Sometimes our thinking can slow down our progress as an author. I often call it stinkin’ thinkin’. Are you ready to move from scarcity to faith in your life?
This last year, I had a breakthrough and want to share the 6 steps I took to move from scarcity to faith. There is no one formula for seeing breakthrough in this area, but I hope this training helps and encourages you.
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Six Steps from Scarcity to Faith
I created this training because of a question I received. I had mentioned in a previous video that I had been stuck in a lot of scarcity in my thinking and someone asked, “I struggle with scarcity too. How did you move into faith? How did you overcome it?”
To answer these questions, here are six steps that helped me move from scarcity to faith in my business.
Step #1. Admit Your Problem
You have to admit that you are stuck in scarcity in your mindset. You are admitting that you have “stinkin’ thinkin” and that it is an issue before you can address it.
For me, it came from my background. I remember being at a garage sale with my grandparents one time and they were fighting over whether or not to buy something for a quarter. They only wanted to pay 15 cents and I said, “MawMaw and PawPaw, I will give you the quarter!”
They were literally fighting over ten cents.
I believe their scarcity mindset came from growing up through the depression; they saved everything. I don’t know if you do this or not, but they saved everything. It helped them to stay on a really tight budget, but I think there was some of their scarcity mindset that leaked in for me as well.
Something else you have to admit is that money in itself is not evil. It is the LOVE of money that is the root of all evil.
I am a Christian and I’m very open about that. Most of my followers are also Christians as well. The Bible says “the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil” [1 Timothy 6:10]. Therefore, I think sometimes as Christians we can begin to see money as evil.
This scarcity mindset comes on us because we think money is evil. I don’t want to be changed by money. Yet it’s the love of money that is evil. Money is just a tool just as a knife is a tool. A knife can be used to free someone from the ropes that bind them or to kill someone. Money is similar in that it’s simply a tool. I had to get over some of those mindset blocks.
To be honest, money scared me. I’ve watched many people who became successful and started earning a lot of money. I watched how they changed, it’s very easy to get caught up in materialism, humanism, and pride.
I have watched way too many people change because of money and it scared me. As I was growing my business there was a part of me that was saying, “I don’t want money because I don’t want to change.” I was scared of what it would do to me.
You know what?
That is wrong thinking because it is fear. I need to be put my trust and faith in God and if He sees I am able to handle it then He will give it to us and we can just be blessed so that we can be a blessing.
We can be the vehicle that God uses to bless many and to give – having money is not wrong in and of itself.
Step #2: Start investing in your business
I know it really scares a lot of people to invest into something when you’re not sure what the outcome is going to be. I’m not encouraging you to spend money you don’t have; I haven’t done that either. If we don’t have it, we don’t get it. That’s how it should be.
I remember when I was coaching with Felicia Slattery, she’s a speaking coach, and she said, “Shelley, you have to hire a VA (virtual assistant).” I was stressed out and I was maxed out to my limit, and I needed to hire staff. The scarcity mindset leaked into my situation and I thought to myself, “I don’t need to pay somebody to do something I can do myself.” But I was limiting myself. There are only so many hours in a day and there is only so much I can do, so I automatically limited myself with that thinking.
Eventually, I took the leap, it felt like a big leap at the time, and I hired support staff; a VA (Virtual Assistant). During that time, I didn’t need part time or full time help, so I hired someone on an hourly basis. It’s a great way to get started.
Doing that, I had butterflies in my stomach and I still feel the same when talking about it. I remember it was such a big step for me, but it was one of the biggest things that really helped me to start overcoming that mindset of scarcity.
Step #3: Take Action: “Action Cures Fear”
Have you ever heard the quote, “Action cures fear”?
Scarcity is many times rooted in fear, and so if we can start taking certain actions that will help us to grow our business and our income so that we have money to invest in what we need to do, it can really be a huge step.
As I realized I was dealing with the mindset of scarcity I started looking deeper into the root of it. I knew there were certain things I needed to do in my business but for some reason I was resisting them. It was tied in with the scarcity in a way and it was an interesting thing that came up to the surface as I started dealing with this topic.
I realized one of the things I was resisting was webinars. I’m a speaker so it made no sense that I was resisting webinars, but I think that I was overwhelmed and it felt like too much to get set up. As I realized this, I took the action because like I said, action cures fear. I started doing webinars on a regular basis, and webinars have been the number one way that I have brought new members into Author Audience Academy. Now I have hundreds of members in my Academy paying either monthly or yearly, and it gives me a stable income.
At this point I still put tons of time into my academy, being there every day giving trainings, but I’m able to free up some of my time where I’m now working on a big book project while I’m still earning income.
It would not have ever happened had I not overcome some of the mindset blocks, fear, and resistance I had towards webinars. They keep getting better and better the more I do it.
But just taking action is not enough. You want to make sure your action is focused on your highest impact tasks. So I have a recent training called “High Impact Tasks” where I share with you my top ten high impact tasks that I recommend authors focus on. You can check out that training here: trainingauthors.com/high-impact-tasks-for-authors/
Step #4: Reinvest Your Profits Into Your Business
Sometimes you want to invest in tools, coaching, or hire staff but it’s not doable at the moment. You still have to pay your own bills, put food on the table, gas in the car and have money for the things you need.
My husband and I were missionaries in Belize for two years and in that country they did this all the time with building their homes. They couldn’t get mortgages like we can get here, so they would build their homes with the bricks that they could afford at that time. They’d start at the foundation and as they had money they would buy a few more bricks, put a little bit more up, and once they had something that was somewhat livable they would move in. They would finish their house as they had the money.
That’s what I’ve done. I’ve continued to reinvest back into tools, to staff, to Facebook ads and to different things that can really help grow my business. I’ve made mistakes along the way; we all do, but I learned from them.
I’ve reinvested back into coaching, and into so many things that can then help me to grow. I think sometimes when you’re stuck in the scarcity mindset you have this tight feeling and you think, “I can’t reinvest. I can’t invest into coaching right now. I can’t invest into that tool I really need right now.”
However I found that when I started to change my mindset and asked, “OK Lord, what is it you have for me?” He began to show me that there were things that I could do and I could begin to slowly reinvest back into my business.
There are certain things that when you invest in them they will help you to grow exponentially. One of those things for me has been hiring staff. They can offload all the little busy work that I was doing and I can focus on my high impact, highly profitable tasks.
Step #5: Work With a Life Coach
For the first six months of this year I worked with Kathy Zehringer, she’s a life coach here in Colorado Springs. We’re in a mastermind together, but I knew that I needed some additional help. I have gone to Christian counseling before in my life, gotten outside help, and sought counsel of my pastors, but in this particular instance I decided to work with a life coach.
She really helped me uncover some other things and some other issues related to the mindset of scarcity that really helped me to break through.
Step #6: Focus on Prayer
As I bring down the wall of scarcity mindset, I’ve started having a focus on prayers and affirmations that build the muscle of faith. This is my prayer journal and at the top it says;
“Faith and belief is like a muscle that needs to be flexed. It takes consistency and practice to build the muscle of faith.”
This is so true. Faith is similar to a muscle. If we stop using our muscles and stop exercising, we’re going to lose fitness and lose strength. But when we do it consistently over time we’re going to see a huge result.
The bible says that all we need is faith as small as a mustard seed [Matthew 17:20]. You don’t need to start with very much; just start with what you have. Start with that little bit of faith that you have right now, give that to God, begin practicing, praying, and just really affirm your faith in God.
I also have a few affirmations that I wrote out about money. I’m just going to share these with you, if they are helpful for you feel free to use them. This is just what I had written out, and it’s not perfect; it’s just where I’m at right now.
Money is beneficial and helpful.
Remember, I said money is a tool. Money in itself is not evil; it’s the love of money that’s the root of all evil. It is simply a tool.
I am helping people have better lives and ministries through my work as an author coach and through the money that I’m earning as an author coach, I’m helping people live out their dreams.
I’m helping people reach others with the gospel through their books and products and therefore help them increase their income. I’m helping people do things that they never even thought would be possible.
It’s an exchange. They’re giving me their money in exchange for the value and training that I’m giving them. Then I also wrote,
Money allows us to travel and explore God’s beautiful creation and to spend time with the family I love. It allows us to give and bless others; to be a blessing. So I’m willing to receive.
So my question for you is, are you willing to receive?
Sometimes we think that we don’t even deserve it. For some reason I kind of had that too. It was like I didn’t feel like I was deserving or that I should charge.
I’m a Christian, maybe I shouldn’t charge for my services. That’s how I thought.
But I’m offering extreme value for what people pay for my services. You wouldn’t expect to go to a doctor’s office and have a surgery and have him do it for free. We expect to pay them and they expect to be paid. And just because the services I offer are online, or in a different way, it doesn’t mean I’m not to be paid for that.
There is a place for ministry, and my husband and I believe in that. I have given away so many books in the time since 2008 when I wrote my first book. I believe in ministry and I believe in giving away books. We’ve done a ton of free promotions and I give a ton of free training away. If you haven’t checked out my free training yet, go to trainingauthors.com/free and you can learn a ton. You can even publish your book simply by taking in my free training. So I totally believe in ministry, and in giving back but I also believe that we deserve to be paid for our services, our work, and for the things we do.
That was really hard mind block for me, so I wrote,
I’m willing to receive. I’m worth it because I’m fearfully and wonderfully made.
Like I said, these affirmations aren’t perfect. You have to come up with your own as you focus on prayers. You have to come up with your own process.
Conclusion
I want to ask you today;
- Do you sense any amount of scarcity in your heart right now?
- Do you tell yourself, “I don’t have enough,”, “I’m not enough,” or “who am I”?
- Where are you stuck? How has scarcity impacted you?
- Where are you at in this area? Are you open and surrendered in an attitude of faith?
- Do you trust him today?
Sometimes when God is able to bless what you’re doing and you’re able to break through these scarcity mindsets, it will allow you to have freedom to do what God is calling you to do.
I have been a workaholic, and I was working way too many hours so I didn’t have time for my other things. But, lately I’ve been able to devote a ton of time to Broken Crayons Still Color, it’s a book and video series, simply because I’ve been able to hire staff, and because God has blessed the work of our hands.
I encourage you today; moving from scarcity to faith has made a difference for me. I’m not going to guarantee results or that things are going to happen a certain way for you. I don’t believe in the prosperity gospel and I don’t believe that just because you say something or you believe something, it’s actually going to fall from the sky.
But I believe in the power of faith.
I believe that when we trust God and release some of that fear, self-sufficiency, and the striving, then we are able to give room for God to do something amazing.
Prayer
I want to end with this prayer that God brings a breakthrough in so many of you that are struggling in this area.
“God, I thank you for every person listening to this training right now. I pray that you would do a breakthrough in their lives. I pray that you would work in their hearts, remove any fear and anything related to scarcity. In Jesus’ name, show them what you have for them, show them the next steps to take, and show them what they may be resisting that they just need to take that next action.
Show them where they need to invest. Lord, I pray that you’d provide for your people, that you’d provide for us, so that we wouldn’t be reckless and so we wouldn’t be mismanaging our money, but we’d be trusting you.
May you take that faith, the faith as small as a mustard seed, and help it to grow and flourish and thrive. In Jesus’ name I pray. Amen.”
Was this training helpful for you? If it was I encourage you to share it with someone that you know that may also be struggling in this area of scarcity.
Have a blessed day.
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