3 Ideas for Investing Your Resources Intentionally
Shift your mindset from constant transactions to conscious investments.
Live in the Flow
Stepping into the flow of abundance allows you to create and maintain harmony between your occupation, relationships, health and wealth. In my previous blog, 3 Strategies to Invite the Flow of Abundance, I shared several strategies to invite you to step into the flow of generosity and gratitude. This blog goes deeper into the strategy of shifting from using your resources for constant transactions, many of which are not important for your life and vision, to consciously investing your resources in your vision and life purpose.
Shift From Transactions to Investments
Look at your life. How do you spend your time, energy, money and other resources? If you could live the life of your dreams, what would you love your life to look, feel and be? Then compare your current life with that vision. Keep the things that are working well. Release what isn’t working well. Instead, invest that time, energy, money and other resources into your vision of the life you would love.
Here are three ideas for investing your resources intentionally:
Shift your mindset from belief in lack to belief in abundance
Stop listening to advertisements and start listening to your needs
Switch energy-zapping habits for energizing conscious choices and rituals
These ideas focus primarily on shifting your mindset around your beliefs, your needs and your choices.
Belief in Lack versus Abundance
When you believe that you lack time and/or money, your mind will constantly look for confirmation of that belief. Your attention will naturally stay focused on that lack. Even if you are trying to figure out ways to get out of that lack, your attention is still focused on lack. When you focus on lack, you miss many opportunities that try to come your way.
You have to shift your mindset to believe in abundance, so you can focus on the abundance that is already in your life and to invite more abundance. Open your mind to the limitless possibilities that are actually available. Consciously place your attention on what you want, so you will start to notice the opportunities as they appear. Release what causes a lack mindset to make way for abundance.
One aspect of shifting your mindset is to realize that you are not lacking resources, you’re not using the resources you have in ways that support your needs. You have probably told yourself that you should spend less time on various timewasters, but using should statements tends to make you feel shame rather than motivation. Instead, envision what the best use of your time would be and give yourself the gift of time to do what you truly want to do. You’ll actually have more time for fun, and you’ll be more productive when you create harmony in your schedule instead of dreading what you “should” do. Taking breaks from mental work to socialize or do physical activities rejuvenates your mental energy and makes you more productive.
You can also step into the flow of abundance by giving where you feel lack. Invest your time, energy, talents and treasure where you want to increase your abundance.
If you feel you lack time. Invest your time helping others. The change of pace is likely to make you more productive. You’ll also likely prioritize your time better, releasing time wasters or things that really aren’t important to you.
If you feel you lack money, donate money to those less fortunate than you, and you’ll realize how much you already have.
Life is not as transactional as we believe it is - You give someone something, and they give you something in return. It’s more often a pay-it-forward method. You give someone something. They give something to someone else. This continues, not necessarily in a direct circle, but eventually, someone will give you something. The flow of abundance is a natural cycle. When you step into the flow with generosity and gratitude, you’ll find that abundance increasingly flows back to you.
Listening to Advertisements versus Your Needs
Stop listening to advertisements and start listening to your needs. Companies have found many psychological tools to help them get you to purchase things that you may or may not need. When the economic system is based on growing more sales and therefore money for the company’s owners, companies intentionally sell you things you don’t need or even really want, because it helps their bottom line. So you are responsible for controlling your consumption.
The best way is to consciously plan your consumption based on your specific needs. Use guidelines such as sticking to a list or waiting several days to prevent impulse buying. Grocery shopping after you eat does help. Being mindful of what your mind, heart and body are telling you they truly need is the most important idea to embrace. Listen to your deepest self to discover what will truly make you happy, healthy, wealthy and wise. Don’t let others tell you what you need. Trust your intuition.
The key to eliminating wasteful spending is to challenge any advertised purchase by asking if you really need it and if it is aligned with your vision. This doesn’t mean you can’t buy things that you want but don’t necessarily need. Some wants can have positive effects on your life that make them valuable. But giving into excessive purchases of wants creates a need to spend more time working to pay for them and to store them. Excess stuff in our lives can also cause more stress to maintain them.
Decide whether brand named products are worth the extra cost. If the brand’s values align with yours and you want to support their business, then do so if it is reasonably within your budget. Or save up specifically for the purchase. If you decide you need something, compare prices and quality before choosing which to purchase.
Another thing is to compare actual prices for things. Don’t be fooled by smaller prices for smaller quantities. Usually the larger quantities are more economically priced. Occasionally the larger quantities do have larger unit prices or require too much space to store. The idea is to consciously choose and to not pay more needlessly.
Habitual versus Conscious Choices
Switch energy-zapping habits for energizing conscious choices and rituals. You probably know which habits you would like to release and those you think you should start doing in their place. That statement probably made you feel bad with the stress of how to make such big changes in your life or the shame of not already having made the changes when you’ve tried so many times before. How would you like an easier way to incorporate the changes you would love?
The first step is to shift your way of thinking about making changes. Your mindset is powerful. If you think of healthy habits as things you should do, you will naturally resist them, just as you resist anything that somebody (including yourself) tells you that you should do. Instead, ask yourself what you would love to do. Would you love to get a good night’s sleep and awaken feeling rested and energetic? Then create a bedtime ritual that allows for that to happen. Would you love to feel healthy enough to play with kids or your sports team or just for fun? Then use that fun playful vision to help you incorporate healthy choices throughout your day. You could decide to drink a glass of water as soon as you get up to make it easier for you to stay hydrated, which supports your mental, emotional and physical health.
Reward yourself with pleasurable healthy treats, like an epsom salts bath or a massage. If you don’t have money to spare for a professional massage, exchange massages with your significant other for an added intimacy bonus. How can you turn healthy habits into luxurious rituals?
To make them easier to implement, attach them to something you already do on a regular basis. You could set your daily intentions when you take your morning shower. You could reset your attention on your intention and reduce your stress by taking five minutes to do a breath, energy cycle and gratitude meditation before you enjoy meals and when you take work breaks. You could go for a walk after a meal.
Use your imagination to incorporate more of what you will love in your life. You will naturally reduce the time wasters and energy zappers effortlessly as you fill your time with the habits and systems that support the things you love and promote your vision of peace, love and abundance.
Flow in Abundance
Shift your mindset to intentionally invest your time, talent and treasure in ways that support your amazing life vision being realized. Establish relationships, habits and systems that invite the flow of abundance for you to achieve and maintain the life you have envisioned.
In the next blog post, I will discuss the next strategy to invite the flow of abundance in more depth.
3 Methods to Invest Aligned with Your Vision
Empower all your relationships to enjoy the company along the way.