To quote the artist Russ from a song called “SKY,” I hope you know that you’re your greatest stock and reinvest.

What does this mean?

Invest in yourself. Over and over again. After you make an investment in yourself, be ready to reinvest and restart the cycle.

Not enough people invest in themselves. When I say invest, I mean make moves that will enhance your quality of life and set you up for success as you navigate your desired path.

Invest in What?

According to a Lifehack article, three simple ways to invest in yourself include developing your skills, exploring your creative side and nurturing your mind and body.

Below are examples of investments in these categories that will result in a better life:

• Maintaining a healthy diet
• Establishing a fitness and exercise routine
• Focusing on getting sufficient sleep each night
• Reading books that expand your knowledge and stimulate your mind
• Listening to motivational podcasts or speeches that spark positivity
• Capturing a second income to ensure financial freedom and happiness
• Emphasizing daily meditation and mindfulness practices
• Incorporating time for therapy if needed to ensure optimal mental health
• Allocating time to yourself to do something that brings you peace and joy
• Sharpening your skill set through classes and workshops
• Adding to your list of hobbies and passions to produce more creativity
• Adopting spiritual practices that bring you closer to your inner self
• Investing in the right friend group and people to be around

These investments may sound familiar if you’re an avid Flourish reader. Many of them have been discussed extensively in their own separate articles.

A few that haven’t been addressed include financial freedom, validating your skills, creating happiness and investing in the right people.

Financial freedom is important, especially as you get older. A good work-life balance is also important, but you must ensure that you grind hard enough to make a good living so you can enjoy life to its fullest.

Sharpening your skill set in various ways will strengthen your brain and make wealth more attainable. It will allow you to produce better work at your job and in your hobbies and passions.

The result between those two investments enables you to do things that bring you joy and relaxation – a return on the investment of financial stability. Taking time for yourself and your interests keeps life fresh and limits the amount of stress that comes your way.

Finally, be sure to invest in the right people. Invest in people who invest in you. Invest in people who will motivate you and make you a better person as opposed to those that tear you down and bring you further away from your goals.

The bullet points above are just some examples. No matter how big or how small, anything that correlates with your own success and happiness can be classified as an investment.

If you invest your time and energy into allowing these things to positively impact your future, the results can be mind-blowing.

Investment Strategy

The first step here is to have a purpose. You have to want to invest prior to doing so. If you don’t, the flame will burn out rather quickly and leave you back where you started.

Once you have a ‘why’ that fuels you, you’re ready to prioritize investing time into yourself and your future.

If you have experience in the stock market, think of this similar to investing in a stock.

When you invest in a stock, which associates with a particular business, you are doing so because you have confidence that the business will be profitable and has room to grow. You are capitalizing on this growth in order to make money and set yourself up financially for the long haul.

When you invest in yourself, you are displaying the same sense of confidence and growth, but it applies directly to your life. Once you make the investment and it begins to take action in your life, your future brightens. When its benefits are revealed, so too is the investment’s worth in the form of success.

The cycle is ongoing. After you make one profitable investment in yourself, you can take that energy and put it into another investment. The bigger and more diverse your portfolio gets, the greater the impact you will see on your life.

As with investing in the stock market, take it slow. Spending all your energy investing a lot of time (money) into multiple areas of growth (businesses) can lead you to becoming overwhelmed. You might also lose more than you gain if you aren’t smart in how you go about the process.

Add to your portfolio incrementally. Master a healthy diet before incorporating in a weekly fitness routine. Read one book before starting another book. Begin meditating once per day before trying other mindfulness practices.

Chances are, seeing one successful investment come to fruition will prompt motivation towards making the next one successful. If you start with three or four at once, you may never get the most out of each one, increasing your chances of losing focus and allowing your investing energy to deteriorate.

This concept will make it easier to prioritize investing when you finally see the effect it has on your life.

For instance, you may start giving up more things that bring you short-term happiness but don’t contribute to your bigger picture. An example of this might be giving up a night of drinking or going out with friends in order to maintain your health regimen, or maybe hone in on a side project you’ve been working on.

Making that decision is challenging in the moment. You’ll deal with peer pressure from friends and temptation within yourself to give in and partake in the activities.

However, you can ask yourself: Will my future self, say five years down the road, be happy with the decision that I made tonight? Did that decision add quality to my life, or did it deter me further away from my ongoing goals? How did it impact my overall vision?

Working on significant, long-term goals trumps short-term satisfaction, especially when that satisfaction doesn’t directly contribute to your goals; or worse, hurts them and lengthens their completion time.

Sacrifices are essential when it comes to investment prioritization. Saying no to things that have limited benefit to your life is how results manifest. It’s fine to let loose occasionally as a release or reward, but keeping it just that and getting right back to business is necessary.

The Wrap Up

Making investments in your wellbeing will collectively lead you to a happy, successful place.

Invest in yourself and give yourself the confidence needed to accomplish anything. This will ready you for the moments in life that only prepared individuals succeed in.

A collection of gradual, effective investments equates to prosperity. Don’t let life pass you by without becoming the best version of yourself in this way.

“Investing in yourself is the best investment you will ever make. It will not only improve your life, it will improve the lives of all those around you.”