The Abundance Experiment: Conclusion

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There Is Great Abundance Here For Us

For the last month and a half, I’ve been testing the theory that each of us makes the abundance in our lives through our mindset, through our random thoughts, and through our emotions. Abundant living is a choice we can all make.

ach of us makes the abundance in our lives through our mindset, through our random thoughts, and through our emotions. Abundant living is a choice we can all make.

Michele Bergami / Unsplash

I originally intended this series to go on for months, but I think I have enough “proof” to go on to write a conclusion about how changing my mindset has brought more into my life, more appreciation, more gratitude, more balance and an abundance of love.

We do find abundance in our lives and attract more to us through our thoughts and beliefs. By observing my life and all the good things I’ve found therein, I’ve attracted more of the good and learned how much else I have for which I’m thankful.

In this last month and a half, I have found a mentor; appreciated the abundance of beauty in nature and in my own backyard; rediscovered the wealth of friends I have in my life, found new appreciation and gratitude for the comfortable life I have with my husband and have learned to be more mindful of the world around me.

This article is the fifth and final in the series. The first four installments are here: The Abundance Experiment, The Abundance Experiment (Week 1), The Abundance Experiment (Week 2), The Abundance Experiment (Week 3).

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Increasing My Spiritual Abundance

The ultra-competitive side of me, the side that tried to make meditation into a contact sport, actually helped me stick to meditating. The app that I’m so thankful for is Headspace; it has something for everyone from bite-sized meditations to mindfulness exercises to my personal favorite, a guided journey into a deep sleep that works every time.

Meditating with Headspace has made my head clearer and my mind calmer. I have focus and some ounces of new clarity. I still can’t remember what I came into a room for, but we’re still talking baby steps here. Squirrel!! Distractions still happen more often than I want to admit!

I am mindful of all the blessings that I have in my life every day. I start each day with gratitude before my feet even hit the ground. And Yes, I’m still practicing gratitude for the part-time job even though it entails manual labor because my body is getting stronger along with my mind. How about that? A little exercise isn’t going to kill me.

Honing My Craft

I completed the book The 12 Week Year by Brian P. Moran and Michael Lennington. I highly recommend it. It takes you through the process of defining your most substantial goals and breaking them down into 12-week increments.

The theory behind this is that it’s in all of us to procrastinate when we set yearly goals and to put them off until the end of the year. By setting 12-week goals and making them measurable, we create a sense of urgency to concentrate only on the essential actions that support our goals each quarter.

I set my first 12 week goals and all the steps I need to get there. I’m focusing tightly on one or two things instead of the scattershot route I was going down.

Having clear-cut goals cleared a lot of the panic I was going through. I’m focusing on writing and building up content on my blog and Medium. My goals have quantifiable measurements which are making the left side of my brain very, very happy (along with the 12 Week Year board on my Trello account). Trello is an excellent tool to make a visual schedule that will sync with my calendar and keep me on track.

A fantastic woman named Kim Anderson, who has been blogging for more than five years, started a Mentorship program. I’ve been part of her regular facebook group for over a year. Her original Facebook community is vibrant and helpful. Based on my experiences there, when Kim offered the Mentorship program, I decided to join. The guidance she provides has doubled down the clarity that I’ve reached about my goals.

I feel that I’m on the right track now. My goals are set, and work has begun on them. I have a mentor that I consider a friend.

More Panic Is Gone

Monetary Abundance

I started this series in a panic about money. That panic drove me to reexamine the attitudes and preconceptions I had about money.

One preconception was that I had to hold down a 9 to 5 full-time job that fell within everyone else’s parameters. I had the notion that striking out on my own with my blog and my desire to write would somehow turn me into a starving artist. I’m not starving at all, and my blog is starting to make traction during this experiment.

Do I have any other income streams other than the part-time job? Did a long lost cousin find me and shower me with material gain? Did I cave and get a full-time job? Am I still panicking about money? No, no, no, and no.

Am I feeling monetarily abundant? Yes, I am.

Why? Well, the large vet bill doubled, yet I somehow had the funds to pay. The rest of the bills came and went without a squeak. What looked like overwhelming expenses, actually weren’t when I took them one at a time.

And the severance that I wasn’t touching because I have a touch of OCD? That whole thing was pretty stupid. By hanging on to it and refusing to spend it, I was reinforcing the entire spiraling scarcity mindset tornado. My hanging on to that money and refusing to spend it was sending out a message of scarcity and lack to the universe. The universe very obligingly appeared to send me back the same. I’m practical, but I have my woo-woo moments too.

I’ve also sent some money out into the world to people doing good and necessary work because I’m grateful they’re out there to help the world be a better place. I bless the money and resources leaving my hands to help them just as I bless the bills I pay.

Abundant Living

This experiment has proven to me that abundance is all in the mind of the beholder. If you look at the world as being full of lack and scarcity, then it will be.

If you look at the world as being full of abundance and plenty, then it is.

Nothing in my life has changed except my mindset. Really. I’m not making any more money than I was a month ago. But I’m not in a panic state about it anymore.

Yes, in conclusion, we do make our abundance in this life. We make abundance by waking up to all the plenty we have in our lives, by striving towards our goals with appreciation and gratefulness, by connecting and appreciating how rich we are in friends and family, and we understand it by observing nature.

Lessons Learned (or reinforced)

There is much more to life than monetary abundance.
Instead of looking at what we don’t have, we need to focus on what we have. We will find every time that we have more than we think we do.
Have clear, concrete goals to strive for in life. Focus on what’s important to you, and more of it will come your way.
Spreading abundance out into the world creates more wealth in your life for you to spread even further.
Focus on what you have rather than what someone else has. Focus on the things you are doing rather than what everyone else is doing.
Comparing your beginning to someone’s middle is self-defeating.
Envying what someone else has can take the joy out of what you have. Being happy for their good fortune will bring the same to you threefold.
Meditate, practice mindfulness and the world will become a calmer, more focused place.

Abundance Of Love

There is a lot of love in the universe. News media stories to the contrary. We already know that tragedy sells. I would love to see a channel that has all the beautiful things going on in the world instead of the bad (The Hallmark Channel doesn’t quite count).

The outpouring of love and support I’ve seen in my life is staggering. Sometimes I feel that I take it for granted. With the Abundance Experiment, Love is indeed a gift. I’ve been blessed that my life is abundant in all the ways that count. Abundant living is within reach for all of us.

To all my friends, family and readers. I Love You Too.