Breaking Free from Scarcity: Recognizing and Changing Life Patterns

I want to talk about taking a look at the patterns that repeat over and over in your life and seeing if there are any negative ones that are holding you back.

When you spot them, you can develop awareness around them and eventually change them.

For me, one of the biggest patterns has been a scarcity mentality.

It has showed up in so many different ways in my life.

Scarcity in Everyday Life

For example, when it comes to clothing, sometimes I choose not to wear my favorite shirt or a new shirt because I don’t want to wear it out.

Even though it would make me feel more confident and maybe even make my day better, I hold back from wearing it.

The same thing with shoes. Or when I first got my iPad and Apple Pencil—I chose for the longest time not to draw with it.

Even though I love it now and it has unlocked so much creativity, I didn’t use it at first because I didn’t want to waste memory space on the cloud.

I was worried I would eventually have to pay for it, even though the creativity it unlocked far outweighed the tiny cost of more iCloud storage.

Scarcity in Games

This showed up in games, too.

I used to play Tibia, an online RPG, and I chose not to spend my gold pieces out of fear of not having enough.

I would just hold onto them instead of using them to enjoy the game.

Scarcity in Training and Fitness

In my pickleball practice at the wall, I keep practicing the same movements and shots.

At first, they helped me grow, but now it feels more like maintenance.

I don’t love practicing them anymore, but I’m afraid that if I stop, I’ll lose the basics and get worse.

So I just keep doing them, even though it doesn’t feel like growth.

The same thing happens in the gym.

I get bored with my routine, but if I change it up to something more exciting, I worry that I’ll lose the gains I’ve made, that my body won’t look as good, and that I’ll lose strength.

So I stick to the same thing out of fear.

Becoming Aware of the Pattern

This scarcity mentality keeps showing up in my life.

Just becoming aware of it has been important for me, so that it has less power over me and so that I don’t keep making decisions out of fear.

A Realization at Work

Today I noticed it again.

There’s new software in our company that I want to learn. It can help us improve our product.

I enjoy tinkering and learning things on my own, so I started watching all the videos and reading the help docs.

But then I realized—why am I doing this alone?

I could find someone who knows this software already, pay them for their knowledge, and learn it way faster.

It wouldn’t even be that expensive, and the return would be huge. Yet my instinct was to save a few dollars and spend my own time learning it.

Don’t get me wrong, I still enjoy learning it. But today I caught myself in that old pattern again.

The Point of This

That’s really what this blog post is about: becoming aware of your blind spots, your shortcomings, and the patterns that keep playing out in your life.

These are the patterns that keep you stuck or moving slower than you could be.

When you become aware of them, they start to lose their power.