Poverty is a state of mind

Are you keeping yourself poor?

It’s a rather odd question isn’t it – after all, who in their right mind would want to keep themselves poor?

Well, good point. The answer is that nobody in their right mind would keep theselves poor – because only people of the wrong mindset would do such a thing.

If there’s one thing that is guaranteed to prevent one from getting rich, it’s not their lack of a PhD or College degree; it’s not their race or skin colour or their age; it’s not their bank balance or their family or their network of connections; heck, it’s not even their lack of good looks or talents or knowledge or experience.

I know this because I have worked hard on eliminating my thoughts and beliefs that kept me debilitated and paralyzed for years. Although now I’m very much a “everything-is-possible” person, keeping myself this way is a constant commitment.

So if there’s one thing that I know will guarantee your failure…it’s this: having the wrong mindset, having self-limiting beliefs, and allowing them to keep you from taking the right actions.

The thing is, you don’t really know it until you – well, become aware of it. Our thoughts, beliefs and ideas are so ingrained and so entrenched in our psyche that we’re not even aware of the things we do to ourselves most of the time. Sometimes we have to see these behaviours in another person so clearly before we realize that we’re doing exactly the same things! *gasp*

So the next question then becomes, “Do you have the wrong mindset?” Let’s find out now.

1. Self-sabotage

Do you have an income ceiling? Most people sabotage their progress to wealth when they start to earn money beyond what they are comfortable with. This happens more commonly than you may think.

Anthony Robbins illustrated this well in his book Awaken the Giant Within. He said that a common source of self-sabotage is mixed neuro-associations, which is just a fancy term for having a messed up brain so we destroy our progress when we are on the verge of accomplishing something.  Seriously though, it means associating both pleasure and pain to the same thing.

Robbins said that while a lot of us actually want money, and while we associate money with freedom, security, happiness, travel, luxury, opportunity and being able to make more difference in the world, at the same time we also have (in our minds) associated money or having lots of money with many negatives like:

• greed or selfishness
• being judged
• stress
• immorality
• lack of spirituality
• workaholism
• intense efforts
• shallowness
• taxes
• guilt

Now because of the mixed signals, the brain then becomes confused, and you lose the power to make the necessary consistent actions to get what you really want. Because you’re inputting mixed information in your brain, you get mixed results.

Enter self-sabotage.

If you’re running your own business and you have mixed neuro-associations about wealth, the part it plays in your business may be bigger than you think:

• It may be behind the reason why you sometimes avoid bidding for the  big, hairy, prestigious projects; or why you set your hourly rate way below the average industry rate; or
• why you refuse to expand your operations even when you have the capabilities to do so; or
• why you revert back to doing things the old, hard and expensive way even when someone already showed you a faster, cheaper and easier way to earn more money; or
• why you start to make business decisions that are poorly planned or executed after a record of sustained growth.

How about you? Do you have both negative and positive associations with money and wealth? Look deep within yourself now and identify a recurring pattern in your behaviours. Take out a piece of paper now and uncover your core beliefs about money.

If you do self-sabotage, getting rid of this behavioural pattern is beyond the scope of this article, but if you can bring yourself to the awareness of your own beliefs about money and how they are running your life right now, then that is a battle half won.

What goes round comes round

2. Scarcity mentality

Do you have a scarcity mentality? You know you have it when you catch yourself thinking:

“I want more and I want it fast and I don’t care how I get it” -  This is a short term mentality; people who think this way aim for the quick massive buck rather than look at the bigger picture and aim for a smaller but steady, regular ethical income.

“I can suceed all by myself” -  If you believe this, chances are you haven’t yet grasped the concept and enormous power of leveraging.  People who believe this don’t achieve much because they haven’t learned to tap into the power of leveraging other people’s money, other people’s time or other people’s knowledge. They try to do everything by themselves, believing that they will get better results that way. As Malcolm Gladwell cleverly demonstrated in his book “Outliers: The Story of Success“, there is no such thing as a self-made person.

“There is not enough” – When you believe there isn’t enough, you operate from fear. This may manifest in many ways. Perhaps you refuse to help others because you’re too busy thinking of your own interests, so they in turn refuse to help you. Perhaps as a business owner you are stingy and you refuse to reward your employees generously, so they also apply  the minimum effort possible when doing their jobs, which then of course affect your bottom line directly.

Having a scarcity mentality prevents you from seeing bigger and brighter things. It’s the most common mentality of those people who call themselves entrepreneurs, but refuse to give away generous commissions to the people who regularly give them new customers. They don’t understand that if they want more, they must give more, that they receive what they give.

Scarcity thinking hurts you more than anyone else. Don’t let it keep you locked in your tiny, limited world.

3. Thinking Small

Thinking small is very similar to the scarcity mentality.When you think small, you specifically limit yourself to going beyond a certain threshold. You have a well-defined comfort zone and you fight hard to stay there.

People who think small are those who:

• Compromise – they are people like Frank Wheeler who’d rather stay in a job he hated rather than have the courage to find his true passions and set himself free.
• Go along with the majority, instead of thinking for themselves.
• Convince themselves into believing that “it’s ok to trade time for small money”, working in a job they hate for the rest of their lives even when what they really want is be their own boss and set up their own business. They fool themselves into believing that job security exists, even when thousands of employees get laid off everyday.
• Espouse the “Better safe than sorry” philosophy. They don’t like to take any risks because they are afraid to lose what little they have. Which is fine, but the fact is that everything in life involves a degree of risk. Crossing the street carries a risk. Driving your car or travelling abroad has its risks. But will you let these stop you from experiencing a free, full, and rich life? Instead of refusing to live a full life, wouldn’t it be better if you try to learn instead how to minimize the risks and implement strategies to get the coin to flip towards your favour? If you’re afraid of failing or making mistakes, you’ll also miss your chances for success, as beautifully demonstrated by this video:

Do you think in small terms? Do you confine yourself in what is comfortable, on what is safe? If you do, be careful – what you thought was safe may not be so safe after all.

In Conclusion

You may have been born in a poor family, or not have had the privilege of gaining a high level of education; You may have very little talent, or have a queer accent; You may have been born with disabilities, or lack qualifications – but countless men and women have already demonstrated many times that it is possible to overcome all these and achieve success if only you have the right mindset, attitude and beliefs, for that is the seed that will set everything else in motion.

It is your thoughts and beliefs that determine what decisions you make every day and what actions you take consistently. Take heed from the Buddha:

image by lucasmalta

As Henry Ford said, “Whether you think you can or you cannot, you are right.”

Wouldn’t you rather think you CAN?

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