The Scarcity Mindset: Why Letting Go Feels Impossible (and How to Believe You Deserve More)

Believing you deserve better is about refusing to carry what was never yours to hold in the first place.

“You can do better.”

It’s one of those phrases we all nod at when it’s said to someone else — a friend in a lopsided relationship, a coworker stuck in a job that drains them, a sister tolerating a “just okay” guy because she’s tired of being single. We say it with conviction. We believe it for them.

But when it comes to ourselves? It’s different. We hang on to the almost-good-enough because letting go feels like a loss. We mistake familiarity for value. We convince ourselves that crumbs are a feast because the unknown feels so much scarier.

I’ve been giving my apartment a facelift. New curtains, new bedside table, cute fairy lights. Over the weekend, I cleaned out the slanted shelves on either side of my flat-screen TV.

On one of the shelves was a spiral-bound photo album. It must have been at least thirty years old. The girl in those photos was a lifetime ago. I flipped from page to page, revisiting moments from my life that, at the time, felt monumental. Then I saw it.

A Christmas card.

I peeled back the cellophane and ran my fingers across the black-and-white cartoon. And just like that, I was back with Tom. (I know. I couldn’t help myself.)

Tomorrow’s bonus episode of Worth The Weight is all about the gap between knowing you can do better and actually believing it. We’ll talk about why we cling to the bare minimum, how to recognize when you’re stuck in scarcity, and ways to reprogram your brain to start wanting — and expecting — more for yourself. To read the full post and listen to tomorrow’s episode, you can subscribe below.