Are you looking to invest in something valuable? I'll give you three guesses what that most valuable thing is- no, I'll just tell you what it is.
It's YOU.
You read that right. An investment in yourself pays far more dividends than anything else you can invest in, ever. Let me offer you some reasons why.
Investing in yourself benefits everyone around you. It benefits your family. It benefits your coworkers. It benefits your community. It benefits the world. Investing in yourself creates returns that ripple through everything you do
Investing in yourself benefits you. That may be even more important than it benefiting everyone around you.
Let me explain.
Let's say that you are an empty nester. You have invested time, money, and energy along with emotional capital raising the next generation of adults. That's been a huge investment. Kudos to you for creating these humans and raising them! It doesn't matter what they are doing right now, that's about them, not you, but we're not going in to the guilt that comes with being a parent. It's not useful and it won't get us anywhere.
Today we're talking about YOU. We're talking about all the time, money, energy, and emotional capital that you now have available to invest in you. Think about the possibilities! There are too many to count. You have complete freedom with how you will choose to invest in yourself. If that's impossible to believe, then think about one thing you could do to invest in yourself. You have time, money, and energy to invest in yourself. What small thing can you do to give back to the person who has invested so much in others that you m
ay have lost yourself along the way?
A personal story comes to mind. For as long as I can remember, I wanted a horse. I just knew that a horse would fit in our suburban yard. I also knew that I could ask my parents for a horse. Not surprisingly, they said no. With 5 children 7 and under, can you blame them? We had various dogs and cats at different times, and that was enough for my parents. They told me that our backyard wasn't big enough for a horse.
Well, if my parents were going to be unreasonable, my 6-year-old mind reasoned, I would ask God for a horse. So I did. And guess what? Our neighbors had 2 horses that needed to stay somewhere for a few days until a space opened up at a barn where they could go for boarding. I got my horse in my backyard. To a 6-year-old, it seemed like a miracle.
I learned 2 things: God answers prayers, and my parents were right, our backyard wasn't big enough for a horse. Fast-forward 41 years. My prayer was answered again. I was offered the opportunity to buy a horse and I jumped at the chance. It was not a cheap hobby. In fact, it was very expensive, all things considered. The purchase price was just the tip of the iceberg.
Horse: $6,000
Tack: $700-$1000
Boarding and lessons: $500 a month
Vet and Farrier: somewhere in the neighborhood of $ 75 a month
Horse shows: About $500 each
Investing in my dream: Priceless.
Would I do it again? Not if I thought about how much it was going to be and measured that against what else I could spend the money on. Surely I should give that money to someone who needed it. It was selfish to invest the time and money in a frivolous, privileged hobby, wasn't it?
Or was it?
I learned more about myself through taking lessons, caring for another creature, learning new skills, meeting amazing horse people, and remembering something hidden about myself. Besides, I learned that I am worth investing in.
So are you. You have deep desires just as I did. What are they? Can you let them out to play? Can you consider investing your time, energy, money, and emotional capital in your desires?
Let's talk and find out. You're worth the investment.
