Investing in yourself for better future prosperity
Engr Nazmul Alam Chopol
Factory Operations Head I Business Development Expert of Apparel Trims & Accessories? Graduate Engineer (SUST)? MBA (JU)? I Lean Manufacturing Specialist I Corporate Trainer I Professional CV Expert
What It Means To Invest In Yourself
Investing in yourself means you are putting time, money, and other resources into better your current life and also your future. Instead of primarily just focusing on material things, you instead look for opportunities and assets that will raise your knowledge that can make huge impacts for you.
The goal is that you are always improving and building a better life for yourself and your family. By investing in yourself first, you can see an impact on your finances, career, hobbies, and just overall happiness. Valuing your time, investing in knowledge, and improving your physical and emotional well-being are key to a happy life and ensuring a stronger future you.
Reasons to Invest in Your Career
To avoid such unexpected disaster, you need to make a proactive and thoughtful investment in a plan for achieving your career and life goals. If that isn't enough to convince you, here are 8 reasons that investing in your career is a must:
1. It's the Greatest Return on Investment, Anywhere
The return on investing and improving yourself is astronomically higher than any financial investment you could make. From increased lifetime earning power and unimagined opportunities, to protecting yourself from unemployment and the satisfaction that comes from personal growth and success, the returns are enormous.
2. You're the Boss of You
It's your job to nurture growth and prosperity. You do this by planning carefully, performing consistently, operating true to your mission and investing in yourself.
3. You Become More Valuable
Draw up two balance sheets for yourself. On the first, list your financial assets and liabilities. On the second, list your skills, ideas, knowledge, marketability, personal networks, passion and ability to make things happen. Increase your personal net worth by investing in your second list that's how you'll increase the assets on your first list.
4. You Can Become Great
You are capable of greatness. Most of us settle for just getting by, using a fraction of our capabilities. This is tragic. Realize your greatness by identifying your talents and investing in your potential.
5. You Can Achieve Your Goals
Your career and life goals are far too important to be just wishes. A mismanaged career can derail your life goals. Investing in yourself dramatically increases the probability of achieving your goals and is a real demonstration of your commitment to achieving them.
6. You Create Your Own Future
Your career is yours to mold. Investing in yourself gives you the clarity, power and tools to create your own future and take the path less traveled. Sometimes, investing means taking a risk, but that's the price of entry for success and happiness.
7. Because the World Is a Complex Place
You cannot know everything you need to know or do everything you need to do alone. You can't be your best without help. Find and invest in those who can teach you, show you the way and help you achieve your goals.
8. Life Is Too Short for Mediocrity
You don't have the luxury of being mediocre period. Whether you opt for self-improvement or outsourcing your weak areas to someone who can do them better, determine where you are unexceptional and get help.
?Importance of Investment on Your Career Success
Investing in yourself dramatically?increases the probability of achieving your goals?and is a real demonstration of your commitment to achieving them. Your career is yours to mold. Investing in yourself gives you the clarity, power and tools to create your own future.
Investing in skills and training may result in the following:?
???????1. Broaden employment options and career prospects?
???????2. Increase productivity?
???????3. Encourage innovation
???????4. Increase earning potential
???????5. Increase confidence in the workplace?
???????6. Improved job satisfaction
??????7. Build Confidence
??????8. Improve Listening skills
??????9. Empathy towards others
??????10. Being more focused and gaining more clarity?
??????11. Your ability to set and achieve goals
??????12. Being more organized?
??????13. Confronting and overcoming fears
??????14. Your ability to cope with change
Engaging in personal growth may give you the opportunity to improve the following:
Investing in healthy, nutritious food, fitness, and stress reduction are all valuable ways to look after the essential assets that are your body and mind and may assist with the following:?
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What will happen if you don't invest in yourself?
If you don’t invest in yourself then you will miss the benefits of many opportunities. Investing in yourself is more than setting up a retirement account or buying a home. Rather than planning for the future, self-investment is most often directed toward the present.
1.?????Lack Of Confidence
Let's face it, we all have head trash that interferes with our success. You know the things that we tell ourselves to create a barrier between our current state and our future state? For me, it was always resources, money, education and experience. I was always comparing myself to other people and that did not help boost my confidence either. I always saw myself as less than and incapable of achieving what those around me had achieved.
2.?????Poor Influencers
It took me a long time to let go of the notion that being the class clown or the kid who was always in trouble was not how I wanted to be recognized. I did not surround myself with people who would challenge me, encourage me and, quite frankly, who believed in me. Instead, I had people around me who were satisfied with the current me.
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3.?????Resources
If I am honest, I had tons of resources around me — I just was too afraid and too unsure of myself to take advantage of them. As I progressed in my career, I saw others tapping into resources such as mentors, personal development books and leadership conferences. I just sat on the sidelines, quietly hoping that I could learn from something they shared about their experiences.
To help you make the decision, here are three questions you should ask yourself:
1. What will happen if I don't invest in myself?
2. Where will I be in five years if I just wait for growth to happen?
3. How will I get where I want to go if I choose not to invest in myself?
Major areas of investment in yourself
When you are?Investing in yourself, you start to acquire knowledge and other various skills that will greatly impact the ROI on anything you pursue. It’s important because it helps you diversify your knowledge, improves decision making, helps you be more prepared financially, and maximizes your career or business choices, and more.
Learning should never end, especially with personal finance and investing your money.
1.???Invest Your Time
If you want to succeed in finances, money, and investing you first have to understand how to invest your time. Time is limited and what you do with it and you manage it is critical. So many people want to be rich overnight, think having a $1,000,000 (8.5 crores Tk) retirement portfolio is impossible to achieve, or figure that learning about investing is just too hard. Certainly, some people have more free time than others, but you’d be surprised how much time we waste. But you alone control how to spend your time and it can make all the difference in your life and financial future.
2.???Invest in Knowledge
After a long day of work, family, and other adulting things, sometimes the last thing you want to do is study or learn. Netflix, Hulu, video games, and other forms of entertainment can help you unwind. But in order to succeed in a better financial future, you have to dedicate yourself to expanding your knowledge. Why?
·????????Schools are not heavily teaching investing or finances.
·????????The media can give you mixed signals and false information.
Without investing in your knowledge, you are blindly following information and can easily make costly mistakes. Learn to invest in your knowledge, what books or blogs to read, and improve your mind. Even if you become quite the expert in something, still read or listen to others in the field.
Bill Gates:?“Reading is still the main way that I both learn new things and test my understanding.”
3.???Invest in Your Physical Health
If you want to be around to enjoy?financial freedom ?and see the results of your investments come together, your physical health is very important. This means exercise, eat well, have routine doctor visits, and generally pay attention to your body and what it might be telling you. But start investing in your physical health, as this can greatly affect your attitude and choices in financial investing too.
Money is important , but it is not greater than your personal well-being. Investing in physical health allows you to feel better, be motivated in life, and ensure you don’t become a potato on a couch.
4.???Invest in Your Emotional Health
Just as important as physical health, you should first be investing in your emotional health too. While working hard and learning are important for your future, none of it matters if your emotional state is in distress. This means while you want to invest in your time, knowledge, and physical health, you also need to relax, reduce stress, and find some “you” time.
Get the proper sleep, take a step back if you feel overwhelmed, and meditate anything that can help you find a balance. Find a routine that works for you and lets you find inner peace.
Emotions also play a big role in decisions you make financially (especially investing in the stock market) and by not having clarity, it can lead to some pretty rash and poor money decisions. It’s good to have emotion, but know how it can affect your mind and?financial decisions ?in life.
How to Invest In Your Career
Invest in understanding yourself better and developing your goals, plans, professional skills, knowledge, career management skills, networks, and your personal brand and profile. Do it yourself, or pay experts to do it for you.
Try thinking, planning, self-assessment tools, goal development, reading, consulting experts, getting coached, taking courses, upgrading or acquiring skills, and proactively marketing yourself. Recognize that investing in yourself often requires that you don't play it safe.
Consider bellow before your investment:
Five Effective Ways to Invest in Your Career
For those ready to give it serious consideration, here are the five most effective ways to invest in your career:?
1.??????Invest in Your Strengths: Use Them More Frequently
Become increasingly aware of your natural strengths that allow your skill sets and capabilities to thrive and make the commitment to invest in them.?For example, if you are a good negotiator, never assume that your technique doesn’t require fine tuning.??Take a negotiations class, enhance your abilities and then put them to work more frequently.
To get your mindset in the right place, try this:??the next time you are in a meeting, carefully observe your colleagues.???Notice the dynamics in the room – and begin to ask yourself: what are other people doing to invest in the betterment of their careers?
The ultimate prize is to find happiness in your career and in your work by fueling your strengths and passion.
2.??????Invest in Intelligence and Know-How: Apply it More Actively
Never stop learning.??This begins by investing your time to?acquire the right intelligence ?and know-how that will accelerate your career advancement. For example, most people want to build their personal brand – yet don’t invest in the process of developing one and thus miss opportunities along the way.
Never assume that you don’t need to get smarter, wiser and more strategic about how to better manage your career.??Be proactive.?Get to know the goals the industry you are serving desires to achieve and how you can contribute.?Build relationships with key thought leaders.??Identify the best executive search firms that can support the career path you seek – and get to know what your direct competitors are doing to secure the position(s) you may be targeting.
3.??????Invest in the Right Relationships: Give Them Time and Attention
Build a personal advisory board who can properly guide your career goals.??Identify your circle of influence.???Who are they today???Are they guiding you rightly??Are you truly investing in these relationships in ways that are continually helping you move your career in the direction you want it to go?
Invest in how to network the right way. Your networking should be viewed as a professional development boot camp (read about this here ).?????Learn to value your time ?and how to connect with the right people.?Nurture the relationships that matter most.?Give them proper time and attention and keep the most meaningful relationships active at all times.
4.??????Invest in a Career Coach:?Sustain Your Momentum
Staying focused can be difficult with so many different responsibilities to manage.??This is?why most people lose momentum ?when attempting to advance their careers.??Most people start and stop the career management process – finding it difficult to manage their time.
Make career management a new best practice; a process that becomes an embedded part of your daily activities, goals and objectives.?If possible, invest in a career coach to increase your commitment levels and hold yourself accountable.??Today’s competitive landscape requires you to stay on track by investing in someone that can provide you with the tools and perspective to keep you focused.
5.??????Invest in Your Family and Personal Life: Create Balance and Strengthen Your Career
Balance is the key to success – in both business and in life.??Contribute to the success of your career by investing in work/life balance?and?dedicating more time and attention to your personal and family life.
Our family and personal friends are an essential component to my career success.??They help clear my mind and enrich my points of view.??Engaging in activities separate from your career allows you to broaden your observations through a different lens and appreciate new types of ideas and ideals that can help shape your thinking?and contribute to your professional?growth.
Invest the right way and more effectively manage your career.??Think of your investment as a personal enrichment process:?an investment that is always working for you because it focuses on making you a better person both in and outside of the workplace.