This idea came to me in my mastermind meeting yesterday while we were thinking about how to shift one’s mindset out of a place of scarcity.
When we live in scarcity, we feel like we need to be all things to all people. We feel desperate, like we can’t turn anything down. We think that if we miss out on any opportunity that comes our way, we won’t have another chance. It’s now or never. It’s this or nothing. It is reactive, not proactive.
Abundance, of course, is the opposite. We know we can’t be all things to all people and we are okay with niching down so that only certain people will “get it”. We feel relaxed and calm. We’re leading from our values, which means we can turn down anything that doesn’t feel like a fit. We know that if we skip an opportunity, there will always be more where that came from. It’s more like now, or then, or later, whatever. It’s this or something better. It’s responsive, not reactive.
And then we have scrappiness, one of my own core values and something I admire so highly in other people. Scrappiness sits squarely between scarcity and abundance. Sometimes it’s hard to feel a sense of abundance, especially if we’re triggered, things are scary, or we’re at our edge. Abundance feels like too much to reach for, when we have legitimate concerns about putting food on the table or paying our bills.
So instead, we can reach for scrappiness. We can build a bridge from scarcity to abundance by being scrappy and determined. We can take full responsibility for getting ourselves from point A to point B without compromising what we believe in.
Scrappiness says: “I’ll do whatever it takes to achieve my goals, but on my own terms.” It acknowledges that temporary solutions and “bridge jobs” are sometimes necessary, but it never loses sight of the ultimate goal. When we’re scrappy, we take on things we don’t love – not because we feel like we have to, but because we want to get closer to our goals.
Scrappiness is the “third way”. Instead of making our choices from a place of fear, it lets us make them from a place of love. It’s a subtle shift, but it makes all the difference in the world.
