As a child of immigrants, you may have watched your parents experience economic insecurity — or heard stories from grandparents and ancestors due to their experiences. This can induce a scarcity mindset, or the belief that there is never enough.
It's a very real experience, and even after your parents (or their parents) are no longer in survival mode and security is attained, the scarcity mentality can be passed down through generations as various forms of fear-based behaviors.
Even if economic insecurity was never a struggle in your family, some people naturally and subconsciously subscribe to the scarcity mindset. Stephen Covey coined the term in his book “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” as seeing “life as having only so much, as though there were only one pie out there. And if someone were to get a big piece of the pie, it would mean less for everybody else.”
Many of us have become stuck with these scarcity beliefs that impact the way we show up at work, in relationships, and speak to ourselves. Scarcity mindset can impact decision making, decrease confidence, increase levels of stress and mental health struggles.
It’s important to note: Scarcity mindset is real, and if you are struggling with economic or resource insecurity, then these behaviors and learned beliefs I mention below may be a result of living in survival mode.
Living in survival mode, and being stuck in survival mode when you don’t need to be, are two different things. I will discuss cultural and systemic issues next week to expand on specific factors that impact or reinforce scarcity mindset.
Here are 20 ways that scarcity mindset can manifest, with examples I have witnessed or observed in my own life and in my work with bicultural/multicultural folks.
