coming from a place of abundance. In this way, journaling daily can illuminate where you might be self-sabotaging, Swart says.

Simply getting in the habit of slowing down, noticing things more deeply, and appreciating little things can help you to keep better track of your negative versus positive thoughts.

As you begin to take note of your thoughts, you may notice there's a recurring negative or scarcity-based thought. "As part of your mindfulness practice, if you use a word or phrase that you repeat—it could be 'abundance,' 'positivity,' 'enough,' 'optimism'—those sort of words cultivate abundance," Swart says.

"There are lots of barriers to us feeling abundant," Swart explains. They might include unsupportive friends, financial fears, or low self-esteem. "Making a list of all the reasons you might not achieve what you want to—although it might seem like a quite negative thing to do—makes them become less subconscious and more conscious. They won't take you by surprise," she adds.

If you write down every golden moment of your career that you've had, for example, you're much more likely to think that raise or promotion can happen. And of course, once you think something is possible, Swart adds, you start acting like it.

While it may not be easy, and will surely require a degree of patience and grace, working to shift from a mindset of scarcity to one of abundance is so worth it.