Now more than ever before, anxiety about loss of income has replaced the sense of abundance and fulfillment. Most of our fears about not having "enough" are about money and time. But what about a lack of emotional fulfillment, a lack of love, a lack of creative solutions? Abundance is all-embracing. At least it should be.

The most crucial thing to understand is that abundance begins in the mind. Do you believe you only lack something because you haven't yet found a creative way to solve the problem? Or do you believe there's never enough to go around, unfair stuff happens, and there's not much you can do about it?

Choosing a belief system that cultivates abundance is crucial. But how do we do it? The simplest way to look at this—and also the most productive—is to recognize that you are always processing your life. There is input and output, forming a feedback loop. Input is the term for all the experiences that come your way during the day, while output is all your responses: your thoughts, words and actions. You are the one who oversees both. You sift through the input, evaluate it and take what you like, while rejecting what you don't like. Nothing is more crucial than your contribution to the feedback loop: You are the one who colors everything that comes your way, using intention, belief, expectation, wishes, hopes, dreams and fears. No input is neutral, because you are emotionally invested in your experiences. At the other end of the process, when you produce output, you again color it the same way. Your thoughts, words and actions indicate how involved you are in your life. Thus the circle of personal reality is shaped, every minute of every day.

Abundance reveals itself when you build a feedback loop that can accept and build upon what life has to offer. Look at the familiar story of lottery winners who are worse off 10 years after their sudden windfall. Why? Because they couldn't adapt. They processed life on a limited scale, and suddenly they were asked to process millions of dollars, massive attention, public exposure and the demands of people around them. Unless you have prepared the way, abundance itself can turn into a drain on you. The secret is to constantly build in small steps, taking advantage of small victories by using them to create your own belief system, one that can accept higher and higher levels of opportunity. Here are a few guidelines that you can use...

NEXT STORY

Next Story