Remember when we first learned about the potential lock-downs due to COVID-19? People rushed to grocery stores and started hoarding supplies in a way that would make anyone in a zombie apocalypse movie jealous. The internet erupted with memes and stories of people with cartfuls of toilet paper! Even in our small midwest towns, the aisles were bare (hopefully none of us had to resort to using old t-shirts for toilet paper, but you do you).
Obviously, we were all scared. We haven’t faced a pandemic before, so there was (and still is) a lot of uncertainty about how to prepare. But I think that our actions during that time showed a deeper problem in our society and in ourselves: the scarcity mindset.
What Is a Scarcity Mindset
To put it simply, the scarcity mindset stems from a belief that there isn’t enough to go around. It’s a belief that says there are only so many resources available, so I have to grab all of them or I won’t have enough. It’s a belief that if someone else has something, I can’t have it, so I have to get it first.
Having a scarcity mindset isn’t always bad. When you have a deadline, that feeling of scarcity helps you ignore all other distractions in order to get your work done. It’s a survival instinct that our brain uses to keep us alive. Stress works in the same way; when you’re in a stressful situation, your brain tells your body to put everything on high alert, which is why blood pressure rises and heart rates increase. Your brain is telling your body to get ready to move out of that situation in order to keep you safe. The problem is that we allow stress and scarcity to control us rather than seeing them as the warning signs that they are.
When we allow a scarcity mindset to become our only mindset, we give it the power to affect our thinking and feelings. Scarcity orients the mind automatically and powerfully to unfulfilled needs, which causes heightened feelings of jealousy and inadequacy. Everything becomes a competition. Remember the toilet paper example from earlier? Because people felt like toilet paper was a scarce resource, a competition arose to get more toilet paper than someone else. It was the belief that I have to have more than that person, or I won’t have enough for me and my family.
We see the scarcity mindset play out in relationships and the workplace all the time. We have a hard time celebrating with people when they get engaged or get a promotion because we live in a mindset that says there’s only so much success to go around. If someone else is successful, that takes away the opportunities I have to be successful.
If we’re not careful, social media can fuel a scarcity mindset too. Have you ever seen a post on Instagram of a perfect mom with a perfect body doing perfect things with her perfect kids? And you instantly felt jealousy or a feeling of inadequacy and had a strong desire to point out her flaws? That may be because you’re living with a scarcity mindset and in order to make yourself feel better, you have to put her down. It’s the belief that because her life is going great, there’s less opportunity for my life to be great.
When we feel insecure or jealous, our ability to be generous reduces. We simply can’t be generous when we feel insecure. It’s easy to see how that makes sense when it comes to our material resources -- when I feel insecure financially, it’s way more difficult for me to be generous with my money -- but it’s true for our immaterial resources too. When we feel insecure about the blessings we have, when we believe there’s only so many blessings to go around, we have a hard time with other people being blessed.
Moving From Scarcity to Gratitude
Clearly, we have a problem with scarcity, but how do we get out of that? How do we move from the idea that there’s only so much to go around to one that celebrates and is confident that we will have everything we need?
The answer? Gratitude.
We hear the word gratitude thrown around all the time, especially during the Thanksgiving season, but what does it mean exactly? Gratitude is the expression of appreciation for what one has. It’s that spontaneous feeling that comes up when you’re surrounded by loved ones, and you think, “You know, life is pretty great right now.”
But we don’t have to wait for that feeling to happen. An attitude of gratitude (hahaha, I’m a poet and didn’t even know it) can be cultivated. Like most things in life, gratitude can be strengthened by practice, by making a conscious effort to count our blessings. There are benefits to practicing gratitude as well — it’s not just something that makes you feel good. Practicing gratitude shifts our attention from negative things to positive ones; it trains our brains to look for the good in a situation rather than the bad. This leads to more positive emotions and can help reduce stress.
Now, I will say that making a conscious effort to count our blessings is much easier said than done, but aren’t most things in life that are worth having? Here are some steps to help you start cultivating a spirit of gratitude.
1. Know where your blessings come from.
With a scarcity mindset, we’re tempted to think of God’s blessings as pie (sticking with a Thanksgiving theme here). If someone else takes a piece, there’s less for me! But that’s not how blessings work. We worship a God who is all powerful and has unlimited resources. When we trust God as the source of all things, we swim in an eternal current of blessings with enough to go around. It’s not a pie we pass around, hoping there’s enough left over for us.
James 1:17 tells us that every good and perfect gift comes from God. Whether it’s in our own lives or in the lives of those around us, the good things that are happening are gifts from God. We can celebrate with others and express gratitude because we know those blessings are from God, and God’s blessings never run out.
In Philippians, we’re promised that God will supply all of our needs. When we trust that God is who He says He is and that He will provide for us, we can express gratitude in whatever circumstances we face. When we know our blessings come from God, we can fight against the stress and fear in our lives. When those warning signs I talked about earlier start going off in our minds, we can remind ourselves that God will take care of us.
2. Make a habit of identifying what your blessings are.
Doing a quick Google search of “practicing gratitude” will give you many ideas about how to practice gratitude, but my favorite is creating a gratitude journal. This has been extremely impactful in my own life, as it gives me the ability to look back on all the ways God has blessed me, especially when I’m prone to forget those things.
It does take work and dedication though; you have to make it a habit and a priority. Each night, I take about 10 minutes before bed to write down things I’m grateful for. They don’t even have to be huge things -- sometimes the best blessings are the smallest things. I usually find myself writing down small blessings, like my dog’s derpy faces that always make me laugh or a hug I got from a friend.
Again, this practice is helpful for turning off those warning signs our brains give out. When we start feeling panicked about not having enough or being enough, we can look back at all the ways God has blessed us, and know that we’re going to be okay, even if it doesn’t feel like it in the moment.
3. Include others.
In Scripture, God tells us we were blessed to be a blessing. One of the best ways to bless and encourage others is by including them in your gratitude practice. Let people know you appreciate them -- write them a letter or send a card expressing your gratitude. It can even be as simple as saying, “Thank you!” to the pizza delivery guy! Be intentional about letting others know they are appreciated.
4. Include thankfulness in your prayers.
We are commanded in the Bible to thank God for all He has done, but too often, our prayers are more like “to-do lists” for God than thanking Him. We have the tendency to come to God with a list of requests, rather than worshiping Him for what He has done. Try starting your prayer off with something you can thank God for, even if it’s something simple!
If you’re in a good place right now, and you think you do a pretty good job of being thankful, that’s great! But it’s important to practice these things even if you don’t think you need them. There will eventually come a time when the negativity is too much, and you’ll want to have these habits in place to help during that time. Sports teams practice drills they may never need in a real game so that they have them at the ready just in case. Practicing gratitude is the same for our spiritual and mental health.
I know that 2020 has been a trying year for a lot of us. Everyday we are bombarded with the negative things happening in the world around us. But there is always something we can be thankful for. As someone who struggles with chronic depression, cultivating a spirit of gratitude has been a tremendous support and balm for my mental health. It’s helped me train my mind to look for the positive things in my life rather than be bombarded by the negatives.
A lot of times, we try to make things a bigger deal than what they actually are. Practicing gratitude doesn’t have to be some profound act that takes a lot of time. The easiest way to start is by taking small, simple steps. Here’s a sweet video to get you started: