To perform effectively at work, you need not just skills, but also the capacity to take action effectively, and the ability to mange your mindsets. Previously, we have seen how an Ownership mindset is important for career success. Another mindset that is critical for career success is the Abundance Mindset.
What exactly is the Abundance Mindset and how does it help you perform better and enjoy greater career success?
The Abundance mindset, simply put, is the ability to think beyond constraints.
We often fall into the trap of considering everything a zero-sum game.
- If a colleague gets promoted, I won’t, because there is only one role that I can get promoted to
- If I accept greater responsibility, it will mean more work, because I’m already quite busy
- If I spend my money on acquiring new skills, I will have less money for the family vacation I have planned later this year
When we reframe the same situations with an Abundance or non-zero-sum mindset, we challenge the implicit assumptions in an existing belief and open up more possibilities.
Situation 1: If a colleague gets promoted, I won’t, because there is only one role that I can get promoted to.
Reframe: If my colleague gets a promotion, it means I can too. My company is growing. There will be other opportunities. In any case, I can also look for other opportunities outside.
Situation 2: If I accept greater responsibility, it will mean more work, because I’m already quite busy.
Reframe: If I accept greater responsibility, I can delegate some of the work I’m currently doing. If you don’t have anyone to delegate to, it might be: I’ll ask my manager to help me offload some of the things I’m currently doing
Situation 3: If I spend my money on acquiring new skills, I will have less money for the family vacation I have planned later this year.
Reframe: The new skill will help me deliver even greater performance, which will lead to a bigger bonus that I can spend on a really memorable vacation.
The essential point to remember here is not whether the constraints we implicitly assume are real or not. They might be real constraints. However, merely accepting them as real stops us from taking any action. When we reframe, we open up more options for taking action, which increases the probability of success.