Howdy! The previous article talked about how living an abundant life starts with feeling abundant. I mentioned how the unconscious mind is aware of every choice we make and how each choice we make shapes our self-image, which determines our choices. This article will address how to live abundantly, specifically, what choices we can make to feel abundant.
If the previous article sparked your curiosity then this one will satisfy your desire to know what specific steps you can take in order to feel more abundant. So read on if you feel like this is something for you.
We Have To Choose Abundance
This is the first and most important step. If we want to feel abundant we need to make abundant choices. Seems simple enough, right? Well, just because it’s simple doesn’t mean people practice it. I’ll tell you why.
When we feel abundant we make choices out of love. We do the things we love, whether it be taking time to go for a walk in a forest trail or crafting a home cooked meal for the people we love. Our abundance is reflected in the activities we do!
What I’ve noticed is that many many many of us are conditioned early on in our lives to not do the things we love and instead do things we believe we need to do in order to live. Instead of going on that walk in the forest we spend extra hours in the office because that’s what we believe the boss would like to see.
This “need to do” mentality is the result of the belief that we aren’t good enough to deserve to do/experience the things we love. But every time we choose to do the things we believe we “need to do” instead of the things we “love to do” we send the message to our unconscious that the world is a place of scarcity, not a place of abundance.
The Language We Use Shapes Our Mentality
I can always tell when a person is an adherent of the “need to do” mentality. It’s not because I can read minds. It’s because I pay attention to the language people use. The language we use is a direct reflection of our thought processes. When people use phrases such as “I need to do”, “I have to do”, “I should do” or “I must do” it makes it clear to me that person holds to the “need to do” mentality. And the language they use shapes their mentality, in turn.
This is exactly why I stay away from using words like “need to”, “have to”, “should do” and “must do.” Instead, I use words like “choose to” or “will do.”
See how the first type of language puts the speaker as the receiver of action, rather than the actor? The second type of language puts the speaker in the driver’s seat. Changing our language changes our beliefs, so if the only thing you get from this article is this, then you will be well served.
School plays a big role in conditioning people into the “need to do” mentality. From young ages we are conditioned to ask for permission to do things and do things we don’t want to do.
And it’s not just school; parents, family members and even well-meaning friends can say/do things unconsciously which discourage us from believing that we deserve to do the things we love. All it takes is one offhand comment directed at us while we’re impressionable children to make us believe we don’t deserve to do the things we love.
We Then Encase Ourselves In A Shell Of Hardness
This shell gets thicker and thicker as we grow up and continue making choices out of a sense of need rather than love. And while the shell does protect us, it also closes us off to the dynamic flexibility of life, it ossifies us. Our dazzling creative spark becomes shuttered away from the world, buried beneath the shell of apathy.
This prevents us from feeling abundant. And when we can’t feel abundance it is impossible to live abundantly.
Does this make sense?
I am speaking from personal experience. I used to make choices which I believed I had to make, mostly in my professional life. For most of my young adult life, instead of doing work activities which sparked my curiosity and enjoyment I made choices which I believed I had to make. I did this because I believed I had no other options; I had chosen to study science in college, so I had better accept my destiny of working in a laboratory or an office for the next forty years. I saw no other options available to me.
I was living in scarcity, not living in abundance. I was bored with most of my life; almost every day I would wake up dreading to go to my workplace, and once there I would stare at the clock, counting down the minutes until I could leave. The only work activity I enjoyed was teaching.
Naturally, this meant that my work was very low quality. When we act out of fear we can’t create anything originally meaningful.
What Steps Can You Take?
Do more of what you love. Preferably, do more of what you love, creatively. I’ll explain.
I used to love playing video games. I played tons of video games from the of 2 to 27. I spent entire days playing video games, alone and with my friends. I am happy and grateful for the memories I made during my gaming days. Staying up until two in the morning, drinking soft drinks and eating pizza while playing video games with my friends are some of my most treasured childhood memories.
But playing video games is mostly a weak creative activity. Playing video games can be creative, we can make friendships while gaming and if you play games like Minecraft you can actually create an infinite variety of things within the game.
But I believe that when we use our hands to create something in the real world we get more out of the experience. We all have bodies, don’t we? There is a world outside of our house, which is where most of the interesting things happen, isn’t there?
Staying Indoors Playing Video Games Has Value
But I believe we come into deeper contact with our humanity when we do things in person, with other people, outside, without a television or any other screen acting as the mediator of our interactions.
So that is what I mean when I say do more of what yo love, creatively. If what you love doing is sitting on the couch watching Netflix then you will not move into a state of abundance doing so. I’m being honest with you. Same goes with drinking yourself into a stupor every weekend.
You need to create to feel abundant. It’s a human requirement. We need to use our hands and our minds and to make things we need to share what we make with the world in order to feel creatively abundant.
Do This To Feel Abundant
If what you have read up until now resonates with your situation. If you identify with what I wrote, then I recommend you do the following exercise:
- Get a sheet of paper and draw a line down the middle of it. At the top of one half write “Love” and on the other write “need.”
- Write down all the activities you love to do. Do not restrict yourself. Write down all of the activities that come to you. I would write in the “Love” section (reading, writing, walking, meditating, moving, cross-country skiing, traveling, meeting new people, visiting museums, eating new food…). Distinguish between activities which are creative and not, or less, creative (writing is fully creative; watching TV is not creative at all).
- Write down all the activities you need to do. Don’t include all the activities every human needs to do in order to live, like eating, drinking. Those you have to do by default, it’s the price you pay for being human. Instead, write down all the activities you believe you need to do. A lot of the activities we believe we need to do come from a desire to impress others. That desire stems from our ego. It’s exhausting and impossible to attempt to satisfy the ego. So writing down these activities will get you clear on where you are wasting energy in attempting to satisfy the ego.
- Final step – Do fewer of the activities you believe you need to do and do more of the activities you love to do.
This Final Step Can Be Very Difficult For Some
People who believe they don’t have any time left over in the day to do the things they love will find this difficult. To people who believe that I say this: you are a physical being, if you don’t receive as much as you give you eventually exhaust yourself. Maybe not today, nor the next day, but eventually burnout sets in if we don’t give ourselves the time to recharge by doing the things we love.
We need to recharge. And we need to recharge by doing the activities which inspire us and thrill us.
If you’re a parent, a working professional or anything else, your work and relationships actually suffer when you don’t make time to recharge. Paradoxically, by doing more things you love you become better at doing the things you actuallyneed to do to live, like working.
“Who Has Time? Who Has Time? But Then If We Do Not Ever Take Time, How Can We Ever Have Time?”
The previous quote is from the movie “The Matrix Reloaded.” The Merovingian says it as he ends his conversation with Neo, Trinity and Morpheus. And it’s absolutely spot on. I base my life choices on this quote.
If we don’t take time to do the things we love, how will we ever have time to do them? Life will never be perfect. There will always be more work to do, people to see, cleaning to do and children and pets to feed. But if we don’t make it a point to carve out a time in our day to do the things we love we will never have the time to them.
In “Rich Dad Poor Dad”, which is an astounding book, Robert Kiyosaki writes that life will always look to push people around. Unless a person stands up for themselves, life will dictate what the person does rather than the other way around. If this is allowed to continue for long enough, the person will begin to believe he/she has no control over how their life unfolds. I used to let life push me around.
Not anymore.
Now I tell my life what is going to happen. And my life responds to my wishes. I am an active creator of my life. It didn’t happen overnight. But it started with me doing what I loved to do.
Do What You Love To Do!
The moment we start doing what we love to do we are letting our unconscious mind know that the universe is a place where we can be ourselves. This starts moving us to a state of abundance, where we are creatively relaxed and can deftly handle the challenges which present themselves to us.
For example, while I was working the job I believed I needed to do, I discovered that I loved reading. So I began taking a little time every day to read. I would read on the 30-minute bus ride to and from work.
Reading is a creative activity (the creation happens in your mind) and it was an activity I loved. So, slowly but surely, from that point on I began developing my abundant mindset, until I arrived at today, where I can spend as much as 3 to 4 hours a day reading.
And I love every minute of it.
This is how life works. We get what we focus our attention on. So if we focus our attention on doing creative activities which we love, we will get even more of those activities. As sure as a river flows into the ocean.
It’s up to us to make the choice to focus on what we love.
So what activities do you love doing? Do you take the time out of your day to do them? Or do you believe you have to rush around all day which leaves you no time to do the creative activities you love? Let me know in the comments below!
(If you want to learn about a powerful tool which puts me in a state of abundance you can read this review I wrote.)
To our wealth and success.