When people think about investing, they usually think about it in terms of investing money. While that is important, especially when planning for retirement or saving up for a big ticket purchase like a home or a child's university education. But money isn't everything. If you invest in yourself more the returns will last for the rest of your life.
Investing In Your Mind
It's an old adage; 'a mind is a terrible thing to waste'. Old, but true. But how much do you invest in your mind? Many of us invest a lot in our bodies in general - going to the gym, improving the way we eat, losing weight if we need to, getting those annual health checkups and more. But we forget that our minds need to be exercised too.
You don't need to plan to spend a lot of money to invest more in your mind. Little things can really add up. Get back into the habit of reading more than just your emails or messages on your Facebook feed. Take an online course in a subject that has always interested you, there are lots of free ones out there. Do a daily crossword (yes, there are apps for that) It doesn't really matter what you do, as long as it challenges your mind and does so regularly.
Invest In Your Body
Some of us are in the opposite position to the one described above. We invest in our minds and not our bodies and the fact is that we should be doing both. If you’ve been neglecting your body, there are some small but impactful things you can do to change that and invest in that as well.
This does involve things like making sure you exercise regularly, and improving your diet, what you might say is the 'usual advice'. But you should also invest in other things, like regular check ups with your doctor.
Even if they have not been feeling their best, a lot of people don’t go to the doctor regularly. They suspect there is a problem and Dr Google suspects cancer. It’s probably not cancer, but you can’t be sure until you go to the doctor.
Even if you don’t suspect anything is wrong, you’re no doctor! In the likely event, there is nothing catastrophic wrong with you, a good doctor can help you achieve a much higher degree of feeling well than you may currently have.
Having certain vitamin deficiencies can make you feel low energy, can make it hard to concentrate, and can even make you feel mildly depressed, but most deficiencies are easily and cheaply addressed and can make a big difference to how well you feel.
At this visit your doctor will also be able to give you some real medical advice, something that too many people now rely on the aforementioned Dr Google to do. Ask her to suggest small changes you can make to safeguard your health and what you should focus on to properly invest in your own health. And then listen to what she says!
Learn One Practical Skill
Resolve today to invest in learning one new practical skill It doesn’t have to be something that makes you money, but it can be. It can be something to save you money.
Learn to cook at a higher level than you do now, to save you some money on eating out. Learn some basic car maintenance skills so that you don't have to pay someone to do simple tasks like changing an oil filter or changing a flat tire. Take a DIY class and learn the right way to paint your walls yourself.
These are just a few examples, there are a lot more out there. And even this does not have to cost you lots of money, as there are free courses, books and even YouTube videos these days that can help you learn to do all kinds of things!