The best investment you can ever make is by investing in yourself. Every successful person prefers to invest in yourself. After having chats with so many mentors, everyone said to find your weakness, invest your time and money to learn how to convert that weakness into strength.
You will start seeing results in no time by investing in yourself. For example, I used to be really lazy means procrastination was my second nature. I googled and learned how not to be a lazy bum. To stay lazy was one of the predicaments in my productivity.
The best investment you can make is an investment in yourself. The more you learn, the more you’ll earn.
— Warren Buffett
I worked with more smart people than me to understand the situation and learn how to overcome laziness to grow in life. Here I am going to share the top 10 activities to start as soon as you can to have a prosperous future.
10- Read books, articles, and blogs
Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.
— Joseph Addison
Reading is one of the best ways to invest in yourself. With the introduction of the Kindle, audiobooks, finding excellent reading material has never been more accessible. It’s also a pretty inexpensive pastime, and it’s often free.
Reading regularly provides several advantages: stimulate creativity, generate more ideas, learn new words, broaden your general knowledge, increase problem-solving skills, and reading also improves sleep time. I could not find a highly successful individual who does not enjoy reading.
9- Never Stop Learning new skills
Learning never exhausts the mind.
— Leonardo Da Vinci
It would be best always to learn something new, whether it’s a new craft or a new approach to an existing problem. That is what highly successful people do all the time. They always keep an eye on improving the process of your current state of mind to solve bigger problems.
If you do not prioritize continuous learning, you will become stagnant and fall behind in an ever-changing environment. You can always go online and find courses based on your interest in this digital world.
Successful people adopted the 5-minute rule
No matter how busy successful people are, they always spend at least an hour a day — or five hours a work week — learning or practicing.
— Michael Simmons
I buy courses on Udemy when they go on sale then learn later; that’s just one tiny habit that adds a lot of value to my continuous learning. The options are limitless.
8- Focus to create multiple income streams
Never depend on single income. Make investment to create a second source.
— Warren Buffett
A 9–5 job will rarely allow you to realize your full earning potential. Why not establish a side business to help you make money as you pursue your passion?
There are endless options to start a side-hustle or a second source of income based on your interest and talent. create your channel, invest, rent out your spare bedroom. You never know when the side hustle took over your daily job. There are millions of ways to learn new skills to focus on your part-time hustle.
Don’t ever rely on one job, business contact, etc, of your main source of income. receive multiple sources of income for success.
— Chris Mentillo
7- Stay active
World Health Organization (WHO) warns about the dangers of an inactive lifestyle on your health in the long run. Movement is paramount to staying healthy both physically and mentally. Physically inactive can increase the risks of obesity, cancer, depression, heart disease, etc.
Exercise is the top investment you can make at an early stage of your life. Try to build a habit of doing exercise regularly. Try to stay active for at least 30 half in 24 hours to pump more blood, or increase your heart rate to increase your alert level.
Do not sit in one place for a long time; even if you are working on a challenging project, always make sure to stand up each hour to stretch your legs. If possible, invest in an electric desk like this one (Amazon affiliate link). Since I bought the electric standup desk, it increased my productivity.
6- Set specific personal and professional goals
If you want to be happy, set a goal that commands your thoughts, liberates your energy, and inspires your hopes.
— Andrew Carnegie
If you don’t have a goal in mind, you won’t know where you’re going or what you’re doing. As a result, finding fulfillment will be more difficult. You are possibly living your life based on someone else’s expectation that the only reason you do not have goals.
Always set goals for yourself to give you direction and help you achieve the most important things. And keep in mind while you’re achieving your goals, the journey is way more important than reaching the goal. If you are not enjoying the journey, it will be almost impossible to achieve the goal.
Tip: Always make your goal as specific as you can. Maybe you can follow the SMART criteria: specific, measurable, assignable, realistic, and time-related.
5- Spend more time in Nature
As human beings, we have an innate need to explore (Nature), to see what’s around the corner.
— Jimmy Chin
Spending time in nature has several benefits; it improves your physical and mental well-being. Natural light has various beneficial impacts, including assisting in maintaining our circadian cycles, enhancing mood, aiding sleep, and providing anti-depressive assistance.
You can spend time in the mountains to boost your mental health. I’m an avid hiker and love to go on long hikes in summer and winter to connect myself to nature.
I developed this habit a decade ago, and this is one of the best investments I made to keep my body, especially my brain, healthy. Here is an excellent article on how hiking changes our brain.
4- Hire an accountability coach
Accountability is the glue that ties commitment to results.
— Bob Proctor
Whether your personal or professional goals or where you are in your life or work, having an accountability coach will change your life, working with a coach can help you thrive in any area, whether you’re a new CEO looking to become a more impactful leader, an athlete looking to increase your resilience, or an entry-level employee looking to map a successful career path.
Top performers are constantly working with coaches who help them stick to the goal. Invest in hiring a coach if you want to see results with a specific deadline.
For example, I hired a fitness coach back in 2016 to hit my goals. I was a regular gym guy, but I could not see any results without his input. I worked with him for 90 days, and the learning I gained in those 90 days will stay with my lifetime. He made me accountable to be more disciplined to achieve my fitness goals.
3- Introspect to know what to improve and improve it
Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.
– Aristotle
Do you know why you got stuck? You are aware of your current situation. You’re aware of where you’re satisfied and where you’re not. That’s where you start to invest in yourself.
It all starts with you. Go for a long walk and do some introspection to find out where life is taking you. Do you need to invest your energy and time in a different direction? Maybe it’s the time to register for an online class to learn, perhaps to reach out to someone you know to help you.
You have to find out the problem to fix it. No one is going to help you until you help yourself. Just be honest, focus on the issue, find the root cause, and improve your skillset to solve that problem.
2- Find a mentor, network with professionals
A mentor is someone who allows you to see the hope inside yourself.
— Oprah Winfrey
Working with a mentor may help you keep motivated and focused on your goals. I am fortunate to have a few mentors to guide me personally and professionally. A great mentor will always add value, and there is a possibility they might change your perspectives.
You can find a mentor in your social circle or reach out to anyone on Linkedin via cold email to state your problem and request a 1–20- minutes call. After the first call, you will create a new connection that will take you to the next level in your career or business with mutual understanding.
1- Declutter your stuff
What I know for sure is that when you declutter — whether it’s your home, your head, or your heart — it is astounding what will flow into that space that will enrich you, your life, and your family.
— Peter Walsh
Here is another quote on how to start decluttering; I am not going to write a lot on this matter as almost everyone has their way to declutter.
Decluttering can be overwhelming, so start with that one small thing. Clean out your junk drawers. It can lead to so many more beautiful things. Start there, and you’ll find yourself cleaning the whole rest of the house.
— Bobby Berk
Bottom line
Investing in yourself is, without a doubt, the most critical first step toward a better future. It simply means you believe you can do more than what you are doing at the moment at your job or in your personal life.
The time and effort you put into being a better person will help you achieve your goals. You never know your side-hustle might help you start your business empire.
Sometimes people are unwilling to invest in themselves, maybe because they cannot see an immediate return, but the ROI is quadruple if they stick to the plan.
It all starts with you!
Thank you for reading, and let me know how you invest in yourself in the comments.
