Is Being Thankful the Key to Being Successful?
Finance isn’t usually associated with practicing gratitude, but you’d be surprised what a shift in your outlook can do for your income. Adopting an attitude of gratitude can improve your finances in surprisingly powerful ways.
Evidence shows that being thankful can actually have a powerful effect on your brain, leading to a boost in happiness and mental well-being. When viewed through a fiscal lens, gratitude allows us to focus on what we have, rather than what we lack. In turn, that can help to quell the temptation to seek more and spend more. Instead of looking to purchase things or spend on experiences to boost your happiness, choosing to be thankful for what you have is a smart and powerful way to curb the urge to impulse buy.
Here are some important things to consider when thinking about all the ways practicing gratitude can improve your finances.
Practicing Gratitude Isn’t Always Easy
It can be difficult to take a positive outlook on finances when many Americans feel stretched way too thin. The 2022 economic climate has been marked by decade-long lows in consumer sentiment and deep concern about inflation.
People are worried not only about the money they’re trying to make but how long the money they have will last. The cost of everyday essentials has increased and put pressure on family budgets. The COVID-19 pandemic is still having an impact on people’s lives and wallets in varying ways, too. Though the future of inflation is uncertain, one thing is clear: being grateful for what we have, even if it isn’t easy, does pay off.
Scarcity vs. Abundance
Is your bank account half empty, or is it half full? How you answer that question can have a bigger effect on your finances than you may think.
Why is this the case? Well, your answer to that question provides some insight into your mental state. If you believe your bank account is half empty, your mind may only see one thing: scarcity. Believing you don’t have enough and focusing on those shortcomings intensely, often anxiously, can dictate what you buy and how much you spend. If someone is disappointed or even depressed by their perceived scarcity, studies show it can have a significant impact on their shopping habits.
Having a positive mindset and practicing gratitude can shift your brain into a more abundant space. Instead of feeling like you never have enough, you can instead feel like you have more than enough. That frame of mind can help in everyday life, but it is particularly important to remember during big shopping times throughout the year—Black Friday, milestone birthdays, or the holiday season, for example.
Moving toward a mindset of abundance isn’t just a way that gratitude can improve your finances either. It can also be beneficial to those around you. People who are grateful may also be inclined to be generous. Donating to charity is a wonderful thing to do for the world, and it can also come with a practical benefit: tax write-offs. Whether you itemize or take the standard deduction, giving back can also give you a chance to lower your tax liability.
More Isn’t Always Better
Have you ever heard of the law of diminishing marginal utility? It’s a complicated name to describe a fairly simple phenomenon. It states that the more you have of something, the less happiness or satisfaction you derive from it. Still, we often continue to seek out things we believe we want or need, wasting time and resources. Practicing gratitude is a valuable counter to this behavior.
While practicing gratitude may not automatically make you wealthy, it can help you to stop chasing the incremental happiness that comes from unnecessary purchases. Believing you have enough can give you a break from that hamster wheel behavior.
What About the Other ‘G’ Word?
Gratitude can improve your finances, but greed is associated with money much more often. The two concepts couldn’t be further apart. Greed, defined as an intense and selfish desire for something, especially wealth, often comes with a variety of other negative behaviors and consequences.
If your greed is your fuel, propelling you to want and seek more and more at all costs, it can also lead to intense fear—fear of losing money, taking risks, or of what might happen if you don’t succeed in your quest for success. If you have ever felt greed impacting your financial decision-making, try practicing gratitude to overcome it.
Set Your Sights on Greater Goals
In many ways, gratitude is synonymous with contentment. If you are happy with your current situation, possessions, and finances, the pursuit of wealth will likely take a backseat to the pursuit of happiness. Once you aren’t worried about chasing financial dreams, you can shift your energy toward identifying what else you’d like to accomplish.
That’s what true financial independence is all about—being free to do what you want to do and open yourself up to what’s possible.
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