Career

8 Amazing ways to invest in yourself

Investing in yourself is probably the most important form of investment that you have often overlooked. To invest in yourself means making an effort to better your own future, and gain personal returns. Instead of tangible money, your returns would be personal well-being and success. Interestingly enough, the money will probably come hand in hand with these anyway.

So how can you take your current life and mold it to the life that you want it to be? Here are some of the ways you can invest in yourself.

1. Learn time management

To follow any kind of pursuit successfully, you will need to be able to manage the one resource that’s available to all, but still very scarce: time. Time management is absolutely essential to a healthy and balanced life. Especially if you work long hours, it can be easy to lose sight of what’s truly important in your life. You need to be able to properly balance your work and personal pursuits.

2. Invest in a new skill

Let me tell you a story about Steve Jobs. During his college years, he decided to take this random class about art and calligraphy. It was completely unrelated to his major but he took it anyway because it seemed interesting to him. Some 5 years later, as he created the first Mac OS, the calligraphy he had learned prompted him to introduce font faces into the Operating System. It was the first time-varying fonts were introduced. So in essence, if he hadn’t taken that random calligraphy class we probably wouldn’t have the visually pleasing font faces we have today.

Human beings thrive on learning new things. You might think that learning a language or picking up an instrument is never going to help you in your 10-5 career, but trust me it will. Maybe not directly, but the skills you learn in one way or another influence your life positively. So get out there and learn something, anything. You might need to spend a little cash, but it will be worth it.

3. Read more

Reading is a vastly underrated habit. It allows you to experience the world through the minds of someone else, think about the power in that. Everything someone has done in their life will be on your grasp, the amount of knowledge you will gain from it is unimaginable. If you want to know more benefits of reading, see our article here.

By reading, in a way, you will gain everything that someone has invested in their entire life during their lifetime in probably just a week. What better way is there to invest in yourself than that! If you don’t have money to spend on books this site is a great resource.

4. Don’t forget to take a break

One of the best ways to invest in yourself is to not invest in yourself. Crazy right? But it’s true. Burning yourself out is a very real thing and can be a serious problem, especially if you are addicted to productivity. That might sound strange but most people overwork themselves to the point where they just break down.

This is one of the tangible ways you can invest in yourself. Go to a spa, maybe watch Netflix for a day, drink with friends, and relax. Not every day has to be a productivity spree, you need time to step back and reflect too. In doing so, you will probably have a much better idea about yourself and what you want out of life too.

5. Invest in your body

To invest in yourself doesn’t mean to just make your mind better. Your mind is only a part of who you are, your body is probably as important too. Working out and exercising will make you feel more productive, ready, and confident. Eating and living a healthy lifestyle will contribute to your entire life because you can’t really be straining your mind if you can’t even get out of bed.

If you think exercising is boring, just start running. If you think running is boring, take up a sport or do yoga. Whatever you do, make sure that your body is being trained as much as your mind is. You will see that the two are much more closely related than you think they are. Apps are a great place to start working out, see our article on workout apps here.

6. Plan ahead

Any kind of investment requires meticulous planning. Investing in yourself is no different. You should start laying out everything that you want to achieve in life and create a plan accordingly. Your plan should reflect what you want to get out of your life and what’s missing. Then you can invest in yourself in a way that your life goals are properly addressed. Making a bullet journal can be a good way to do this. You can write out everything in a small notebook which you can refer to later.

Writing down a personal budget is also a good idea (More on that here). You should have a well-laid strategy for going about your life, which will help you invest in the right things.

7. Put yourself out there

Having a good social life is necessary. You should seek to go out more often and meet more people. Building connections will help you improve yourself plus you never know when and where you might need people. Be more friendly and kind to others and don’t hesitate to approach people. Even if you are an introvert, find ways to interact like maybe a club, social media, and so on. Expanding your network is a way to invest in yourself too, keep that in mind.

8. Satisfy your creative drives

Creativity is one of the most fundamental and defining characteristics of humans. The more you hone your creative outlets, the more you invest in yourself. Seek to work on your creative drives. IF you really wanted to paint as a child, do it now. It is never too late to start being creative. And the more you create, the happier your life will be. We, humans, strive for the ability of our minds. So what better way is there to invest in yourself than to satisfy that creative hunger? Put that to good use and try to become a more creative all-rounded person. You will certainly be rewarded.