Empowering yourself and investing your own personal and professional development is surprisingly more difficult than it seems. Most people find it hard to spend time on their own growth and to invest in themselves because of the perception of it being selfish.
However, there are some pretty major outcomes that will arise if you invest in yourself and these could include handling stress better, increased motivation, higher earnings and so much more.
Let’s take a look below at seven great ways to invest in yourself.
Make Learning a Priority
It should be a priority for all of us to make sure we continue learning every single day. If you have some free time or feel like you don’t have a whole lot to do, hop online and learn about a topic or teach yourself the basics of a new skill. It’ll pay off in the long term by providing you some additional strengths that you can use in business or in everyday life.
Learning is especially important if you’re in business. As technologies change and society makes ethical moves it’s important to know how the changes will affect the industry in which you work as well as how to take advantage of these changes.
Invest in Stocks and Savings
From the first day you begin working, you should look to make your income start working for you. Move money into high-interest savings accounts or long-term accounts, invest in stocks and keep a close eye on how fast your savings are growing. Ideally, you should work to grow your savings account by 20 per cent of your income every month whilst also investing in stocks and other businesses.
It would also be a good idea to make use of smartphone applications that invest and save money for you automatically. These will take the hard work out of moving cash around. Look for apps that round up purchases and save the leftovers on their own.
Read Blogs and Watch Videos
One way we should all invest in ourselves is by listening and learning about what others are doing, but not comparing ourselves to them. There are hundreds of millions of people online sharing their opinions, guides and even their daily lives with us and there’s a good chance they have very similar goals and aspirations to you.
Invest some of your time watching business-focused and motivational YouTube videos and read blogs that are directed toward you. You’ll learn from other people’s failures and might even understand a new way of thinking.
You Must Stop Once in a While
The daily grind doesn’t stop, we all can agree with that, but that doesn’t mean you can’t take a break to truly be lazy and do nothing once in a while. It’s really a biological need that we have as humans, and with that said, factor in at least one full day a fortnight where you’re able to be completely lazy.
Take a moment to finalise work projects and just switch off. Make a fort in your living room and watch Netflix inside of it, lie on the floor and scroll through your smartphone for half the day, go on a hike with the family and basically do anything you want. It’s so important to relax and switch off now and then and it helps us to reset.
Take a Hobby and Monetise It
If you’re lucky enough to have a hobby that you love and it revolves around some sort of service or product, then work to monetise it. You’ll be able to make some money on the side whilst also doing something that you love to do. This works wonders if you’re looking for some extra cash on the side but also some downtime too as you’ll be relaxing while you’re working on your hobby but also being paid for it!
Take Total Control of Your Finances
There’s no better way to invest in yourself than striving for complete and utter financial control and freedom. Whether you’re a business owner or not, understanding what you have to spend and what you should save is essential. You want to continue to stay in the green and also be able to do what you want in your daily life and there’s no easier or simpler way to do this than controlling your finances.
Determine your daily expenses and what can be cut back and also consider reworking your spending habits so you can redirect some cash into a savings or holiday account. Whenever you plan on buying a non-essential, use sites like extras.com.au to find a discount wherever you can. Do you really want that daily $6 coffee to cut into a flight to an exotic destination?
Find a Business or Life Coach
If you find that investing in yourself is a little too difficult or if you’re not too sure where to start, then consider seeing a business coach or a life coach. They’re here to help you with just about everything from business to income and general advice to make sure your goals come true.
Don’t be stuck thinking you’re in this all on your own, because you really aren’t. Great things can come from working as a team as you’ll soon see.