12 Ways To Invest In Yourself – Invest In Your Future Self

When people talk about investing, the association with financial markets is almost natural. 

But in reality, investing means more than buying some financial assets and holding them. 

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, the word “Invest” can have many meanings, and they’re not only related to the commitment of money to earn future profits: investing can involve any activity that leads you to have future advantages. 

This means that any time you take care of yourself, of your personal relationships, or you do anything that leads you to gain something in the future, you’re investing. 

One of the best advantages you can get is to improve your life, and this doesn’t only have to do with money. 

That’s why we put together a list of 12 ways to invest in yourself – because, for sure, you are your best investment. 

1. Take care of your mental health

Taking care of your mental health should always be your priority. We can assess this because, if you just stop for a second and think about that, your mind is the starting point. 

An unfavourable condition can lead you to view things negatively, and this affects your life more than you can imagine. 

Too much stress or emotions can drive you to take a dangerous path that can weaken you. But if you take care of your mental health, you can become a more balanced person, you can see things under the right perspective, you can make choices that are not affected by your mood. 

2. Take care of your body

Mens sana in corpore sano, as Latins used to say. That is, a healthy mind stays in a healthy body. 

It’s no secret that taking care of your body helps both your physical and mental health – it’s a matter of chemistry. 

Today, electronic devices, working from home and the effects of the pandemic don’t help us to totally avoid a sedentary life. But a way to invest in ourselves is finding a little time each and every day to exercise. This, along with a healthy diet, can help to deal with negative emotions and stress, to sleep better, to be more productive and avoid health issues.

3. Give yourself a break

One of the best ways you can take care of yourself is investing time in a break when you need it. 

Many people find themselves in situations where they feel they’re just burning out. You don’t need to get to this point, also because it’s really hard to get back to your previous condition. 

Rest when you feel it’s necessary and, if needed, give up on the tasks that are not really useful for your life and goals. 

Sometimes, it is necessary to make tough choices to feel better. 

4. Build a positive mindset

Please, do not confuse a positive mindset with an overoptimistic one – sometimes, things are just as bad as they appear, and it’s healthy to recognize this. 

Having a positive mindset or attitude means that you don’t think that things will go bad all the time. Having a negative mindset has outcomes like depressive feelings and lack of productivity, since it lowers your energy. 

On the contrary, a positive attitude can help you to react to a bad situation. 

Not everyone has a positive mindset, and most of the time it’s something you need to build: also in this case, time is the best thing you can invest, since you need time to individuate what are the things that help you to react, time to individuate your priorities, and time to analyse yourself. 

5. Invest in your education

Education is one of the top investments when it comes to investing in yourself. 

Education doesn’t necessarily have to do with spending thousands of pounds to get a degree, but it has to do with the willingness to constantly improve yourself. 

Read, find a mentor, take classes: we are lucky enough to live in times that allow us to get a lot of valuable education for free, and we should take advantage of this. 

6. Connect with people 

Connecting with people is another useful investment. Surrounding yourself with the right people can dramatically improve the quality of your life. This can be the first step to find new opportunities, also under a professional perspective, and it’s above all a way to know different opinions and to be more open minded. 

Connecting with people who share your same interests can help you to have a deeper knowledge of a certain topic, as well as it helps you to get advice when you need it. 

7. Create a savings account

Creating a savings account is the right path to reach financial freedom. It always happens to have unexpected expenses, and if you don’t have the money to cover them, you can feel overwhelmed and it can be really hard to find a solution. 

A good way to start saving is creating a plan, and putting aside a certain amount of money regularly. You are the only one who knows how much you can save, according to your income, but experts advising saving around 20% from each paycheck as a general rule of thumb. 

8. Be grateful

Gratefulness is an art not everyone masters. When we say that being grateful is one of the ways to invest in yourself, we’re not just talking about being grateful to people who help or love you, but most importantly be grateful to yourself. Recognize what you did and what you’ve reached in your life, and there will be two possible outcomes: you’re proud of yourself and you want to do better; you’re not satisfied with what you’ve done so far, and you can start working on your achievements as soon as you realise that. 

9. Write

Maybe you already know that writing has a lot of positive effects on your health and life. 

According to the URMC, keeping a journal is a good habit for many reasons – to mention a few: 

• It helps you to cope with stress and anxiety, 
• It helps you to prioritise things, 
• It has a relaxing effect, 
• It forces you to take a break to meditate every single day. 

Writing down all your emotions, thoughts and ideas is like asking your best friend for advice – since it’s like watching yourself from the outside and having a more objective perspective on your life. 

You won’t need to spend hours writing, just a few minutes each day are enough. 

10. Be more organised

Similarly to keeping a journal, trying to better organise your daily life has a beneficial effect on your mind and body. 

It helps you to tidy your mind – and, consequently, your whole life – and the consequence is that you will avoid feeling lost in particularly stressful moments of your life, you will reduce stress and, at the same time, enhance productivity. 

This is also extremely useful to avoid anxiety: it’s true that life requires some kind of flexibility, but being organised is a way to know in advance what to do, and this can give you a sense of safety, especially during tough times. 

11. Go beyond your limits

We’re not suggesting you to do something extreme, but doing something that scares you every now and then is a good habit. 

This doesn’t only help you to cope with your fears, but also allows you to discover your strengths. 

People can be scared of public speaking, or interviews, or maybe they feel uncomfortable when it’s time to socialise and connect with new people – no matter what your fear is, force yourself to do something that scares you until you succeed and eliminate that fear. 

12. Improve your financial education

Last but not least, improve your financial education. We’ve already talked about education in this article, but this particular way to invest in yourself deserves a dedicated spot in our list. 

There is a really good quote from Edmund Burke that goes “If we command our wealth, we shall be rich and free. If our wealth commands us, we are poor indeed.”

Stop for a minute – maybe more time is needed – and think about all the times your finances affected your life. 

It happens with both small and big events and decisions, and this totally takes away your control over your actions. This is, for sure, extremely frustrating. 

But, guess what? Financial education can help to prepare you for the journey ahead, both in your personal finances and the broader economy – and is definitely one of the best ways to invest in yourself. 

When it comes to financial literacy we’re not only talking about something that helps you with your investments and savings, but also about something that helps you understand macro events. Moreover, financial literacy is the solution if you experience some financial troubles in your life. 

Financial literacy is what allows you to better allocate your income, to understand what your priorities are, how to spend and manage your money. But it’s also something that helps you understand the society around you – the world around you, and, at the same time, it can help you to identify scams, to understand how to deal with your bank, and helps also those who don’t have large resources to avoid the oppressive effects of financial issues. 

Financial education is, ultimately, the road to freedom. 

That’s why we wanted to give this point enough space in our list of the best ways to invest in yourself: financial education has a positive effect on your whole life, and this enhances also the other types of investments we’ve been talking about so far. 

Finance, as money, can’t buy happiness, but it’s also true that a good knowledge of finance – as well as a good amount of money – can solve most of your problems. 

Here at stockhax, we’re committed to giving you reliable and in-depth financial knowledge for free (yes, we’re a part of the modern world we talked about earlier, the world where you don’t need large resources to educate and improve yourself!). 

Conclusion 

There are countless ways to invest in yourself, and all of them will lead to a better life and an improved mindset. 

In this article, we wanted to give you a list of 12 ways to invest in yourself so you can decide what works best for you: all our tips are actionable, they’re related to things you can start doing right away. We deserved a dedicated spot to financial education: it might seem the most overwhelming point in our list, but in reality, it is one of the ways to help you understand how the financial markets work.