Invest in Yourself ~
Financial advisors suggest that you pay yourself first. Meaning, put money into your retirement first. This is great advice, it makes complete sense to do this.
That same great advice applies to all areas your life.
You need to invest in yourself first. Always and in all ways.
If you have a challenging time investing in yourself, I want you to know that you’re not alone. Most people struggle with making investments in themselves. Most often people will readily invest in things outside of themselves yet struggle to invest in themselves.
Think about it, we make huge purchases in life; college education, a home, a vehicle. We’ll invest thousands of dollars in an education so that we can have a job where we earn enough money for the bank to loan us the hundreds of thousands of dollars we need to get the nice big home that we want and the fancy vehicle to drive. Then we have to fill the home with nice stuff, so we’ll invest in furniture, TV's in three different rooms, nice appliances, and everything else that is needed to fill our new home.
I promise you, investing in yourself is way more important and has a much bigger payoff than investing in the outside things. Keep in mind, I’m not talking about buying an extravagant thing and saying, “I deserve it, I’m investing in myself.”
I’m not talking about this in a flippant way. I’m talking about making positive choices in your life every single day and being willing to invest your time and money into you. Which means investing in your health and well-being.
Optimal health and well-being isn’t promised, but all too often we live it is.
We easily take our health for granted. All too often we wait until something happens to us to take our health seriously. I see this all the time in the women I work with in my Coaching Program (click here for more information). When a woman comes to work with me it’s (almost) always because something has happened to threaten her health. This threat to her health is the reason she now wants to learn how to prioritize caring for herself.
You are an investment. Don’t wait until something happens to prioritize caring for you. Learn how to do it today. The more you do for yourself today, the healthier you are. Remember, when I talk about health, I’m talking about health in all area of your life – physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual. All these areas need to be filled up. They all work with each other. They all support each other. If even one area is low and not being cared for, it will deplete the other areas.
For more on ways to improve physical health --> Move Your Body ~ Here's Why, What You Eat Matters
Ways to improve mental health --> Declutter Your Mind, Mindset Matters
For more on ways to improve emotional health --> Detox Your Life, Loving Yourself
Ways to improve spiritual health --> Start Your Day In A Positive Way, Meditation ~ Tips & Benefits
Most people feel unworthy of investing in themselves. They'll tell themselves that it's too expensive. That they don't have that kind of money. They can't afford it. Most people will also say that they don’t have the time. That they're too busy. These are all excuses! The truth is you can afford whatever is a priority to you. When you deem something as important, valuable, and necessary, you'll find a way to pay for it. Click here for more on this topic.
Think of it this way, did you have the $700,000 or more that you needed to buy the house of your dreams? Most likely not. But you found a way to secure the money so that you could have the house that you wanted so badly. You probably always have time for meetings and deadlines at work, yet you’ll tell yourself you don't have time to cook a heathy meal or commit to meditating every day. Click here for quick and easy healthy recipes.
When you really want something, you’ll find a way to pay for it and you’ll find the time in your schedule. Most often people want optimal health and well-being, but they aren’t willing to invest their time and money for all that they need to have it.
Everything you attain physically and have on the outside of your life means nothing if you aren't healthy. It means nothing if you aren’t happy. It means nothing if you aren't enjoying the life that you're living.
When you look after yourself first and invest in yourself first, all the stuff that you desire on the outside naturally begins to manifest. Let me share an example of this from my own life….I met my now husband when I was in my late 20’s. It was a couple of years after I’d started doing work on myself. I’d been focusing on practicing gratitude every day, I was clear about what I really wanted out of life, and I’d started a regular journal practice.
Over the couple of years before meeting him, I'd learned how to really show up for myself. For the first time in my life I was learning how to listen to the needs of my body. I began setting boundaries and saying no to the things that I didn’t want to do or that wouldn’t serve me. First I'd learned how to like myself and then I began learning how to love myself.
It was a couple of years into this that I met my now husband and I know for sure that I had not been in the place where I was with myself, had I not been doing all that work on myself, I would have never been able to attract him (or anybody like him) in my life. The way in which I was living before didn't attract that kind of quality of person.
Who you are on the inside is the energy that gets put out into the world. The energy that comes from you, attracts what you have in your life.
We always get it backwards. We always think that we need the outside things in order to make us feel really good on the inside. Actually, it’s when you start feeling really good on the inside that you get the really good things on the outside.
You want to be investing your time and your money into you first. When you do, it shifts who you are. You literally change the vibration that you put out into the world. It changes what you attract into your life. It changes how everything looks on the outside of your life because it changes who you are on the inside.
If you don’t feel worthy of investing in yourself and this is an area that you struggle with, know you're not alone. Before you can start easily investing in yourself, you need to feel worthy. One way to begin feeling worthy is through a regular gratitude practice. For more on gratitude, click here.
I also highly recommend that you begin working with a coach or therapist that can help you set attainable goals and reach them. One of the greatest things I’ve ever invested in is coaches. Somebody there working alongside me, keeping me focused, calling out my excuses, and cheering me on. We know that when we’re supported, we’re more successful. If you want to get really good at caring for yourself, set yourself up for success by working with professionals who can help you. Click here to learn more on my mentoring program.
Investing VS Spending ~
Remember, you’re investing your time and money, not spending it.
The words we use are important and they have power.
To spend means to use up or pay out: expend. To exhaust, wear out, consume wastefully: squander
To invest means to make use of for future benefits or advantages
How Can You Invest in Yourself?
There are so many way! Here's a few to get you started:
- Make sure you give time to yourself every day. Time to be still and get away from all the distractions of life.
- Consider investing in natural products. For more on why this is so important to your own health (and the health of the planet), give a listen to the podcast episode I did with Emma Rohmman. Emma is an Environmental Engineer and founder of Green at Home. With over a decade of experience as an accredited green building consultant and project manager, she now helps moms and moms-to-be reduce toxins at home without overwhelm, a lifestyle overhaul, or spending time and money on stuff that doesn't work. Emma is trained as a David Suzuki Foundation Queen of Green Coach and holds a certificate in Environmental Health from the University of Arizona. Click here to give the episode a listen.
- Be willing to invest in therapies regularly that help your body function at its best. For example, massage; chiropractic; or acupuncture sessions.
- Keep your body physically fit by paying for online classes or a gym membership. Make sure to move your body every single day.
- Investing in yourself also means paying for and giving time to therapy sessions that will help you to heal your past so that you don’t repeat unhealthy patterns.
There are so many ways you can be investing in yourself. These are only a few ideas to get you thinking about it. Remember when you invest in yourself, you’re investing in your health and well-being.
You are the most important thing in your life to invest in.
How do you invest in your life? Let me know in the comments.
Looking for more tips to help you live well? Check out Your Live Well Journey - The Podcast, every episode offers ways to help you improve your self-care.
Ready to invest in yourself to improve your health and well-being? Click here to learn more about my Coaching Program and book your FREE consultation today!
