Creating a Wealthy Mindset

Have you ever considered that your mindset affects how you experience life?

For those of us that are mothers, we all gave birth to a baby. But speak to 10 mothers and you’ll get 10 different stories about how their first year went.

Do you have a wealthy or growth mindset or a poor or fixed mindset when it comes to money?

You may have a poor mindset if you have thoughts like:

“I’ll never have enough money”

“I can’t afford it”

“I can’t do [ insert vacation or other want here ] because I don’t have money”

“I chose the wrong [ lower paying ] specialty and now I will never be able to retire”

“I can’t afford to take a risk and lose all of my money”

You are deeply afraid of change. You may be so frugal to the point of deprivation despite having a very high income (and perhaps driving your partner a bit crazy …)

You may have a wealthy mindset if you have thoughts like:

“There is more than enough”

“I’m responsible for creating money”

“I love money”

You know that taking risks is necessary in order to grow. You embrace change and adapt to it.

You’re generous with your knowledge and time. You don’t worry about “competition” because there is enough for everyone and more.

Now, most of us have had thoughts in both mindsets at any given time, but I bet you spend most of your thoughts in one of those mindsets. Our path to becoming physicians often meant being competitive and being more in that poor mindset. After all, not everyone who applied to medical school got in. There are only so many residency spots per program per specialty.

What worked to get you from college student to physician may not work for your path to financial freedom.

"What worked to get you from college student to physician may not work for your path to financial freedom." Click To Tweet

So here’s how to cultivate a wealthy or growth mindset:

Practice gratitude.

Yes, that thing that everyone says you should do. But are you actually doing it? If you have a journal or paper planner, start with writing down 1 thing you are grateful for every day. Don’t get stuck and think it has to be something big. I’m grateful for my hot cup of coffee every morning for example.

Do some continuing life education.

Push yourself to grow (who else will?). There are many ways to do this – books, podcasts, and live events. Two of my favourite growth mindset podcasts are Brooke Castillo’s The Life Coach School and Brendon Bouchard’s The Brendon Show. Consider working one-on-one with a trained life coach. Think of a life coach as a personal trainer for your mind. I currently work with one from Empowering Women Physicians.

Spend time with like-minded folks.

You may need to actively seek these folks if they are not a part of your circle yet. Wealthy minded people hang out with other wealthy minded people. In business, we often participate in “masterminds” which are small groups of like-minded people committed to growing their businesses (and themselves).

Notice your thoughts.

Notice the neverending commentary that is always going on in your head. What voice? YES that voice! Those are all thoughts that may or may not serve you! And guess what? YOU can create new thoughts that actually serve you. Try it!

Change your relationship to failure.

Failure is only failure if you don’t learn from it. In fact, we learn the most from our “failures.” This is SO important when it comes to your journey to financial freedom. Your student loan debt is not a failure. The fact that you haven’t taken the reigns of your finances at age XX is not a failure. Start now.