The Importance of Abundance: Why Shifting Your Mindset Changes Everything

Dr. Christine Li [00:00:00]:
Hi there. It's Dr. Christine Li, and welcome back to the Make Time For Success podcast. This is episode number 189. In the course of my adult life and my recent training and coaching experiences, I have realized that the power of having an abundant mindset can really transform your life. And therefore, I can't wait to share with you some practical tips about having an abundant mindset and developing one with you in this episode. I share different ideas, insights, personal stories, and some simple techniques to show you what I mean by the phrase abundant mindset. And I hope that this is an episode that really influences you to lighten up, to see what is available to you, and to go make time for so much success. Let's go listen to this episode together now.

Dr. Christine Li [00:01:08]:
Hi. I'm Dr. Christine Li, and I'm a psychologist and a procrastination coach. I've helped thousands of people move past procrastination and overwhelm so they could begin working to their potential. In this podcast, you're going to learn powerful strategies for getting your mind, body, and energy to work together so that you can focus on what's really important and accomplish the goals you want to achieve. When you start living within your full power, you're going to see how being productive can be easy and how you can create success on demand. Welcome to the Make Time For Success podcast.

Dr. Christine Li [00:01:54]:
Hello, everybody. Thank you so much for listening today. I thought I would put together some ideas and reflections on the topic of abundance and having an abundant mindset. It is a topic that I teach on relatively frequently with my clients and students. It's a favorite topic of mine to think about in life. But I found in preparing for today's episode that it was a little bit complicated to put together my thoughts because there's so many different approaches to this topic. I could talk about manifestation. I could talk about the idea of feeling wealthy or being wealthy.

Dr. Christine Li [00:02:38]:
I could go any number of ways. But I just decided, you know what? The whole point of having an abundant mindset is knowing that there's always gonna be so many different options and that you should just enjoy the option that you choose. So I just decided, you know what? I'm gonna make this an episode where I put down a few of my top reflections, and I hope and expect that you, as my listener, are gonna enjoy this. You're gonna benefit from it. You might learn something from it and maybe develop a more abundant mindset for yourself, and that would be wonderful. Alright. So let's get going. The first idea that I wrote down is that it's important to develop an abundant mindset because if you don't have one, it's likely you're thinking about what you don't have, what you lack, what you're feeling deprived about.

Dr. Christine Li [00:03:37]:
And I think that sets you up for feeling in a negative state, feeling needy, doing things like spending your time comparing yourself to other people. They have so much. They're doing so much. They act in a certain way that is appealing to you and you feel you're not there yet. And all of a sudden, your time and your energy and your hopes go kind of away from you instead of you calling the things that you want in to your life, for your feelings, for the stuff you want, for the experiences that you want, you end up just feeling so needy or negative that it's almost like you don't have time to dream about the things that you do wanna get for yourself, the things that you wanna create, the things that you wanna build, the things that you wanna discover. There's no time. There's no space. There's no room when you're feeling deprived and needy or negative.

Dr. Christine Li [00:04:35]:
And we've all been there, so there's no judgment here. I want to be clear about that. And I think sometimes, oftentimes, developing a mindset is just that. It's something that we have to practice or can be made really good with practice. And I think for some, it's more natural than others. But if it's not natural for you, please know from this episode and from my heart that it is certainly something that you can learn to adapt for yourself and to enjoy. I thought in just teaching about this one point a little bit more that I would look up the definition of the word want for you. And I've done this before, and the exercise just was really eye opening.

Dr. Christine Li [00:05:22]:
You think that the word want or the verb want, to want, is innocuous. It's just you don't have something, you want it. It makes sense. Right? But if you read the definition from vocabulary.com, it says want, noun, the state of needing something that is absent or unavailable. Noun, anything that is necessary but lacking. Noun, a state of extreme poverty. And when I read definitions like that, I understood. I got the point.

Dr. Christine Li [00:05:55]:
I got the message. We need to steer clear of ideas that we want for something, that we're needing something that doesn't exist for ourselves. It just is a recipe for feeling not great, for feeling hopeless and helpless. And that's the last thing that I would want for you. I want you to feel empowered. I want you to feel motivated. I want you to feel all the good things that you would want for yourself. And oftentimes, that's the opposite of feeling like you want something.

Dr. Christine Li [00:06:27]:
And then you might be thinking to yourself, well, then how do I speak English? How do I tell someone that I want something from them? You can shift that one word, want, to the simple other word, which is desire. I desire or I crave or I wish, those are words that are a bit more empowering and less about deprivation and not having stuff. So go ahead, go have fun testing these sentences out in the real world with yourself and just check yourself the next time you're saying you want something and maybe just shift it slightly and see if you end up feeling slightly more positive about the possibilities of you getting what you desire. It really will work. When you shift your language, it helps you to shift your mindset. And I have found that is very powerful in my own life, but also in the lives of the people that I work with. The second tip that I have for you is that when you choose to adopt an attitude of abundance, you'll start to really recognize how abundant your life and environment actually are, you're going to see that you're actually swimming in abundance. It's not something that's far away from you that you never have access to.

Dr. Christine Li [00:07:49]:
It's really the flowers that are blooming around you, the trees that are growing around you, the experiences that you have every day, the people that you have access to every day. Chat GPT is a sign of abundance. I use chat GPT oftentimes to title these podcast episodes. And I always think, gosh, this is so lovely that I have such a quick, easy, and useful resource at my fingertips, at my demand these days. Of course, it's relatively new to all of us, but it's such a tremendous resource. And if you give a moment to feeling like the resources you have available to you are just such gifts, you will be practicing an abundant mindset. You'll be seeing all the positive things, all the positive people and experiences and energy that you have surrounding you all the time, every day. And then you may just start to see things more positively in general.

Dr. Christine Li [00:08:53]:
And just like the garden and the flowers that are in bloom right now, you will start to see that you can make beautiful creations out of the experiences and resources that you have access to, that you can add to the abundance with your own special sauce, with your own uniqueness. And that's tip number 2. It's that when you practice abundance, you become even more abundant. Number 3 is when you practice abundance, you start to focus better as well. I have experienced this in my own life, and I think anyone who's had any bit of therapy or coaching for themselves, and I've had more than 20 years of therapy and coaching as a client myself, when you engage in practices like therapy and coaching and getting trained or getting taught something, you will feel that you're able to let go of the things that don't work. The mindset that doesn't work, the practices that don't work. It's like perhaps being a baseball player, which I'm not, and you get a coach all of a sudden, and they correct your swing. And then all of a sudden, you feel that the whole way you play the game changes because you're more confident about your success rate when you're up at that.

Dr. Christine Li [00:10:18]:
You feel like you can contribute to the team more because you feel like you have the right technique all of a sudden. Even if you don't get the hits, you feel like you know the secret. And this is the kind of energy that I'm talking about. You get to be sharper at your craft, whether it's baseball or being a therapist or creating carved stamps, which is what's coming to mind, or cooking, whatever you choose to do, when you decide that you have what it takes, you have access to the right information, and you're gonna go get it for yourself, your brain will feel like it can settle into proper focus. And proper focus, as we all know, is a really essential ingredient of success and enjoyment and getting things done. The 4th idea that I have written down is that when you adopt an abundant mindset, you end up kind of relaxing, I think. You end up not stressing out about time so much. It's not that time isn't important and it's not that time isn't still relevant.

Dr. Christine Li [00:11:28]:
It's just not the only factor, and you don't feel like time is ticking away from you all the time. The panic about using your time so well tends to kind of just drift away and calm down and quiet down. And what happens instead is you start to live in a more fun and expansive way. So you're looking for experiences. You're looking to make the most out of your experiences. You're looking to turn even bad experiences or unfortunate turns into funny stories or experiences that you can share with other people or memories for your memory book. It's just this recipe for making more from what already is. And so we end up being so happy and excited and engaged in our present life that time is just kind of a companion instead of an enemy or something that feels aggressive, like an aggressive or unfriendly component in our lives.

Dr. Christine Li [00:12:37]:
Of course, time is one of our most valuable and treasured assets, and we start to treat it like that when we have an abundant mindset. Tip number 5 is that when you adopt a more abundant mindset, you also end up treating yourself more kindly and appropriately. And wouldn't that be nice? I think for everyone who's listening and myself included, I think we could all stand to treat ourselves a little bit more kindly and appropriately. When you see that abundance is all around you, that feeling ends up kind of by osmosis or something, by some magical process. It starts to transfer to how you feel about yourself as well. So instead of feeling like you have to be on that hamster wheel of to do list items and staying on top of everything and making sure you don't miss anything, you end up realizing that the things that you have access to now is acceptable. And if you needed more, you can get more. So there isn't this, again, this deprivation state because you trust that the universe has enough for you, and you trust in turn that you are enough for the universe.

Dr. Christine Li [00:13:58]:
So there's nothing missing, so you can relax. You don't have to yell at yourself anymore if you miss an opportunity. And I wanna share a personal experience I had a couple of summers ago when I went to Italy. I had an itinerary that was set up. But in the middle of the trip, I was the reason why my group and I missed a bus to a train that would take us to Tuscany, and that is something that I felt well, I wished I hadn't done that. I wish I hadn't been mistaken about how close or far we were from the transportation to where we needed to get to. But what I had already learned was that, you know what? There's always a chance that we can fix this. And I had that thought that if it's an experience that we have to do next round, we'll have to wait till next round.

Dr. Christine Li [00:14:57]:
So I knew that upfront. And then what ended up happening is I ended up getting great advice and used the hotel front desk staff to help me get another ticket and another set of tickets, and then we were off. And we ended up needing to shift days, but it did end up working out beautifully in the end for us. And I'm very grateful for that. And I do think that is a story of things going wrong, but then knowing that there are ways around things and that there are always possibilities that exist. And even if there are no more possibilities left, you can experience the let down or the mistake or the wrong turn as something that you can get over, that you will live through. It is okay. Even that is a little bit of an abundant turn.

Dr. Christine Li [00:15:50]:
Right? So review for yourself what could you turn into something positive for yourself so that you can move through the rest of the experience more easily, more joyfully, more like you're a tourist in Texan in Tux Tuscany. I'm having trouble with my words today, but that's okay too. Alright. The next tip I have is when you feel abundant, that sets the stage for your feeling like you can manifest the life that you want. And the example that came to mind when I was crafting this episode is the annual task of trying to figure out what you need to do for your birthday celebration if you tend to have birthday celebrations. And the idea is you can choose anything you want. You can choose a trip to Italy if you really wanted to. You could choose a nice dinner if you wanted to or a big party with everyone that you love coming to celebrate your birthday and the event.

Dr. Christine Li [00:16:51]:
But if you don't make a wish ahead of time about how you want your party to go, you're leaving things up more to chance. It doesn't mean that it won't happen or that it will be sad or an unfortunate event, but you might not get what you actually desire

Dr. Christine Li [00:17:08]:
when

Dr. Christine Li [00:17:09]:
you leave it up to chance like that. And I think many of us have had the experience of actually designing a vacation or a birthday party or an event of any kind, a trip of any kind, getting a puppy, you have some sort of choice in the matter. And I think that's part of developing a mindset of abundance as well that you're going to activate the part of you that knows what you want, and you're gonna express it. And you're going to make what you end up getting that much better, that much more aligned with what makes you happy and what gives you joy and what you expect. And I think when you have that kind of alignment, that's really pleasant, and we like that. We like it when life gives us parties and gifts and people that we really connect with and are really good for us and are the kind of people we get along with really easily. It's just kinda like life ease. I guess that's what I'm trying to get at.

Dr. Christine Li [00:18:09]:
So thanks for listening to these six strategies and reasons why an abundant mindset might be something you might wanna focus on right now, and it's a personal development exercise that will end up paying you back for the rest of your life. I really truly believe that. That when you develop a mindset that anything is possible and you are a vehicle of abundance, what can go wrong? Really, it sets you up for real success. And after all, this podcast is called Make Time For Success. So make time for a little bit of abundance or a lot today. So let's now take a moment to consider what you're gonna do with all this information. I have 3 sets of questions for you. The first one is, what challenge are you facing now? Can you transform how you feel about it so that it's not overwhelming to you? And maybe you can consider that it's something that might be able to teach you something important like that Tuscany trip taught me.

Dr. Christine Li [00:19:12]:
The second set of questions is how can you improve your own ability to capture the opportunities and possibilities that are in your life? Will it be an extra trip this summer? Will it be a birthday celebration that will be just as you wish it to be? Whatever it is, make it happen. Know that you can experiment and test this manifestation ability that you really have. It's not woo woo. It's not crazy magic. We're magical beings. There's a reality to the fact that we create the life that we wanna live. So activate that part of you, be abundantly minded, and let me know what comes of it. Tell me all the surprise events that pop into your life once you start to think in this way.

Dr. Christine Li [00:19:59]:
The 3rd set of questions I'd have for you is, what haven't we addressed in this conversation today that might be popping up for you? Is it something that you might wanna let go of or ease up on? Or is it something that you wanna invite into your life? Whatever it is, know that whether you're letting go of something or inviting something in, it's all manifestation for you. It's all things that you're creating for yourself and you're designing your life as you go. It's all good. No one's judging. No one's gonna stop you. So you have full permission to create the life that you want. Thank you so much for listening to this episode. I have developed a free downloadable worksheet to help you maybe journal about what you desire and to have fun with the tips and tricks inside this episode, all you need to do to get this free download is go to https://maketimeforsuccesspodcast.com/abundance.

Dr. Christine Li [00:20:58]:
Again, it's https://maketimeforsuccesspodcast.com/abundance. And speaking of abundance, if you enjoyed this episode, please tell a friend about this episode or this show or both. I would love that. I would be so grateful if you did something like that for the show and for me today. I will see you next week when the next episode drops. Take care. Have fun.

Dr. Christine Li [00:21:24]:
Thank you for listening to this episode of the Make Time For Success podcast. If you enjoyed what you heard, you can subscribe to make sure you get notified of upcoming episodes. You can also visit our website, https://maketimeforsuccesspodcast.com, for past episodes, show notes, and all the resources we mentioned on the show. Feel free to connect with me over on Instagram too. You can find me there under the name procrastination coach. Send me a DM and let me know what your thoughts are about the episodes you've been listening to. And let me know any topics that you might like me to talk about on the show. I'd love to hear all about how you're making time for success.

Dr. Christine Li [00:22:07]:
Talk to you soon.