How Does Investing In Yourself Help You Reach Goals?
It is unlikely your last thought before dying will be, “I wish I worked harder.” In fact, excessively hard work can kill you. Ask any coal miner. It is a myth that working hard will help you get ahead. If you want to achieve the American Dream, work smarter rather than harder. This methodology is the secret to building wealth.
An effective strategy of the wealthy is that they make their money work for them, so they leverage their results for greater success. They can make more money, but nobody can make more time.
Use Innovative Financial Tools
Getting a handle on your finances is easier if you use online tools, such as the comprehensive support system found at the Goalry Mall.
Goalry is a system like a virtual mall. The virtual mall has stores for each of the financial tools you may need, which include:
Billry: Manage your bill paying.
Budgetry: Set up your budget.
Cashry: Referrals for emergency cash.
Debtry: Manage existing debts and make debt pay-off goals.
Insurry: Forget the insurance coverage needed to protect your assets.
Loanry: Referrals to online lenders for loan shopping.
Taxry: Get help with tax reporting.
Wealthry: Build wealth for retirement.
Accury: Get real estate appraisals.
Creditry: Manage credit history and credit reports.
The Goalry Mall. Where Goals Happen.
One thing missing from this Goalry system is the vital element you will need to build wealth. Can you guess what it is?
Good luck? Connections? Fame? A rich, generous patron?
Certainly, any of these may help, but they will not be enough without the one thing I am thinking about that you must have.
The Most Valuable Thing You Have Is Yourself
If you fail to invest in yourself, you will lose. You must take care of your health, stay engaged in life, and continue to learn. No matter how well you plan, what financial tools you use, or how much wealth you accumulate, you will not be able to enjoy your success if you get seriously ill or die.
Illness Causes Bankruptcy
Medical issues cause the majority (66.5%) of bankruptcies in the United States.
Some medical problems are unavoidable. However, many illnesses have contributing factors as the underlying causes that a person can change. For example, a person who is overweight has a very strong possibility of getting diabetes. If that person loses weight by making a lifestyle change, the chances of getting diabetes may be reduced.
How To Thrive While Alive
You may have heard the phrase, “Invest in yourself.” But, have you thought about what this means? In general terms, an investment is something you allocate resources to, which you believe has a future pay-off. Many people destroy themselves instead of investing in themselves.
Take a look at the dynamic of smoking cigarettes. If you pay $5 per pack and smoke one pack per day for 20 years, you have invested a huge sum of cash in your cigarette habit, for a total of $36,500 over those 20 years. Because of your investment, you may get lung cancer, emphysema, COIP, chronic bronchitis, loss of the sense of taste/smell, stained teeth, bad breath, and give someone else cancer from secondary smoke. That is a terrible investment. It not only wastes a lot of money; it is likely to make you very sick and possibly die.
If you took that same $5 per day and put it in a jar, after 20 years, you could buy a nice fishing boat for that $36,500 to enjoy during your retirement.
If you took the same $5 per day and invested it in the stock market, earning an average of 10% per year return on your investment, at the end of 20 years, you would have $153,982 to spend on your much happier retirement.
1. Beat Addictions
Here is the mental mind trick you can use to tackle any addiction. Instead of thinking (obsessing about) your addiction as something you have to give up, think of the things you will get instead.
Examples of things you get when you choose not to smoke include:
Being able to breathe more fully and easily.
Freedom from constant coughing.
Regaining your sense of taste and smell.
Nicer breath.
Have the ability to whiten your teeth and have them stay white.
Healthy lungs.
Up to 10 years longer life to enjoy your fishing boat.
2. Changing Bad Habits into Good Patterns
Instead of lighting up a cigarette, go outside to your garden and plant a wonderfully smelling flower. Take a deep inhalation and enjoy the aroma.
Instead of buying some junk food at the grocery store while waiting in the checkout line, check your budget (using the Budgetry tool) to ensure your spending on groceries aligns with your financial plans.
3. Continuing Education
Learn how to learn. Instead of wasting a lot of time on social media, getting outraged by the viral misinformation, watch a “how-to” video on YouTube. Pick any subject you are curious about and search for that word combined with the phrase “how to.”
4. Learn something new
It is fun to continually learn new things. As you get older, you will still have a flexible mind if you make life-long learning a part of your conduct.
Online courses are another terrific way to learn something new. If you want to improve your career advancement chances, take online courses to add skills to your repertoire.
5. Meditation
Learning how to meditate and using the technique each day will give you a great deal of inner strength. Knowing how to do this can be extremely helpful for stress reduction.
Meditation is mind training. The concept is to concentrate on something so strongly that you let go of thoughts and emotions about all other things.
One of the beginning techniques is to sit calmly and concentrate on the breath. Just breathe in and out deeply and calmly. Notice as much as you can about your breathing. If other thoughts come up, notice them briefly, dismiss them, and then re-focus your concentration on the breath.
Once you practice this enough, you will calm the mind and get a break from all the constant chattering in the mind of your inner dialogue with yourself.
6. Stress reduction
Some stress is helpful. For example, the need to complete a project is healthy stress. If you complete a project on time and in a high-quality way, the satisfaction of a job well done is very pleasant. Even if nobody else compliments the project, you will know you did a great job, which improves your self-esteem.
Excessive, unrelenting stress is not healthy. Examples of this type of stress may come from severe relationship problems, injury, or unemployment combined with financial troubles. The challenge is more difficult because there is a tendency to feel helpless instead of solving the problem.
Unhealthy stress may manifest in physical problems that include aches, pains, trouble sleeping, exhaustion, gastrointestinal problems, and many more stress-induced ailments.
There are two approaches to reduce unhealthy stress:
The first approach: is to change anything you can to reduce stress. For example, if you have a toxic relationship, take some time to be away from it. This break will create an opening to re-balance yourself, consider your priorities, and decide if things can work out or if it is time to move on.
The second approach: is useful when there is nothing that you can do to change the situation. With this approach, you focus on changing how you feel about the situation. Start from a place of calm centeredness that you practiced by meditating. Let your inner thoughts about the situation wash over you without judgment. Observe them, but do not let them overwhelm you.
7. Inner Growth
Have you heard the saying, “What shall it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his soul?” The one thing you can be certain of in this life is that you will die. After your death, material possessions will do you no good at all.
Yes, build wealth to enjoy life more. However, be able to let it all go at a moment’s notice upon your death. Invest in yourself by developing your inner growth. What does that mean? Choose positive characteristics and intentionally work to develop them in yourself.
Positive characteristics include:
Kindness
Friendly
Open-Minded
Dependable
Trustworthy
Clean
Loyal
Humility
Compassion
Fairness
Respectfulness
BerkeyWellbeing.com gives 100 positive traits if you need more ideas. When you work on improving your positive characteristics and help others in the process, you will find that you will increase your satisfaction with your life. You will also experience more satisfying relationships with others because more people will appreciate you.
8. Lifestyle Management
Do you realize that you have a choice in the matter? It is your life. Do not let other people ruin it.
When I was a child, my parents fought constantly. There was not a single day that went by without them fighting over something. It was especially bad around the holidays. Maybe you can relate? As an adult, when I visited my parents, it was only a few moments after I entered their home before they would start fighting. I wanted to see them, but I could no longer take the stress of being in that environment.
I went to see a counselor. She told me I had a choice over this. I told her that there was nothing I could do to stop them from fighting. She said, “Then, get up and leave. Please don’t say anything to either of them. If you go to visit them and they start fighting, get up and leave.”
I was amazed at how simple this solution was and that I never thought of trying it. That lovely counselor, bless her heart, gave me such sage advice.
The next time I visited my parents, they immediately started fighting, as usual. I did what the counselor suggested. I got up and left. About a half-hour later, my mother called me and asked me why I had left. I told her that I am an adult now and prefer not to spend my time with people fighting.
It only took three times for them to realize that if they wanted to see me, they would have to do their fighting on their own time. I would visit for about an hour, spend time talking in nice conversation about what was going on in my life, and they would not fight. I assume they started fighting after I left, but I never again had to be with them while they were doing this.
9. Emotional Balance
Going through life without being proactive in maintaining an emotional balance is like driving a regular car without touching the wheel. To make a car drive straight down the road, there are constant micro-adjustments that the driver makes to keep the vehicle on course.
Getting out of emotional balance is like a car, with no one steering it, going over a cliff. One way to invest in yourself is to give yourself space to process intense emotions. Burying them or trying to hide them does not make them go away. Expressing them in negative ways makes the situation worse.
For example, if you are really angry, going home to a private space and punching a pillow may give you a tremendous sense of relief. If you are sad, watching a very sad movie and crying your eyes out may give you a sense of relief. Positively embracing your emotions and letting them flow is a healthy way to dissipate the energy.
Choosing your emotional state is also possible. Music is very good at setting the emotional state.
10. Exercise
I hate going to the gym. I prefer to get my exercise more naturally. I go for long hikes with my dogs. I swim in my pool. I enjoy building construction projects to help poor people. I love planting things and hauling things around by doing gardening and landscaping.
I love being outside because I am at my desk for many hours in front of a computer for my work. My favorite time of day is around 3:30, when I take the dogs for a brisk walk down to the river and back. They love to run around, and I run with them. For me, this is much more enjoyable than jogging on a treadmill in a gym listening to music through headphones.
Suppose you like going to the gym, to each their own choice. The point is that exercise should be a daily part of your life and what you do to get exercise should be something you enjoy doing. I don’t even have to remember when it is time to take the dogs to the river. They know the time of day, and they start getting excited when the time is near.
11. Getting rid of toxins
Toxins come in many forms. There are physical toxins like harmful chemicals in cigarette smoke. There are many unhealthy things in processed foods. There are people with toxic personalities. Our bad habits and stinkin’ thinkin’ are toxic too.
The goal of investing in yourself is first to focus on eliminating as many toxins as possible in your life. Stop ingesting poisons in the form of drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, etc. Eat healthier food. Get away from people with toxic personalities and say bye-bye to their negative influence.
Recognize that your first thought about something may be toxic. Put a pause between that thought and taking action. Contemplate whether the idea is harmful to you or not. After you practice this, you can let a toxic thought come into your mind and not react to it. Choose something else and then immediately do it.
Over 20 years ago, I used this method to quit smoking.
I built myself a swimming pool. Whenever I wanted a smoke, I chose to swim five laps in the pool first. When I first quit smoking, I was in and out of the pool all day because I work from home. It turns out that swimming is a lot more fun for me than smoking. I stayed in the water constantly when the urge to smoke was so strong. I got very physically fit this way, which got me lots of positive reinforcement and attention from others. I had enough willpower to continue long enough until the nicotine addiction could not trick me into making bad choices.
Conclusion
Investing in yourself is the foundation of wealth building. Think of yourself as Me, Inc., and make sure you invest plenty in your own life. Right before you die, satisfaction and contentment are the greatest possible reward for living a full, happy life, which starts by investing in yourself.
Learn about Building Wealth. Visit the Goalry Mall NOW!