When I was struggling during the first few years of my career in finance, the last thing I would have wanted to hear was anyone telling me that what I needed most was to be grateful for everything I already have.

But after 30 years in the industry, and having co-founded a company that manages over $3 billion in assets, I can say with absolute certainty that it doesn’t matter how much or how little you have, the path to wealth and enjoying it, is a lot easier ‘when we first embrace the concept of ‘Enough.’

We’re Taught a Harmful Wealth Mindset

From a very early age, subconsciously in most cases, we’re taught to associate the concepts of ‘More’ and ‘Enough’ with money.

Even in instances when we try to associate ‘More’ with something other than money (such as time and happiness) there’s still the underlying suspicion that money will be needed somewhere along the way.

The same is true for our cultural concept of ‘Enough’ - it’s virtually impossible for us to imagine feeling a sense of sufficiency without simultaneously imagining having a bank account that will, at the very least, cover our basic needs for life.

But what if this thinking is just flat out wrong?

What if ‘More’ and ‘Enough’ have absolutely nothing to do with money? What if they’re simply reflections of our mindset?

And what if creating a mindset of ‘Enough’ (instead of having enough money) is actually the key to lifelong wealth?

How ‘More’ Stops Us from Building Wealth

One thing I’ve seen throughout my decades as a financial advisor is how much fear and anxiety hurt financial success.

Though fear has many causes, when it’s viewed in financial terms, fear is always rooted in a mindset of insufficiency.

You may be wondering why I say that insufficiency is a mindset. That’s because for most people, especially in the United States, our sense of insufficiency isn’t necessarily based on a lack of resources, but simply having less than someone else with whom we’ve decided to compare ourselves.

Of course, there are exceptions such as homelessness and food poverty that millions of Americans suffer everyday, but unless you fall into one of these categories, I hate to break it to you, but your sense of insufficiency has far more to do with your childhood and cultural conditioning than your actual circumstances. It’s based on comparison, ‘keeping up with the Joneses’, perceived social competition, and therefore, it’s a mindset. 

Yet, and this is true for even those who have a conscious realization of this, we internalize insufficiency as our own personal inadequacy.

The more we try to fill this imaginary void, the more we lock ourselves into a lifelong struggle for ‘More, More, More.’

How ‘Enough’ Leads to ‘More’

Neuroscientists have discovered that our brains create neural pathways based on our current thoughts, which directly influences how we think, feel, and behave.

We’ve all experienced this in one form or another: the more we think about someone we love, the stronger our feelings grow for them; the more we think about something we’re afraid of, the more likely we are to avoid that thing; and the more we feel we need to strive for ‘More’, the stronger our sense of insufficiency will grow.

Constant feelings of insufficiency create the belief that we are lacking, that we don’t have enough, and therefore, we aren’t ‘Enough’. Everyone is susceptible to this idea, whether their available bank balance reads $1 or $1 billion.

We are living in a culture of fear and anxiety.

It’s a creation of our own making.

And if we want to escape it, we must first develop our sense of internal sufficiency, starting in this moment, regardless of how much money we have.

We must realize that our self-worth is far greater than our net-worth could ever be.

And we can do that by cultivating a mindset of ‘Enough’.

Realizing that we are already ‘Enough’ is the first step in developing the neural pathways that lead to a sense of sufficiency and lessen the fear that inhibits us from building wealth.

How to Develop an ‘Enough’ Mindset

Of course, developing a mindset of ‘Enough’ is easier said than done.

It’s not something that happens all at once or after a day or so.

It was more than thirty years ago when I first realized I needed to develop an ‘Enough’ mindset to reach the level of ease and financial success I aspired to, and I’m still refining these habits every single day.

Think of it like fitness - it’s something you need to first build up, then maintain by practicing healthy habits and integrating lifestyle changes.

While there are many different ways to develop an ‘Enough’ mindset (and no one is more right or wrong than the other), I’ve found these five practices to be of huge benefit:

1. Commit to awareness
   

If there’s something we don’t like about ourselves, and it’s within our power to change it, we have two options - 1). Bury our heads in the sand and pretend the problem doesn’t exist or 2). Befriend the thing we don’t like. The more compassion we have for our weakest link, the more likely we’ll become aware of what needs to transform.

Choose option #2. It’s the only one of the two that will lead to happiness. Plus, option #1 is, more often than not, catastrophic when applied to financial matters.

To make those changes, we need to know what we need to change, and this starts with making a commitment to awareness, with clarity, without judgment.

2. Make a gratitude list

Gratitude is a perspective check. When we sit down and realize how grateful we feel for everything we have, we can start to recognize that our superficial comparisons are actually not as big a deal as we may have thought.

Gratitude also trains the brain to create the pathways needed to develop a sense of sufficiency. This reduces our sense of financial fear and makes room for an ‘Enough’ mindset to blossom.

3. Meditate

Meditation can be practiced by anyone, anywhere in the world, at any time for zero cost. It helps us realize that breathing in and out is all we need. This automatically creates a sense of sufficiency, and helps us develop a mindset of ‘Enough.’

The Dalai Lama once said, "If every 8 year old in the world is taught meditation, we will eliminate violence from the world within one generation," and I sincerely believe that the reason for this is because meditation helps us cultivate the sense that we’re all ‘Enough’ just as we are.

Meditation also brings a sense of presence and compassion towards oneself and others, as well as an ability to weather the storms of life. These three things support our financial success. A greater presence leads to us making more money, compassion leads to healthier interactions with others, and weathering storms helps us with the ups and downs of the markets.

4. Create routines

As I mentioned earlier, sustaining a mindset of ‘Enough’ requires habitual practice like in physical fitness, and these habits become consistent when we are supported by routine.

The best routine is the one that works for you. It doesn’t matter what it is - you can meditate and feel the substantiality of your breath, journal about an ‘Enough’ mindset, tell a friend what you feel grateful for, etc. The point is that it’s something you do everyday, and that it will help you cultivate a mindset of ‘Enough.’

Routines also create new neural pathways, which make them easier and easier to do each successive day. You’ll also find that, most of the time, we get a boost of energy after a routine has been performed, not before, which helps us sustain a mindset of ‘Enough’.

5. Review financial decisions beforehand

It’s easy for us to kick ourselves for making bad financial decisions after the fact. But what if we take a few moments to think about the consequences of our purchasing decisions beforehand?

I recommend waiting three days to a week and then contemplating whether you really need that fancy new kitchen appliance from Amazon. What if you put the money into a diversified global index mutual fund instead?

Should you really sell your stocks just because the market is experiencing a downturn? Doesn’t that conflict with your long-term investing plan to stay invested, especially during the dips?

Every financial decision, no matter how big or small, can benefit from considering the consequences before the action is undertaken.

When we do consider a financial decision before acting impulsively, we often realize that we don’t have to make decisions from a place of comparison or fear, and that we’re already a lot better off than we realized.

This will reinforce the idea that we are already ‘Enough.’

How To Know You’re ‘Enough’?

You may not believe it, but the answer is incredibly simple: you’re always enough, all the time.

But by incorporating all (or even any) of the five practices into your life, you’ll start to believe it, realize it in your bones, and then act from a place of ‘Enough’ - almost always a much wiser place within us.

By making the conscious decision to stop living in fear and accept that you’re ‘Enough’, you might realize that you have everything you need to pursue the life you’ve always wanted for yourself, including the wealth of your dreams.

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