Have you tried all the goal-setting tips and productivity hacks but nothing seems to stick? There can be so many things standing in your way whilst working towards your goals, more often than not, it is you. Now it is time to start investing in yourself and your goals to make the progress you crave.
What does it mean to Invest in Yourself?
You may be wondering what it really to means to invest yourself and invest in your goals. To invest is defined as:
‘to use, give, or devote (time, talent, etc.), as for a purpose or to achieve something’ (dictionary.com)
Therefore, to invest in yourself is to dedicate yourself, your time, your talents and your everything to yourself. It almost seems strange to say that you are dedicated to yourself but I believe we all should be.
How will we achieve our personal goals and dreams if we do not dedicate everything we have to give to them?
This is why I wanted to suggest this concept: that achieving your goals is not only about tips and productivity hacks, it is about how you choose to devote your time and yourself to them.
Life can be hectic, busy and very distracting which can make it difficult to be focused on your goals. However, if you change your perspective and purposefully invest in yourself and invest everything in your goals, you can change.
Tips to Start Investing in Yourself and Your Goals
These tips are here to help you change your mindset when it comes to working towards your goals and beginning to invest in yourself.
1. It’s Okay to Say No
Often we are unable to say no to other people, always trying to put others first and making them happy by saying yes. This can greatly hold you back because you are not dedicating yourself to you, you are pleasing others and putting your best interests to the side.
Say no to people or events that will take away from you. This can include: moving other commitments that are helpful to you and your goals to make someone else happy or taking on something that will consume a lot of your time or add stress to you.
Say yes to what adds value to you, supports your life and goals and is focusing on your happiness. This can include: spending time with family that make you feel loved and supported to keep making progress towards your goals or a meeting with links that can provide you a new opportunity in work and life.
The choices you make can have a huge impact on how you live your life and how you work towards you goals. Therefore, consider everything you do with you at the forefront of your mind. It is okay to say no because you are dedicating yourself, to your goals and will continually make progress when you are invested in yourself.
2. Planning
Of course, the goal-setting tips do come in handy when it comes to planning. Making a plan is an excellent way to ensure you are investing your time in your goals and your future. Layout and write down these three main areas:
- Your main/ultimate life goal
- Your smaller goals
- How you are going to get there
These three ideas on paper will give you direction and clarity about where you are headed, why you have always wanted it and how you are going to get it. This is more a life plan than anything. With this clarity, you can make informed decisions about what your next steps are and your everyday.
Planning is an excellent helper in saying no as you are aware of what is best for you and can keep a clear focus on your dreams. You will also be more open to opportunity and seek opportunities out. You know the value they can add to your progress and path towards your goals. Therefore, taking time to plan and evaluate life is time invested in yourself and how you are going to achieve those big dreams.
3. Your Environment
Sometimes, we feel stuck. This feeling can be caused by your environment: where you live, your work, your friends, and your family. Environment is everything because it is what we are surrounded by every single day and who/what we chose to be.
Take a work desk for example. When it is messy, it can be very distracting, you can’t find what you need and you become very inefficient. However, once it is cleaned and organized, your mind is refreshed and more focused, you are efficient because you know where everything is, you are focused on your tasks rather than clutter.
This metaphor applies to life too. When it gets messy or heavy or distracted by others, you will be distracted from your life and your goals. Therefore, you need to change your environment to support you and give you clarity.
Invest in yourself by seeking out people and environments that will nurture you and feed into your goals. This can include: seminars, events such as festivals or particular places where you can meet your people. With a more positive environment and positively influential people around you, you will be influenced positively in your mental and emotional states.
Your external environment can also have a negative impact on you and your mindset so change this up too. If you are unhappy at work or at home, it’s time for a change. The plan you made earlier will definitely help and give you direction about what needs to change in your life in order to invest in yourself.
4. Do Not be Afraid to Spend Money on Yourself
This may seem obvious as the first thing to come to mind when you think of investment, is money. So why do we not invest this money into ourselves, our own growth and towards our goals? Money is an excellent tool that is available to us that can make great things happen.
Throw away the fear of seeming selfish, stop thinking about what others think about you and invest in yourself in a financial way. Perhaps you need a business or a life coach to help you towards your goals? Or you have skills you need to learn in order to achieve your dreams? Or you maybe you have to pay out for tools and resources to help you initially?
At the end of the day, an investment is for a larger return. Investing in yourself will propel you towards your goal and that is the biggest return you can get. This is dedication of resource and time that you are entitled to and is not selfish in any way.
5. Positive Mindset
From having a positive money mindset, you need to keep up an overall positive mindset. Many people suffer from a fear of failure, a lack of confidence and low self-esteem which hold you back from achieving your goals. With this negative outlook and opinion of yourself, how can you invest in something you don’t believe in?
Therefore, a positive mindset is more than positive thinking and hoping for the best, it is strength, faith, and love. Consistently building a positive mindset means you can continuously invest in yourself.
Use a gratitude journal or add gratitude into your morning routine to boost your morale and positive outlook online right now, in this moment. You could start meditation and visualizing your future so you are always focused on your goals and the happiness they will bring. Introduce positive affirmations and intention thought so you can change the way you see yourself and recognize how beautiful, special and talented you are.
You can change your whole life with the way you think. Invest time and care into your mindset so that you become the powerful and resilient being you are meant to be.
6. Celebrate
Big and small victories are everything and celebrating them can create a foundation for your progress. When you celebrate your success, you are praising yourself for the work you have put in, you are recognizing the steps you have taken and the progress you have made.
Celebrating reinforces success so that your fear of failure can begin to fade, you boost your confidence in your abilities and you know you are on the right track. This is a sign that you should continue to invest in yourself to reach your goals and succeed and that it is possible.
Invest in Yourself Right Now
You are the only one of you, so why do you not deserve everything that you can give yourself?
It’s time to start putting yourself first, being confident in your decisions and ensuring you are making progress towards your goals. You deserve nothing less. Use these steps to invest in yourself and see the progress you can make when you are dedicated and devoted to your purpose.
What are your next steps?
Author Bio
Brittany is the mind behind and the creator of The Boldly Blog. Her goal is to inspire young women to start their personal development journey for their own self-development and self-discovery. Most importantly, she wants everyone to feel free to invest in themselves and their goals and be their true selves, unapologetically.
Intentionality seems to be a common underlying theme here. What we put time, effort, and resources into is most likely to grow. The reminder of a gratitude journal was helpful as well. It’s amazing the perspective shift that can cause.
These are such important steps to have in a personal development journey! And what I’ve found is that they are on-going. What environment may have been working for our development in one stage may need to change for another. Just as self-care is much more than bubble baths and facials, personal development is much more than reading self-help books. This was a wonderful post!
This is the refreshing post I needed!
I feel like I need to invest more time in all those 6 points you said. It’s hard to find the right balance in your everyday life. But to take a look at yourself, where you are standing right now and what you need can be very helpful.
Thank you for this great motivation post!
Best wishes
Hannah
I love these awesome tips Brittany! Especially that you started with the importance of saying no and setting boundaries. It’s so important that we do that for ourselves. It’s truly an investment in our well-being.
Great read!! I love your site!
I just wrote up an article regarding how important planning is. I love these tips that you give!
I loved this inspirational read, thanks for sharing
I really enjoyed reading your post, so many important points we seem to forget too often..
In today’s fast paced life where technology can easily overtake your personal being, it is so easy to get lost!!
An inspirational post indeed.
I always put off reading for fun, sad as I love it. I always end up doing “work” instead 😖. Maybe I’ll try a new environment and take my book (that’s collecting dust) and go out to a park!
Love all these ideas on investing in yourself! I especially appreciated your reminder to celebrate your victories, even the small ones.
I really enjoyed reading this post, and it reminded me I’m doing the right thing, especially when it comes to investing in my business. Otherwise, I won’t level up, mostly mindset wise. Your blog is beautiful & all the best!
Nnnniiicccceeeeeeeeee!!!! You mentioned “celebrating yourself and your achievement” and I find that super important.
Great tips on investing in yourself! I remember it took my almost a year into my business to learn how to say no. But I’m so glad I did! I am more productive, less stressed, and a better artist for it.
Thank you for all your comments! I’m so glad you found this helpful and it was a great reminder to myself too really invest and commit to my goals and my life. I’m happy I could inspire so many of you