My re­la­tion­ship with abun­dance hasn’t al­ways been steady. In fact, I’ve been prone to pity par­ties, plen­ty of “why me’s” and tantrums that would put most tod­dlers to shame. With so­cial me­dia mak­ing per­fect­ly pol­ished lifestyles more vis­i­ble than ever, it’s easy to catch the “less-than” bug. How­ev­er, it isn’t the on­ly op­tion.

In six months’ time, I was able to ditch my scarci­ty be­liefs, adopt a killer abun­dant mind set and con­se­quent­ly leave my full-time job and start the busi­ness I had al­ways dreamed of.

His­tor­i­cal­ly, I’m more of your prac­ti­cal, Type-A per­fec­tion­ist. I wasn’t al­ways in­to terms like “abun­dance” and “scarci­ty”. I found them to be “woo-woo” new agey phras­es with lit­tle sub­stance. How­ev­er, the in­cred­i­ble changes in my life that re­sult­ed from abun­dant think­ing are un­de­ni­able.

An abun­dant mind­set is the be­lief that we live in a world where every­thing we could ever want or need is read­i­ly avail­able to us at any giv­en time. Okay, I know it sounds su­per cheesy but I promise you, this stuff works. Plus, it’s to­tal­ly free so def­i­nite­ly worth a try, right?

Wait, so you’re say­ing any­thing I want is just read­i­ly avail­able to me at any time? That can’t be right… girl, talk to my bank ac­count! Yes! Well kind of. Like I said, an abun­dant mind­set is the be­lief that every­thing you want is read­i­ly avail­able to you at any giv­en time.

You see, our thoughts are pow­er­ful tools. In fact, our thoughts, in most cas­es, mas­sive­ly in­flu­ence our ac­tions - every­thing - from how we in­ter­act with our loved ones, pur­sue our ca­reer goals, even how we get dressed in the morn­ing.

For ex­am­ple, let’s say you read a post about an open­ing for your dream job. In­stant­ly you think, “Ugh, they want one more year of ex­pe­ri­ence than I have and so many peo­ple will prob­a­bly ap­ply. I nev­er have luck with these things.” So you don’t ap­ply.

Here are some easy and ap­plic­a­ble ways you can im­ple­ment an abun­dant mind­set in your every­day life

Ditch the “if on­ly’s”

We’ve all been there. If on­ly…

… I had “X” I’d be suc­cess­ful…

… My love life just looked like “Y” I’d be hap­py…

… I could lose “Z” amount of pounds, I’d fi­nal­ly get those pro­fes­sion­al head shots my LinkedIn pro­file des­per­ate­ly needs.

It’s nat­ur­al to want but can I lev­el with you? Rarely does this deep de­sire for the things we don’t have, pay off. These state­ments keep us fo­cused on the fu­ture rather than stay­ing cen­tred and abun­dant in our present. So every time you feel an “if on­ly” com­ing on, try prac­tic­ing grat­i­tude for your present mo­ment: the very peo­ple, places and ex­pe­ri­ences you have di­rect­ly in front of you.

Put away your mea­sur­ing stick.

This is one I strug­gled with for years. Every­thing in my life was about mea­sur­ing. If I pay for “X” then it’s go­ing to have to come out of the bud­get for “Y.” If I eat the dough­nut then I’m go­ing to have to ab­stain from sweets for the next week and a half. If I take this hec­tic but amaz­ing job, I’ll have to give up Thurs­day triv­ia nights with my friends. It was a con­stant bal­anc­ing act and it con­sis­tent­ly re­in­forced the be­lief that by gain­ing one thing, I’d be los­ing an­oth­er - aka, scarci­ty!

Opt out of the com­par­i­son game

I know, so­cial me­dia makes it so hard! I mean how are you sup­posed to fo­cus on the beau­ty of your own life when that blog­ger with per­fect light­ing, per­fect white walls, de­sign­er couch­es and her DSLR make “the dream” look so stu­pid­ly sim­ple?

Jeal­ousy is one of the fastest ways to kill your abun­dance buzz. It makes us feel less than, less wor­thy and less hope­ful that things are go­ing to turn up for us. But in the long run, it’s ut­ter­ly use­less.

As nat­ur­al as it may feel in the mo­ment to sulk over why some­one else’s suc­cess isn’t your own, con­tin­u­ing to fo­cus your en­er­gy on the scarci­ty in your life — what she/he has that you don’t — will on­ly in­crease the doom and gloom.

So in­stead of re­sort­ing to so­cial me­dia stalk­ing or re­sent­ment, tell your ego to cut the crap. Find her con­tact in­for­ma­tion and go in­tro­duce your­self. Ask her how she got to where she is now, what kind of prod­uct keeps her hair look­ing so fresh or how in the world she takes those beau­ti­ful flat lays.