Lifestyle Upgrade 101
Clarissa Seriña‑de la Paz
& Sharon W. Que
Everything we have seen, heard, and experienced in our childhood shaped our abundant or scarcity mindset. But, even with all these experiences, we can choose to learn and shift mindsets at any given time if we really want to. Just like so many things in life, the abundance mindset is learnable. Feeling and being abundant is a discipline and a lifestyle. With conscious awareness and consistent practice, it is doable.
Here are some ways you could walk through abundance:
A quote attributed to American talk show host and media proprietor Oprah Winfrey goes: “If you look at what you have in life, you will always have more. If you look at what you don’t have in life, you will never have enough.” Choose to see what you have and consistently be grateful for them. Maybe you can choose a routine in the morning, like while taking a bath or having coffee: think of three to five things or moments you were really grateful for the day before.
In “The Science of Getting Rich,” Wallace D. Wattles mentions the difference between a creative mind and a competitive mind. With a competitive mind, you have the scarcity mindset where there’s only one pie. It’s a survival of the fittest and in order to get a bigger piece, someone else has to get a smaller one. Contrary to this is the creative with an abundance mindset. The source is infinite and there is always enough for everyone.
Be aware of what you say. Stay alert and avoid using words of scarcity like “lack” because that usually goes hand‑in‑hand with feeling like something really is lacking. Acknowledge your scarcity mindset and shift your mind and feeling to abundance. A simple example of this is when you’re at a party. When the host announces that the buffet is already open, fight the urge to run to the buffet table especially if you’re going to do that because you fear that there it will run out before you could even get your share.
It’s a very effective tool we use and for the past 14 years, we’ve never missed creating our individual personal annual vision boards. We would cut out pictures from magazines of the local and international places we’d like to visit, put our personal and professional goal for that particular year, including long‑term goals. We’d even put the gadgets we want to buy and even the pricey material things we long to have. Through the years, the magazine cutouts turned into collaged online pictures online which we use as desktop, laptop and cellphone wallpapers. We’d look at it, daydream, and meditate about it every single day. We make sure to feel grateful for what’s coming our way, as well as those that have already materialized. Believe it or not, after 14 years of doing it, 95% of them actually came true. We didn’t have much materially, but in many instances, we’d gotten invites to all‑expense‑paid trips abroad. In other trips, we would have friends abroad who would invite us to stay with them so we reduce expenses. We spend so much less, yet experience so much more. Of course, while vacationing, our passive income sources continue working for us.
Vision boards emphasize abundance because they are a tangible proof of all the goals we wish to achieve. It’s easier to channel gratitude and abundance if you can literally look back on your past vision boards. You’ll get to be grateful for all the things and experiences that you have gotten throughout the years.