The habits of a poor mindset is a mindset where you are conditioned through your habitual way of thinking, to think in terms of lack and scarcity instead of abundance and prosperity.
The habits of the poor mindset are evil. I don’t say that lightly. It is evil because it keeps people from living the lives they truly desire.
You may want a better life and be debt free and live in abundance yet you somehow just can’t make it happen.
Habits are incredibly powerful. They will override ALL your conscious efforts because they are lodged deep in your subconscious mind.
It is “the program” that is hard-wired in your brain and it is what you will always revert to automatically.
Most of us do not act when it comes to money decisions.
We simply react based on our habits.
We simply run the same thinking patterns that we always have.
What Is a Poor Mindset?
Your mindset is the way you think about something and it usually consists of many different habits. Habits are ways of thinking and acting in a certain way so often that it becomes an automatic and conditioned response.
A poor mindset is a mindset where you are conditioned to think in terms of lack and scarcity instead of abundance and prosperity.
Money can be a very emotionally charged subject for most people. There are many reasons for that but one big reason is that money is the number 1 subject that couples fight about.
Wealth is a mindset. It’s all about how you think. Money is literally attracted to you or repelled from you.
– David Schirmer
As a child you probably grew up seeing this. Children are incredibly susceptible to seeing things and making associations. Experts now claim that we learn 50% of all our behavioural patterns by the age of 5.
By the age of 7 your money beliefs are already established. For the next 20 years you will simply see and experience things to reinforce these beliefs.
When you hit 30 and you realize that you are always struggling financially you just can’t seem to figure out why.
A wealth or poverty mindset has nothing to do with what you do for a living. Many people that earn a fortune are still broke. Many people who inherited a fortune are still broke.
A wealthy mindset is one where your belief that you always have more than enough. Many multi-millionaires have lost their money only to make it all back within a short period of time.
Your money mindset is like a thermostat. It will determine what level of wealth you are comfortable at.
If you have a poverty mindset and you get a lot of money, the thermostat will kick in and you will find ways to get rid of the money until you’re back in your comfort zone.
The opposite of a poverty mindset is a wealth mindset.
What is a wealth mindset? It is one where you habitually think and believe that there is always enough money FOR YOU and that abundance flows to you regardless of external conditions.
If you have a wealth mindset and you lose your money, the thermostat kicks in and you will find ways to make it all back.
The good news is that you can choose to have a prosperity mindset but it will take some work. You need to break all the habits that make up your poor mindset.
The first step is to understand what poor habits of thinking you have about money.
There are many but most of them come back to these 7 main habits of the poor mindset. They are the real difference between the rich and the poor.
1. There’s Not Enough
How many times did you hear your parents say “we can’t afford that” or “we don’t have the money for that”? Most of us hear that a few thousand times before we reached that critical age of 7.
The way children wire things in their brain is really interesting. When you hear these statements about money all the time, you make the association that there is not enough money.
The truth is that there are billions of dollars in the world. In fact there is more money in the world today than there was yesterday. The nature of money is to grow and expand.
You may not have enough but that does not mean there is not enough.
Just look around you. There’s abundance everywhere. The house you really want, is there. The car you really want is there. It may not be in your life but it is there and it is available to you. You just need the right mindset to make it part of YOUR life instead of it just being “out there”.
It all starts with realizing that there is no scarcity. The only scarcity that exists is in your own mind and the way you think about money and abundance.
2. I Don’t Deserve It
How often did you ask your parents for something only to be told something like “money doesn’t grow on trees”? Maybe you wanted a really expensive pair of shoes only to have your parents tell you “who do you think you are”.
These things cause your little 7 year old brain to make the connection that you do not deserve it. Whenever we went to a restaurant we were always ordering the cheap meals – never the meals we really wanted.
Small things like this over time causes us to learn that we do not deserve to be wealthy.
The truth is that you are as worthy and deserving of wealth as anyone else on this planet. Nobody has any special skill or special claim that you do not have or that you can not acquire.
Abundance is your birth right.
You are entitled to everything in this world.
Everything that you believe you don’t deserve is only because of your money mindset. You can start changing this by claiming the things you want.
When you see the car you really want, say to yourself “that’s my car”. When you see the house you really want to live in, sy to yourself “that’s my house”. It may sound silly but your mind is incredibly open to suggestions.
3. Money is Bad
People who struggle financially almost always think that money is bad. At some level, they believe that money is responsible for bad things.
This is one of the biggest habits of the poor mindset and one of the hardest to break because it often gest instilled in us as children.
We often see dishonesty, arguments, stealing and all sorts of corruption around money. It is easy to link up the 2 and to blame money for it.
The truth is that money is neutral. It has no emotions and inherently money is not good or bad.
Money always takes on the energy that you bring to it. If you are dishonest then money will make you even more dishonest. If you are loving and kind then money will make you even more loving and kind.
Why is this important to know?
A big reason why you (subconsciously) avoid having more than enough money is because inherently you believe yourself to be a GOOD person. If money is BAD then you will always avoid it.
You need to change your money mindset in the sense that money is neutral. You need to detach the labels of good and bad to money and start seeing all the good you can actually do when you never have to worry about money.
I bet that the main reason why you want to have a greater financial abundance is not to enrich yourself but to give the people you love a better life.
Start focusing on this and all the great things you and money can do for those you love.
4. Earning Money Is Hard
If you grew up in a house where your parents worked incredibly hard then you probably linked up that making money is hard. If you saw your parents working all the time and still stressed about money then it can do funny things to the way you look at money and work.
Most of us grew up with the idea that you have to work hard for money.
The reality is that there is a big difference between hard work and working hard.
When I was 14 we had a school trip where we visited a gold mine. These guys work 600 meters under ground for 12 hour shifts. It was incredibly eye-opening to see what working hard really looks like.
Many parents work multiple jobs just to make ends meet. No wonder most of us grew up believing that you have to work hard for money.
The flipside is when you see successful business owners. They always work hard. The difference between hard work and working hard is that hard work requires you to do difficult things. It is hard because you have to think, risk and often do something where there is no predetermined path laid out.
People who just work hard simply prefer to “do what they are told” and often just exchange hours for dollars following a safe route
People with a prosperity mindset look at work very differently.
Work is not (primarily) the way they make money. Work is that which they love to do. Work is that which they enjoy, which fulfills them and which is part of their life mission.
If you are currently stuck in a job you hate then you simply need to change your mindset. Doing what you love is one thing BUT loving what you do will always be required. This change in attitude is something you can do immediately to start changing your money mindset.
You need to then start focusing all your free time on your passions. The biggest question on your mind now has to turn to “how can I turn my passion into profit and create wealth from what I love”.
If you stick to this simple idea for long enough, the pathway will start to open for you.
People with a wealth mindset love what they do. Making money is easy and enjoyable – and it often is not even the focus of why they do it.
5. Save and Conserve Money
Another big habit that most of us picked up from our parents is this idea of always saving money. Did your mom collect coupons? Did you drive halfway across town just to save $2 on your weekly groceries?
Always bargaining and always looking for a good deal. Always waiting for a sale and always looking for ways to save a few pennies.
It may sound smart to some but the reality is that this mindset of sauvignon is what keeps most people poor.
Rich people never save. They invest.
Rich people never try to save $2 because they know their time is worth much more than the time it will take to drive halfway across town.
It doesn’t mean you spend money irresponsibly. It simply means that your money mindset is not one that is primarily focussed on protecting and keeping things hoarded up.
You need to allow money to flow to yu and through you and you can never do that if your mindset is focused on saving and conserving money.
6. Rich People Are Evil
If money was always tight when you grew up then your parents probably hated the guy down the road who had it all. They were probably speculating how there was something “dodgy” about how he makes his money.
In fact, poor people are always complaining about the rich. They always feel short changed somehow and they usually think that all rich people must be doing something wrong.
Being jealous of another’s wealth is like poison in your own system.
If you believe that rich people are evil then why on earth would you ever want to become evil? If money equals evil then your mind will do everything it can to avoid being rich.
Money is a good and pleasant thing but people spoil it.
– Theodor Herzl
Yes, there are evil people that abuse money and there are people that use money in bad way. Money can bring out the worst in people but as we’ve already discussed, money is neutral.
Money does not make you good or bad. You do that.
Start looking at wealthy people in a completely new light. Know that every single person who is financially abundant is serving this world in a great way.
You can NEVER keep wealth if you do not serve humanity in some way.
It could be through a product or a service, but the how does not matter.
Resenting the rich is one of the surest ways to stay broke.
– T Harv Eker
The principle is simple: if you want to be wealthy you have to develop the abundance habit of always looking for ways to serve and to be of value.
One thing is for sure, the habits of the poor mindset won’t be found in people who are truly abundant.
7. Too Much Money Is Not Spiritual
If you grew up in a religious household then you are probably a victim to this big lie.
So many religions glorify poverty. Many habits of the poor mindset actually comes from religious teachings that completely misinterpret Biblical ideas.
So many religions preach about the virtues of humble and poor – only to have their churches and church leaders living in total luxury.
The truth is that there is no virtue in poverty. In fact, you can serve your God and your religious community 100 times better if you are wealthy.
The idea that God wants you to be poor is complete BS that’s been fed at us through a system designed to keep people under control.
Why would God ever want you to be poor? Why would he give you a limitless fountain but expect you to go thirsty?
Life is abundant. The nature of this universe is abundant. You are part of this abundance and God want you to be rich. You can be more, see more, do more and experience more of life if you are rich.
You will never realise your full potential and live your life fully if you keep yourself poor because you think that it is what pleases God.
Perish the thought because it is a lie.
Fixing The Habits of Your Poor Mindset
Habits can be much harder to break than they are to learn. We tend to learn it unconsciously. To break a habit though, you will need a conscious effort.
You can not break a habit if you don’t know what it is. Understanding these 7 habits of a poor mindset will help you expose your own beliefs. Now that you know them, you can change them.
Awareness can be powerful.
You can probably see all of these 7 habits in your own life in some way. Its important to recognize it because once you’ve recognized it you can start paying attention to it whenever you fall back into your old habits.
You may have to do a lot of work to overcome these habits but it is totally worth it. Don’t just resign to your financial fate. You have the power to change your mindset. You just have to make small changes in the way you think about money.
One important thing I want to point out also is that you should never blame your parents for your money beliefs. They probably only passed on to you what they learned. Like most parents they did their best. Be very grateful for what you did get from them!
Now you have the choice to break the chain. You can change your money mindset and in the process you will automatically empower your children to be different.
What would life be like if making money is never a struggle?
Imagine what you could pursue and what you could achieve! Just imagine what your children will become if money is never an issue in their lives!