10 Ways To Start Investing In Yourself

Financial market turbulence and lockdowns in cities across the country have investors reevaluating their investment portfolios.

Everyone has advice on whether to put your money in stocks, bonds, crypto, savings, money market accounts, and other financial tools. Wherever you choose to store your money, don’t forget about the best place to invest – yourself.

Investing in yourself involves taking concrete steps to cement your future vision of your best self. This is what people are referring to when they say to “live your best life.”

There’s no better time to do it. The stock market isn’t the only thing experiencing turbulence. During rocky periods morale falls, particularly in a post-coronavirus world when we’re all cooped up at home facing uncertainty in the future. It’s a new world, and it’ll take a new you to traverse. Here’s how.

How to Invest in Yourself

Investing in yourself isn’t a one-and-done thing, and just like financial investments, there are a lot of ways to go about it.

The pursuit of health, wealth, and happiness falls under the umbrella of “The American Dream,” and there are plenty of routes to achieving success.

Some seek academic fulfillment, while others pursue spiritual enlightenment, or even climbing the social and career ladders for esteem or respect.

Chances and opportunities are always surrounding you, and it’s up to you to take those reigns. The hard part is figuring out where to start, and that’s what this guide is meant for – it’s a step-by-step guide to building a better you.

Here are ten steps to figure out what you want out of life and grab it by investing in yourself.

#1 Read Napoleon Hill:
Law of Success

As a journalist, Hill interviewed Andrew Carnegie, then owner of U.S. Steel and the richest man of his day.

He cites it as a turning point in his life, as Carnegie was skilled at generating wealth without working nights or weekends. He also took summers off and believed in clear-cut principles to living a successful life.

In short, your life has three phases. The first phase should be focused on education, the second third on making money, and the third on donating that money to worthwhile causes.

Other wealthy business titans of the day, including Henry Ford and Thomas Edison, disagreed with sharing the secret of wealth, but Carnegie did it anyway.

He hired the journalist Hill, and introduced him to the most successful people in the world to find the common denominator.

After 20 years of being fully immersed in wealth, Hill put together 16 lessons that titans of industry knew and released what became the most controversial book of its time.

Millionaires were angry that anyone could follow in their footsteps and pulled it from shelves.

#2 Identify Your Passion & Skill

Although every successful person has commonalities, they also have differences based on what they’re good at and passionate about. What is it that you truly enjoy doing?

That passion will get you through the hard times. Every career has a hustle and grind that’s necessary.

You’re going to need to spend hours, even days, on mundane work nobody wants to do.

There are countless thankless hours involved in the path to success – not everyone gets that call from Carnegie to be plunged into it.

Start a vision board and discover your personality. Match that with your strengths and skills, and you’ll understand your passion.

Next, you need a purpose.

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#3 Create a Purpose So
You Have a BIG WHY

Purpose-driven organizations are the most sustainable, and your life needs a purpose to drive you through the rough times.

Unfortunately, life doesn’t work like the movies, and there’s nobody handing out life purposes. You need to figure it out for yourself, no matter what it is.

Here’s how:

a.  List What Makes You Happy

Create a list of everything you enjoy, things that put a smile on your face.

If you want a template, fill out any dating profile or sign up for any social network. These are the same questions they ask to help find someone to make you happy.

b.  Determine How You Are Unique

Everyone has their own unique qualities, and by the time you’re out of school, you should have a handle on what you’re good at. Your skills are what you can offer to the world, and monetizing these skills should be a priority.

Once you understand the why, you need to specify short-term and long-term goals. Let’s get started.

#4 Set Specific Goals with Timelines

You need both short-term and long-term goals. Some will have multiple sub-goals, while others will even be recurring.

Accomplishing goals gives you that concrete achievement, like when people set weight goals or step goals for fitness. You understand where you’re making progress and can reinforce positive actions.

Each goal requires a deadline to help you prioritize it. Be realistic about what you can accomplish and how much time you can really dedicate to it.

If you can only put a day a week into a project, don’t expect a lot of quick progress. Of course, goals aren’t real until you start telling people.

#5 Keep Yourself Accountable by Sharing Your Goals

Make your goals public and tell everyone, especially those around you. This creates an accountability network that will hold you responsible for your own success.

While we don’t like to admit it, what others think of us matters. We don’t like to be failures or flakes.

Don’t just share among your social networks – share goals across your apps and devices too.

This syncs your calendars and schedules to streamline notifications and makes it impossible for you to ignore.

Your digital assistants can keep you on track with your goals. Let’s talk more about the goals you set.

#6 Set Goals Personally & Professionally: Prioritize Health

Success in life is about both your financial and personal health. This means you need to set goals for both you and your career.

Make sure you’re realistic about your capabilities as you get older. Otherwise, you may end up overextending yourself and working against yourself.

If you must, create individual lists for both personal and professional development. That doesn’t mean you can’t work on both simultaneously.

In fact, your career should ultimately benefit your personal goals, and all of these should revolve around living a healthy life.

Don’t sweat making mistakes either. Every loss is a lesson.

#7 Win or Learn: Failure Is a Lesson

Everybody fails in life, but only successful people continue pushing through the losses.

There’s a great Michael Jordan Nike commercial from the turn of the century where he describes all his losses.

When you’re so used to seeing others celebrating successes, it can be jarring to experience a loss. These losses are how we learn to become champions though.

In fact, any autobiography of any championship-level professional athlete always mentions the losses and adversity molding them.

Studying these losses, learning what you did wrong, adjusting, and improving turns the failure into another step on the path to success. In fact, let’s dive back into financial investments in you.

#8 Invest in Your Financial Future

While your personal and career development are important, your financial future does control a lot of what you can do. Everything costs money, and you’ll need to keep the bills paid while following your path.

No matter where you’re at in life, you still need to keep investing money into your financial future. There are some great apps these days that make it easy to automatically invest.

Use a robo-advisor like Betterment to store money regularly without disrupting your lifestyle. This algorithmic investment platform leverages advanced investment strategies to help you achieve goals like paying for college, retirement, travel, and more.

A solid investment portfolio secures your financial future, as does knowledge.

#9 Boost Your Wisdom and Knowledge

By the time you’re done reading Laws of Success, you’ll realize learning isn’t something to stop when you’re young.

You’ll want to learn more about how these fundamentals changed over the years. There are plenty of great books to read, from the biographies of Steve Jobs to those of Warren Buffett, Elon Musk, Kevin O’Leary, and more. Every modern billionaire has some sort of “secrets to my success” content you can learn from.

Create a continuous reading schedule to keep learning fresh new lessons from the business leaders of yesterday and today.

No matter where the market is, you can find a financial genius like making billions in profit by betting against the market. Don’t just stick to books either; you can hire a life coach to help.

#10 Hire a Life Coach If You Are Failing to Hit Your Milestones

A life coach is basically a motivational assistant who keeps you motivated. A life coach understands these fundamentals of success, and they hold you accountable for setting and achieving goals. Think of them as therapists who are cheaper and more effective.

Whether it’s daily accountability calls or acting as a sounding board for important decisions, you’ll be glad you invested the time. Even if you’re succeeding, a life coach reminds you, since not every accomplishment comes with a trophy or certificate of achievement.

Success isn’t easy. It’s a life-long grind that takes full commitment to achieve. Of course, everyone can do it, and the success of others doesn’t mean you’re losing. Instead of looking at successful people with envy, follow in their footsteps and create your own success by investing in yourself.