There is one form of investing, that no matter what cannot be taken away from you. Its absolutely risk free, everyone can afford it in some way , and it will surely make your life a lot better.
This amazing investmen is called – investing in yourself! If you got it right, pat yourself on the back. And if you already do invest in yourself then you’re awesome!
Investing in yourself is one of the greatest ways to enrich yourself and your life. It can help you create more in your life from thin air. You can invest in yourself in many ways – traveling, new experiences, learning new things or meeting new people.
It can basically be free, without constraints, and done from anywhere – investing in yourself is limitless.
In this article I want to show you how important and beneficial is investing in yourself. I will also show you some great ways to do it, and how it will benefit you in the long term.
Table of Contents
So what exactly does it mean to invest in yourself?
At first the term Investing in yourself might sound very abstract and will be hard to understand. Does it mean you buy yourself more things? Or maybe go out more?
Well, I will argue that investing in yourself can be interpreted in many ways but it will always involve self improvement in some way.
Some people will tell you that spending more money on yourself is investing in yourself. Some will tell you that working harder in their job.
There is no one set way to invest in yourself. For me investing in yourself means I am using some form of energy to become a better person. Maybe just for enjoyment. But usually to better my life in the short and long term.
The basic law of nature for investing in yourself
In my opinion, the best way to describe it is putting in “A” to achieve “B”.
This is a basic law of nature which physics use a lot to describe many phenomena’s in the world.
It is called the law of conservation of energy. In brief, it says that nothing in this world gets lost, energy is not created from nothing. Energy is always transformed to something else, it never gets spent away.
Lets go back to our goals. In our case “A” could be many things. It could be:
- Money
- Time
- Hard work
- Effort
- Sacrifices
- Decision making
Where “B” could be –
- Gaining knowledge
- Acquiring a new skill
- Experiences
- Traveling
- New career
To gain something you must let go of something else. This is just a basic law of nature. You cannot gain one thing without losing something else. For example lets say you want to get in shape and get a lean looking body. We’ll call that “A”. To get A – you must put in your time and effort. We’ll call that “B”. In order to achieve “B” you need to put in “A”. The more energy and time you put in working out, eating healthy, making good decisions that benefit you – the faster you get in shape.
This law of nature is universal. If you take one thing from this article, this should be this simple observation.
What are the best ways to invest in yourself?
Investing in yourself involves many aspects. That means there are many ways you can invest in yourself and gain great things from it.
In my opinion the best ways to invest in yourself are these-
- Education
- Traveling
- New experiences
- Learning new skills
- Making new connections
- Getting healthy
I will elaborate a bit on each of these –
Education – Gaining knowledge is one of the best ways to invest in yourself and make your life better. When you learn new things you create new connections in your brain, and you get a better understanding of the world.
The more you learn the more connections you can make. The more you learn you can obtain more opportunities and create new ideas. Learning can happen anytime and anywhere.
In my eyes, learning is a state of mind. If you decide that you know everything already, learning can never occur. But if you learn to look at things from different angles you will always see and learn new things. Education is something that is worth investing in. whether it is your time, or your money. If you want to learn in college to become a doctor, or a lawyer – that is a great investment of your time and money. Education might not be a 1:1 investment in terms of return of investments. But that’s not the way to measure it as you never know how something you learnt will help you in certain situations.
Traveling – traveling is a wonderful way to invest in yourself. When you travel you gain so much for yourself, you learn about different cultures, and you fuel your heart and soul. Traveling is one of the purest forms of freedom. You are in a different place, with different languages, cultures , foods and attractions. You can go wherever you want and do whatever you feel like doing. When you travel you often get a chance to look at your life in different ways, and gain new insights. You can also learn about different values and ways that people live their own life and embrace whatever suits you.
“Traveling is the only thing you buy that makes you richer”
New experiences – like traveling, having new experiences is an incredible way to enrich your life and grow as a person. When you create special and memorable experiences, like trying a new sport, or going to a new concert you gain fresh air. The food for thought will open your horizons. When you try new things, and have new experiences you might find a new path to go through that can lead you to live a wealthier and happier life.
Learning new skills – everyone in life learns new skills, from the day you are born. Everything we do in life is a skill – cooking, driving, writing, solving problems and so on. Sometime in order to advance in life we learn skills that can help us get a better job, a better parent or a better person in general. Learning a new skill can help you overcome challenges in a new field of interest. It can also help you on the road to mastering a field, or to excel in your career. Learning a new skill can reward you in many ways – socially, mentally, and financially. For example, if you are a web developer, you might learn graphic design to improve your craft. Or if you are starting a new fitness plan to lose weight, it might be worth learning how to cook in a healthy food. Every skill you learn can be a great addition to your skill set. It should also be said that in order to master a skill it takes lots of patience time and dedication. It is wise to pursue skills that are relevant to your life in some way – though if you just want to learn a skill for the sake of it, do it!
Making new connections – there is nothing more valuable in life than having great relationships with amazing people. Each person you meet is a connection to someone, somewhere. Each person you meet has the potential to change your life and improve them in some way. Every one has something to be learned from them, and if you approach new connections in this way you will be amazed at what you will find. You might meet a new friend, that knows someone in a place you dream working at. And he might connect you to that place and help you get that job! Or you might meet someone who is obsessed about the same skills you are pursuing and you can mke progress together.
The best places to meet new people are normally when you are traveling around the world or studying. So it seems all these new experiences have a lot in common together and you can combine them together easily.
Getting healthy – this point seems so obvious sometimes. But a lot of people neglect to take care of themselves in a healthy way. Sometime when we are young we don’t pay attention to our health and we get carried away by things that can harm it. We might drink a lot, smoke, some take drugs. We might not workout , eat unhealthy food and drink too much sugary drinks. When you are young and healthy you don’t pay attention to these things. But as we age, it becomes more and more important to start living in a healthy way ( if you wish to live a long and healthy life). Living healthy is a commitment and it is harder to pursue it in todays world. There are so many temptations and ways for us to destroy our health, but small steps can go a long way. Investing the time to learn about ways to live more healthy is a great investment and worthwhile in the long run.
Why should you invest in yourself?
You might still wonder by now, why should I invest in myself? Its easier to just watch some tv, play video games and let life go on. It might also be cheaper in the short term.
Well, I can definitely understand that. We are not taught about investing in ourselves because it seems pointless to some people. And it’s not easy at times. But I still insist that when you start doing it regularly, you will wonder how you went by without it.
When you invest in yourself you are planting seeds for years to come, and no one can ever take that investment away from you. No matter how hard they try!
So, if you are still not convinced , here’s a short list of reasons to invest in yourself-
1. Bring’s joy to life – doing things that make you happy and help you grow as a person will bring lots of joy to your life. Joy will help fuel you to live a happier and wealthier life. This positive feedback loop is tremendous and will keep you going for more in all aspects.
2. Knowledge is power – the knowledge you gain from pursuing education and new experiences will be of great aid. Knowledge is truly power, when you know something that other people don’t you gain advantage. You can then use your own knowledge to advance to great positions, to start a great business or maybe pass the knowledge on as a mentor and counselor to other people in need of it.
3. Return on investment – when you invest in yourself, you will enrich yourself and make yourself a better position to act from. I believe that in the long term when you take all the time and knowledge that you pursued for your targets – you will be able to translate it to great gains and profits. Look at people who are masters of their field, they can make huge amounts of money because of the time they spent pursuing a subject and getting good at it. they invested years of their life in a specific direction , and got so good at what they do. Eventually investing in yourself always pays out, whether intellectually or monetarily.
4. Following passion leads to wealth- doing things you love, following your own passion, and learning new things are all great ways to use your time. Investing in yourself is basically all of it together. You spend on it time, you learn things you are interested in. You have fun. When you do things that way, out of pure motivation and passion wealth will attract to you. You will have a positive impact on your life. A rather active one, and day by day things get better and you will achieve your goals. It doesn’t matter how long it takes, persistence and enjoyment of the road is what makes investing in yourself a winning recipe.
So what does it really take to invest in yourself?
Well as we said before, investing in yourself demands you to put in energy , in order to achieve your goals.
All it takes will be – time, energy, money, good decision making and persistence. It might also require hard work at times.
Investing in yourself is about becoming the best version of yourself, without giving up or taking shortcuts.
Don’t let it scare you though. When you pursue things that have a purpose for you, you will find a way to do it. you will get up earlier, or watch less tv. You will cut off the negative people from your life. You will start eating healthier and saving more money to go traveling more often. Life is full of abundance and it’s here for grabbing it in two hands.
I encourage you to start investing in yourself – do whatever makes you prouder, stronger and wealthier. It is the surest way to make the best investment with zero risk to it.
To sum it up
I commend you for reading to the end of the article, and hope this is one of those articles that can help you and give you drive to start investing in yourself. I think we all deserve to live life in its fullest, and make out time special and fulfilling. After all, the only thing we truly own is our time and what we do with it. We might as well use it on things we love and making our lives better and happier on every aspect.
I would love to hear from you in the comments section. If you enjoyed the article you are welcome to share it.
Until next time!
I really resonated with this article, especially the part where you said — “To gain something you must let go of something else. This is just a basic law of nature. You cannot gain one thing without losing something else.”
That hit for me, especially with this changing season. I actually made the decision to sell my car, in order to invest in my business. I turn it in tomorrow.
Thank you for writing this, I can’t wait to read your other articles!
Thank you Ashlynd, What a beautiful comment!
I wish you great success in your business and congratulate you for the commitment you made.
I believe that when you pursue something with passion and belief you will succeed.
Happy to have you here, looking forward to hearing from you again on the next articles!