Life is pretty hard when we don't have what we need to move forward.

We try our best but we don't have enough money to invest in projects; we don't have enough contacts to help us expand; we don't live anywhere with great opportunities and life just seems to present us with continuous obstacles and not much else.

After a while we get trained to spot why things can't work; why we can't do what we want to do; why it might be better to give up instead.

When we get into that habitual frame of thinking, we are exhibiting what is known as a Lack Mentality (or Scarcity Thinking) - and it's a crippling mindset.

It's particularly insidious because, for many of us, it's simply a default setting. It doesn't feel like we are being defeatist. This is just reality.


The Problem With Abundant Thinking

Stepping out of a Lack Mentality can be a bit of a problem, then.

The antidote we are often presented with, to help move us out of this state, is also rife with issues. It's what is known as "Abundant Thinking".

Abundant Thinking asks us to embrace possibility, imagine things getting better and develop a grand vision of a life that is so much more exciting than the one we are currently living.

While fantasizing can give us a temporary high, the problem is that deep down we are all too well aware of our realities. The disparities between what we want and what we have can be enormous, which makes the mental jump so difficult.

"Abundant thinking" is a big ask if we live in an environment which is constantly reinforcing the opposite of abundance wherever we look.


An Alternative Suggestion

A paradoxical way of freeing ourselves from a Lack Mentality is by completely accepting lack is there and that it might always be there.

It's a form of Radical Acceptance.

Radical Acceptance is a therapeutic intervention developed by psychologist Marsha Linehan. It was intended for sufferers of borderline personality disorder but its principles can be applied universally.

The idea is to take us on the very path we are trying to avoid - the one that leads towards painful realizations of difficult realities.

Instead of wishing things were different, it makes us face the fact that life is not the way we want it to be - and it might never get better.

It is painful to do this - but the pain is short-lived.

What we are essentially doing is fully embracing the unpleasant emotions fully that arise from being brutally honest with ourselves.

In this case, it would be the pain of accepting we don't have XYZ (and we might never have it).

Once we face it, we effectively free ourselves from the internal resistance to where we are.

We come out the other side with a new perspective - one that is grounded in reality.

Much like Intense Realism, this practice will then narrow our attention to what we do have at our disposal.

As a result, we give ourselves the potential to become more focused, creative, innovative and resourceful.

The alternative is a pain that lasts far longer - it's called denial.

Denial is "Abundant Thinking" for people who don't really buy into it but do it anyway because they don't know what else to do.

Embracing our lack,  rather than pretending it isn't there,  is a key to help us out of our mental prison, when imagining we are not in prison is just too hard to do.

It’s not unusual, when life goes south, to want someone - anyone -  to tell us everything is going to be OK.

But the truth is, some things don’t ever seem to improve — or, at least they can take a very, very long time to.

We can always find ourselves trapped in situations which we once thought would resolve themselves quickly, only to find ourselves months — or even years — later, still there, still hoping for change, still trying to escape.

It might be a bad marriage.

It might be a shitty job.

It might be that we finally left that bad marriage or quit that shitty job and now we have found a brand new place to be stuck in.

And life can suck for a very long time.

The thing is, just knowing that something isn’t working isn’t enough to make that thing change.

And blind faith that it will somehow magically get better next week, next month, or next year, is only a short-term solution - something that momentarily makes us feel better.

To survive the spirit-crushing nature of our predicaments, then, we have to throw ourselves a rope — one that is, conversely, both optimistic and pessimistic at the same time.

The real lifeline comes from embracing the opposites and living both truths side by side, as James Stockdale will tell you.


The Stockdale Paradox

Relentless optimism in a situation where you don’t really have anything to be optimistic about is more than just deluded thinking.

When you are a prisoner of war, it can actually be life-threatening.

Stockdale, a naval officer at the time of the Vietnam War, had to learn this the hard way when he was held in a POW camp for seven long years.

This is an account of his time there by Jim Collins in his book, Good To Great:

Initially, when Collins asked Stockdale how he endured this, he replied that he “never lost faith in the end of the story”.

He “never doubted” that he would get out one day, that he “would prevail in the end” and ultimately be defined by the experience in the best way possible.

Yet, at the same time, Stockdale said that the ones who suffered the most in that camp — and even died prematurely — were in fact, the optimists.

How so?

Again from Collins' book, Good To Great:

A Marriage Of Opposites

The lesson, said Stockdale — and the thing that kept him going — was to hold two contrasting beliefs in his mind.

He wasn’t getting out by Christmas. But he absolutely was getting out.

The trick was not to allow his optimism to blind him to the “brutal facts” of his situation, which were just as vital to his survival during this time.

As he told Collins:

Facing facts might not be as sexy as “you will meet a tall, dark, handsome stranger” but it is vital we do so, particularly when we feel trapped.

While optimism is an essential component of psychological health; blind optimism — the kind where we think life will magically sort itself out on its own — is a dangerous state to stay in.

Just like the blissful high that comes from a visit to a tarot card reader, these kinds of states aren’t meant to last.

Eventually reality will come crashing in, regardless of whether we want to face it or not.

So balancing faith with facts, is an advisable way to navigate these times; to stay grounded — not deluded.

Aside from anything, it might just save us from a broken heart.

When  we talk to the uninitiated about Shadow Psychology: our repressed states, the idea about "integrating" our darker, unacknowledged traits in order to be fully realised "whole" human beings - we can forgive people if they look back at us blankly,  unashamedly uninterested.

But mutter the word "hypocrite" in anyone's direction and we will get a decidedly different response.

Hypocrisy, is a loaded - and very well understood - term.  And it's powerful. There are, arguably, fewer powerful insults we can throw at someone than this one - particularly the more moral and ethical the target considers themselves to be.

It is a gift, in a sense, when we bump into it, as it is perhaps the ideal introduction into the world of Shadow Psychology.


Do As I Say, Not As I Do

Hypocrisy means saying (or preaching) one thing but doing the opposite (often in secret).

It's the priest proselytizing on purity and abstinence while battling a drink problem or abusing the vulnerable; it is the avidly homophobic politician-in-public who is engaging in a homosexual relationship in private.

It's when we criticize and condemn people for acting in a way that we in fact are also acting ourselves but it can also be us hating on people for things we are not doing but wish we were.

As Jung once famously said:

Psychology and philosophy vlogger Einzelgänger gives a layman's introduction, here, and as he explains, it is not the fact that we are hypocrites in the first place that is the problem. It is that we fail to recognize it.

And that means we miss the opportunity to "integrate" these hidden aspects into our conscious selves so we are no longer dominated by misunderstood, unrecognized unconscious forces.


What We Resist...

Our darker urges exist because we resist looking at them.

And our hatred of other people's behaviour stems from the failure - or refusal - to recognize that the things we are villainising lie inside of us too.

Only when we bring these traits to the surface, then, facing them in the cold light of day and admitting that we are, also, like that too, can they ever cease to hold power over us.

So how do we do this?


"The Work"

There are many different ways to do it (you can find various techniques here).

One way is via "The Work", by Byron Katie. 

Katie has a simple "Judge Your Neighbor" exercise (with an explanatory video here).

The basic idea behind it is that whatever it is that is driving us nuts about our "neighbour" is generally the very thing we need to own up to ourselves.

And it goes without saying that it's easier to do in some cases than it is in others.

But it is always worth doing.

Why?

At the very least, as Jung says, if we learn to recognize the hypocrisy in ourselves, it might not only make us whole but it might just make us connect with people a little bit better (and isn't that what we all ultimately want?):

It's usual, albeit frustrating, to hit a wall when trying to execute an idea. There are intractable issues that appear to be beyond your control, fundamental problems that just can't be resolved - if they could, it wouldn't be a wall, would it?

But what if the wall didn't exist? What if these problems could be taken out of the equation? What then?

It sounds like a futile suggestion, but according to Duncan Wardle, the former head of creativity and innovation at Disney, this is exactly the kind of thinking we need to adopt.

The key to breakthrough ideas, he says, lies in asking ourselves a very basic - and no-holds barred - question: "What If?".

Wardle explains that the likes of Disneyland and Netflix both came about due to this kind of thinking and it requires looking at a set of problems and effectively acting like they no longer exist.

He calls it The What If Technique and it only requires three steps:


1. Forget Your Expertise

The What If Technique requires stepping out of your "usual river of thinking", says Wardle, noting that a key "creativity killer" is, in fact, expertise in any given subject.

Expertise can ironically be the very thing that prevents us from seeing the answer to the problem we are faced with, he says, as it boxes us in to the usual way of doing things (which is why outsiders often come up with the most creative solutions to problems).

So, in essence, leave what you think you know at the door.


2. "List The Rules Of Your Challenge"

In order to identify in detail what the wall looks like, you need to have a detailed understanding of it's "rules", he says.

These are effectively all the things inherent within this problem which stop you moving from A to B.

Identify as many as you can.


3. Act As If The Rules No Longer Apply

The last part is to look at all these restrictions and ask "What If" they didn't exist? What would the new terrain look like? What new problems would there be to solve? What could you do about them?

The trick is to allow yourself to explore options in this brand new territory, no matter how hare-brained they appear.

What does the world look like when you no longer need to operate by these rules? And what new rules do you encounter in this pretend one?

This was how Walt Disney went from initially trying to find a way to pump mist into cinemas to liven up Fantasia (which he couldn't do), says Wardle, to ultimately "solving" that problem by creating Disneyland.

Give it a try.

Your brain will get to work in this new imaginary setting in ways that might surprise you.

PATTERNS & HABITS

Starting a new habit is hard enough; keeping it's another matter entirely. James Clear has an answer to this problem - and he has Jerry Seinfeld to thank for it.

Starting a new habit is hard enough, particularly when there is all kinds of resistance around it, based in insecurity, fear of failure, looking like an idiot... the list goes on.

Maintaining that habit once you have actually mustered up the gumption to do the thing is another matter entirely.

There are all kinds of psychological exercises out there to help us motivate ourselves to stick at whatever it is we have committed ourselves to changing.

James Clear has one, however, that is designed to take the effort out of doing it.

The trick, as he explains here (and in the video below), is to focus on something completely different instead.


It's What We Focus On

Typically, we place so much energy on the thing we are actually doing that habits can become the big boogeymen, something we have to grapple with.

They become fights we need to win.

It's exhausting and only too often, self-defeating.

So, drawing on advice from comedian Jerry Seinfeld, Clear recommends this: simply mark out the days on the calendar when we actually do what we say we are going to do - and switch the goal to progressively getting as many days in a row as we can.

The focus will shift away from the habit itself and on to the number of days we have crossed off. It then becomes an issue of minimising the number of days that are not crossed off - rather than obsess fruitlessly over the task-at-hand.


"Don't Break The Chain"

This is what Clear calls, "Don't Break The Chain" and actually seeing the chain take its form in front of us, is key to making it work, he says:

"Whatever the habit is you're trying to build, this type of feedback, It gives you a visual cue, a long-term motivator to see that on the wall and to look at the progress you have made."