Five Signs You May Have A Poverty Mindset

Five Signs You May Have A Poverty Mindset
Spread the love

The way you think about money can have a huge impact on your ability to generate wealth. That is why having the right approach is the first thing on your checklist. Here are five typical signs which indicate whether someone has a poverty mindset or not.

As is the case with most psychological problems, different people may have different mental issues. But, If any one of the following descriptions matches your own, you have the poverty mentality, or you’re at great risk of developing it.

   1. You Lack Ambition

You Lack Ambition
You Lack Ambition

People who fail to achieve a fulfilling life have very few dreams and goals.

So if you:

  • Don’t plan for a better and prosperous future
  • Find it difficult to picture yourself in a better life
  • Feel contented with whatever life throws at you
  • And often nurture your lack of urgency towards personal development

Then you may very well have a poverty mentality.

The reasons for lacking ambition may be of many kinds like:

  • Low self-esteem 
  • Bitter childhood experience 

But the result may be the same: you end up capping your potential, which results in replicating your previous negative patterns.

    2. You are Pessimistic and self-pitying.

You are Pessimistic and self-pitying.
Pessimistic and Self-Pitying Person

Frankly, we all find it very difficult to cope with past life failures and shortcomings that everyone carries. It is perfectly normal to feel sad, stressed, or angry at some point in time.

All these emotions can help you to motivate for:

  • Learning from your mistakes
  • Getting back up
  • And doing things in a better way to achieve better results

As Winston Churchill has rightly said:


A typical attribute of poverty mentality is feeling helpless and self-Pity. You may find yourself feeling “Why Me” very often, viewing yourself as a victim who has no power over circumstances. Moreover, you’re likely to be more pessimistic, expecting negative outcomes from every venture.

   3. You are a deeply Jealous Person.

You are a deeply Jealous Person
You’re a Jealous Person

When experts compare the rich with the poverty mentality, they notice a major differentiating factor between the two which is Jealousy.

People having a poverty mentality are commonly found to be jealous of successful people instead of being inspired. They may continuously compare themselves to others with the desire to gain what they have, believing that they don’t deserve it.

If you have a rooted poverty mindset, you may find a reason to be jealous of everyone you meet. This may eventually result in you investing more of your efforts and energies towards the negative emotion of jealousy instead of personal development.

Since we are all humans and we all feel jealous at times. But a person fails to appreciate the abundance in life if jealousy drives his emotional life.

    4. You Make Your Decisions based on Fear.

You Make Your Decisions based on Fear.
You’re Fearful

Fear drives the mindset of a person who has a poverty mentality. So, even if you’re doing a mundane task, you feel like you’re in a difficult or troubling situation in which your options and ability to act are very limited. This means that you focus more on trying not to fail instead of concentrating on the fruits of success.

Moreover, it is medically proved that a fearful mind puts extra strain on the body causing it to generate more stress hormones. Meaning, you become prone to falling into a constant depression cycle and hardly even sparing a positive thought for yourself.

   5. You Focus on what you don’t have instead of What you Do Have.

You’ve Negative Focus

You naturally focus on the things you don’t have while trying to break the cycle of poverty mentality. This is because of the lack of those things you are looking for those things.

But, this way of thinking itself is a characteristic of a poverty mentality. Most of the time, it is also coupled with the jealousy factor. Because when you think of what you lack, the very next thing that comes into your mind is the people who have it all. However, this way of thinking introduces more of the negativity you are trying to get rid of.

Related Article: 

15 Signs You Are Poor


The 5 drawbacks of a poverty mentality are:
  • You think you’re a victim of decisions and choices that others make.
  • You fear spending money on things that are non-essential.
  • You are all the time looking for the cheapest alternatives even at the cost of your discomfort.
  • You’re all the time looking for deals and free entries.
  • You think you’re lucky whenever you succeed and incompetent whenever fail.

It has been proven through studies that poorer people have higher stress levels which leads them to depression. And that depression affects human efficiency and productivity.

Being rich means how much money or material things you own or showing off your wealth. Being wealthy on the other hand has to do with your time. You may be rich but in debt, while being wealthy means you have a positive net worth so it gives you time for the things you want to do in life.

The characteristics of  poor men include:

  • They don’t wish to have a good life.
  • They lack motivation and hesitate to take initiative.
  • They make decisions influenced by others and depend on other’s assistance.
  • They lack planning and organizing skills in life.
  • They are pampered by their parents.

Spread the love

You may also like...

Leave a Reply
