SEPTEMBER 17, 2021
What comes to your mind when you hear the word “investment”?
Is it the stock market, cryptocurrency, real estate, mutual funds, or bank deposits?
We only relate “investment” to money or financial gains, but that’s a very limited mindset.
Investments aren’t always based on money. In fact, financial investments aren’t even the biggest investments we make in our lives, but we prioritize them the most and think they are the only investment we’ll ever make.
This mindset will keep you average.
To become extraordinary in all fields of your life, including money and wealth, you need to make a much more significant investment that isn’t in a financial asset.
What is this investment? Is it something huge, complex, or time-consuming?
This investment is made up of small, simple, and easy actions, but it is a lifelong process you’ll enjoy.
You have to invest in your self-development before investing in anything else.
What is self-development?
When you invest in the stock market, your main aim is to make a profit. You want the stock you’ve invested in to grow and appreciate in value.
In the same way, self-development is the appreciation and growth in your value as a person. You can call it self-growth and personal development as well.
As a business owner, self-development can be attending a workshop to become more efficient and productive and create a work-life balance.
As an employee, self-development can be learning new skills that make you capable of doing better.
As a student, self-development can be increasing your concentration through meditation and focus exercises to get good marks in your tests.
By investing in self-development, you increase your value as a person, which includes all facets of your life—career, family, personal relationships, and your happiness and well-being.
Why is investing in self-development important?
There are four pillars that your life stands on:
- Self
- Family
- Society
- Career
All four of these are essential, but we give the most importance to the fourth one—career.
Our career gives us the money and financial success to support the three other pillars, but we often ignore them.
However, that’s not how we should prioritize.
Self is the first pillar of your life for a particular reason.
Your family, society, and career are the pillars that surround you, but your SELF is the central pillar that affects and decides what happens with all others.
Therefore, by not investing in self-development, you are depriving the roots of your life of the water they need to grow. No matter how much you water the fruits and leaves, the tree will wither away. Even if you invest a lot in other areas of your life, like your career, you’ll still face many problems and won’t be a happy and flourishing person.
Investing in self-development and growth is the first step towards growing in other areas of your life.
How do I invest in self-development?
You can do many things to invest in self-development. But first, you need to find out which area of your personal or professional life you want to improve, and then use these tips accordingly.
Also, you need to understand that self-development isn’t something that happens in an instant. Just like an investment in the stock market is long-term and takes years to reap the best results, investing in self-development is the same.
You cannot expect instant changes in your life. You need to spend time learning from all the resources mentioned below and gradually, you’ll start seeing results that amaze you.
Now, let’s dive into how we can invest in self-development:-
- Reading books.
When you go out for dinner, you may spend 2000 or 3000 rupees on average. But if you go to a book store and buy two books, it will cost you less than 1000 rupees, but it can change your life.
We are often hesitant to buy books that can create massive change, but we happily spend much more than that on a dinner that will be there in our life for just a few hours.
We must change our mindset towards books and consider each one an investment instead of an additional expense.
Why are books so important and life-changing, though?
Whatever field you work in and whatever problem you may be facing, there will be a book on that.
Find that book, read it and implement what you learn from it. You solve the problem and grow, which leads to self-development.
Also, building a reading habit will always keep your mind open to new ideas, concepts, and stories that may help you in different situations. Reading books regularly will change your mindset about your family, yourself, career, and other things in life and help you develop a positive one.
Dr. Wayne Dyer said, “When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.”
Reading helps you develop a new mindset and perspective, which changes how you look at things, ultimately changing your life.
Reading has played a crucial role in my life, so much so that it inspired me to write my book, Explore the New You, as well.
Books changed my life, and they can change yours too.
- Online Courses.
All of us need mentors in life. By having people around us who give us proper guidance, help us gain clarity, and share strategies we can use to grow, we’ll be able to skyrocket our growth, value, and success.
You are no longer limited to the people in your city or state because you can now connect with the best mentors from around the world through their online courses.
If you want to learn a skill, go to different learning platforms like Skillshare, Udemy, and Coursera to find suitable courses.
You can also find out about people who offer their courses independently and connect with them.
Another benefit from online courses and workshops is that you get access to a supportive community of people aiming towards the same goal as yours. This way, you get more accountability as well, and you fast-track your self-development journey.
- Watch videos on YouTube.
Don’t just use YouTube for entertainment. Use it for learning. Many people are putting out highly actionable content to solve your problems, improve your skills, and help you grow as a person. Go to YouTube, search for what you want, and you’ll see so many people who have created content that you need for self-development.
Make the best use of the internet and YouTube to learn as much as possible and then implement it.
Even some of the world’s top universities have free lectures on various topics on YouTube.
When you discover the learning side of YouTube and the internet in general, you’ll unlock a literal superpower and grow exponentially.
- Listen to podcasts.
The best way to learn from the most remarkable people in the world is to listen to the podcasts they have been featured in.
Podcasts aren’t just typical interviews. They are long conversations that give you deep insights into many important things. Podcasts don’t just show you what someone has achieved but how that person developed the mindset and systems required to achieve success.
When driving to work or going on a walk, start listening to podcasts instead of songs. You’ll decode how the top people in your field think and then replicate that for your future success.
- Reflect and learn from yourself.
While learning from other people and mentors is important, you must learn from yourself too.
Whenever you achieve something, reflect on what you did, how you did it, and what you can replicate from your experience.
Do the same thing when you fail: reflect, understand, and find out how you can improve in the future.
We never place much importance on learning from ourselves, but doing it is crucial for success and self-development.
No one else knows you better than yourself. That’s why when you are fully honest with yourself and think about how you can improve; you’ll come up with powerful answers.
With constant reflection and introspection, you’ll be able to connect dots and find out new paths for yourself.
The key is to keep learning from yourself and others.
Conclusion
All of us should make investments, with the biggest one being on self-development.
Self-development makes your life a flourishing, happy, successful, and balanced one.
By investing both your time and money in self-development, you’ll grow in your career, build better relationships with others, and be a happy person.
Are you ready to make the biggest investment of your life and grow?
Partnering in your success, happiness, and growth,
Prabhsimrat