The Most Important Investment is to Invest In Yourself
What is the importance of investing in yourself?
Venturing into investments and more means to make money can be so exciting. However, this excitement can sometimes overwhelm us making us be ahead of ourselves and end up making mistakes. This is why it is important to always invest in yourself first before any other type of investment.
What’s that, you’ve already plunged in the world of investment? No worries, though. Whatever predicament you are in, you can always take a step back and take a breather. Today, we will discuss Five Ways to Invest In Your Self.
Investing in Your Self
1. Gain More Knowledge and Experience
We’ve all been there. We’ve jumped into the exciting prospect of investing. No matter what the investment vehicle is, without proper research, we are bound to fail. A lot think that investing is somewhat like gambling because nothing is uncertain. Yes, that may be true. But remember, even in gambling, if you don’t know what you are doing, you are going to lose money.
So how do we gain more knowledge and experience?
Failure
As the saying goes, failure is the best teacher. When you fail, it gives you a moment to reflect on what works and what does not work. The important point of failure, though, is learning. If you don’t learn from your failure, expect more failures.
Read articles, books, or even watch videos
Buy Books or Pay for Classes
A lot of people skip books or classes on investment because of the cost. But they tend to forget that in any form of investment, you have to spend to earn. Books and classes (at least, the good ones) are written by people who have experience in the field. These writers or instructors are giving you direct information which you should take advantage of.
Taking advantage of free resources
In this day and age, almost anything under the sun can be found on the internet. Keep scouring the internet for online articles about the fundamentals and technical aspects of investing. There are also tons of videos on Youtube that cover all sorts of investment topics.
The difference between this and paying for books and classes is the amount of content that writers are willing to share. But hey if you get a good free resource, then go for it! As long as it’s legal of course.
Regardless of what your means are to gain information, just keep doing it. Regardless of where you are in your life, keep learning.
Some books and blog recommendations for investment and personal finance:
2. Be Healthy
Your health is still the most important factor in your investment foundation. Take note that when you invest, you always have a reason for doing so. Whatever the reason is, though, you will not be able to fulfill it as sickness will drain your investments. More importantly, how do you even expect to make investment moves?
Keep yourself healthy! Here are some ways:
- Exercise – Regardless of your health goal, even doing the bare minimum is already a contribution to your over health. The first method of investing in yourself is also applicable here. Research on ways for appropriate exercise that works for you
- Eat Right – Each of our bodies is different. There is no one-size-fits-all diet that works for us. This is where a dietician can help you. Do know that in general, processed foods carry potential health risks for our bodies.
- Get Enough Sleep – The amount of sleep that you get dictates how much energy you’ll have the next day. The lesser sleep you get, the more tired you will feel which can lead to all sorts of negative effects such as overeating and stress.
- Manage Your Stress – Yes but manage your stress in healthy ways. Some people resort to smoking which just contributes to a higher chance of developing cancer
Know any other ways to be healthy? Feel free to leave a comment
3. Invest in Security
Eliminate Your Debt
Whenever people talk about security, people jump right away to insurance. Yes, insurance is a great tool for securing any of our assets. But I want to highlight another important aspect of establishing security: eliminating debt.
But sometimes you need to build debt for capital, right? Sure, if you are an expert at managing your debt to acquire assets, then great! However, the reason I say “eliminate” is because the less that you have debt, the less your headache is! Building assets from pure capital is still more sensible than spending money that you don’t have.
Ensure Your Self
Of course, insurance is still one of the best ways to secure your assets. Some people still get insurance wrong, though. The general concept of insurance is “buy insurance now to cover risks in the future”. However, some people still think that you only buy insurance when something bad has already happened. Be proactive, not reactive!
In terms of life insurance, I will leave it to you if you want to buy term and invest the difference or buy VULs. Pick whatever works for you and your portfolio. We can cover that in a separate article.
4. Grow Your Network
Ever heard someone in movies or tv shows say something like “yeah I have my t-shirt guy”. Or maybe “call my insurance guy”. Robert Kiyosaki, in his book Poor Dad, Rich Dad, has highlighted the importance of paying for services. And who provides those services? People.
That’s right, you need to invest time to also build your network. Just like how you are your most important asset, other people too are to themselves and to others. So go out there and socialize. There are a lot of ways to meet people. These are just some of the most common ones:
- School
- Office Events
- Your local sports teams
- Church
- Social Media
You’ll never know when Joe from high school or even Suzie from your flag football team will be able to help you out. So go ahead and socialize!
5. Find Ways to Boost your Self-Esteem
Last, but not the least, is boosting your self-esteem. There are many ways affecting our self esteem. It can be the mood or the atmosphere, the people surrounding us, and whole lot of other things. These are some ways to help you, though.
- Remember being healthy? If you’re healthy, you will always have sufficient energy to face your day. Moreover, exercising will give you a better posture. A good posture is a starting point in looking confident and confidence is a sure-fire way to boost your self-esteem.
- Power Dressing – This term used to only be about business dressing. But now, it generally means dressing neat but not too flashy. There is a certain air of elegance in simplicity. Start with that and adapt to your needs. On a high level, though, don’t wear something too tight or too loose. Never put too much perfume.
- Find your Motivation – Sometimes we might not be at a point of being healthy or not have the means to power dress. That’s alright because your internal motivation is always stronger than external factors. We all have different ways to motivate ourselves so find out what best works for you!
- Self-reflect – This can be in any form like journaling or meditation. Self-reflecting allows us to look deeper into ourselves and our past. From there we can assess where we are winning in life, where we are failing and we can improve, and where we think there’s an opportunity to grab. In the book, What I Wish I Knew When I Was 20, the author, Tina Seelig, discusses transitions and opportunities she would have missed in these transitions. Although this book focuses on entrepreneurship, it’s a good read for self-reflection.
Conclusion
Remember that before you can jump right into any forms of investment, the most important and first step should be to invest in yourself. Establish your foundation so your future empire does not easily crumble. Do not worry about the costs of investing in your self because in any form of investment, you have to spend to earn. And if you think it is possible to earn without spending, just remember, if it’s too good to be true, then it probably is.
