Why Investing in Yourself Is The Fastest Way Of Growing Wealth

Everywhere I look, articles or videos talk about the next best investment you can make. They speak about their return on investment and what yields they got from their dividend portfolios. They have one thing in common seeking the quickest way to reach financial freedom.

That's the end goal, of course. I'm sure you've also heard about the FIRE ("Financial Independence, Retire Early") movement that encourages you to live frugally and make extreme savings. I've seen a lot of people making videos on Youtube talking about this. The truth is they are so obsessed with cutting costs that they completely forget about the other part of the equation... increasing their income.

Increasing your income and having more money to invest now is by far more efficient than shaving a few dollars off your daily meal.

Yes, I know, it's way easier to live frugally than putting effort into building multiple income streams, learning a new skill, or getting a better job. We tend to seek the easier paths in life. Sure, choosing this path could lead to financial freedom at some point, but think how much time you also lost in the process by not doing what you love.

Never forget the most important asset we have... ourselves.

"The best investment you can make is an investment in yourself. The more you learn, the more you'll earn." - Warren Buffet.

How to invest in yourself

There are a few ways you can invest in yourself, and the primary areas to focus on are your health, time, knowledge, and career.

Invest in your health

Health is the most crucial aspect of our lives. If we are not healthy, nothing else really matters.

I must admit, it's very easy to ignore it. It's one of those things that don't matter in the short term, but it comes back to bite you in the long run if you keep ignoring it.

Take good care of yourself, both physically and mentally. Do regular exercises, eat healthily. You'll feel more energetic, and you'll be more productive.

After all the hard work, don't forget to relax. Reducing the stress in your life is as important as keeping in shape. Get good sleep, take regular breaks if you are overwhelmed, meditate, anything that can help you find peace. Don't forget to have some time for yourself!

Invest your time

Time is our most important currency. We only have a limited amount, and we should treasure it more than we treasure wealth.

Treat your time as you would treat your savings. Buy some time for yourself every day to do what you enjoy. Spend more time with your family, travel more, have a hobby, and you'll soon see a very positive impact on your overall happiness. When you have too much work, it's easy to forget about yourself. More often than not, this is the side where I frequently find myself to be, but it wasn't always like this.

On the other side of the coin, people often tend to take too much free time, and this time would most likely go to waste either by watching too many random Youtube videos or by scrolling the news feeds on social media for hours. Avoid those bad habits as much as you can and try finding the right balance.

I know we can't always do the most productive things, and we don't always want to work on the most important tasks. One secret I've found that works amazingly well for me is structured procrastination.

" Structured procrastination is the idea that you shift around your to-do list to tackle easier projects instead of the one important one.

The basic idea is that instead of turning to time-wasting activities online when you don't want to work on your number one priority, you reorganize your list to tackle a smaller task on your to-do list. You're embracing your love of procrastination, but remaining somewhat productive." - Lifehacker

There are countless ways to learn how to use your time more effectively. Find one that resonates with your lifestyle. After all, time management is a skill you can learn like any other. Knowledge is out there within everyone's reach.

Gather more knowledge

Knowledge is everywhere and more accessible than it ever was. As technology advances, the total amount of information expands with it at an exponential scale. You can find everything you can potentially imagine. "Just Google it...". It's that simple, yet, so hard not to get lost in the vast amounts of useless things that capture your attention.

The big companies know this, and they invest enormous amounts of money in exploiting our attention as much as they can. They build AI models that can predict what's the next "funny video" you'd want to watch or the next news article to read, keeping you scrolling on their platform for hours. There's also a documentary about this if you want to dive deeper into the subject, "The Social Dilemma".

By knowing this, we can escape from this hook they've set and use their tools to our advantage. Instead of clicking on the next "funny video" the algorithm wants you to see, search and watch videos that teach you new skills instead. Doing this trick, I've found that I managed to train the algorithm to only show me videos that improve my software development skills or teach me about finance. Don't get me wrong, it still tries to give me random videos I don't care about, but you'll learn to ignore them.

I can't stress enough how important it is to keep learning and improve your existing skills or learn new ones. Get higher education, buy a course, watch tutorials, read books. Not only they will help you build new income streams, but they will also vastly increase your value on the market and your likelihood of getting a better-paying job.

Elon Musk (when asked how he learned to build rockets): "I read books."

Aim to get a better job

Getting a better job has the fastest return of investment than any investment out there. You can't beat it. It requires a high level of effort, and you sometimes need to get out of your comfort zone to achieve this. That's the main reason why people tend to avoid it. However, changing your job not only gets you a higher paycheck but also allows you to learn skills you wouldn't have been able to before.  

Every time I think about this, I remember an episode from one of my favorite childhood animated tv-series "Life with Louie - Caddy on a Hot Tin Roof". In that episode, Louie Anderson gets a new job at the golf club during the summer school break and manages to earn a lot of money. As days go by, he gets more and more overzealous.

One morning his mother reminds him that his brother Tommy's birthday starts at noon. Louie tells her he can't be there as he needs to be at work on the golf course. Tommy hears him and asks Louie if he forgot about his birthday. Confident, Louie tells Tommy that he absolutely didn't forget about his birthday, and as a matter of fact, the gift he ordered for him just arrived. Louie even points out the price tag was left attached to the present on purpose, for Tommy to see how much he loves him.

As he leaves the room, Louie reminds Tommy he won't be able to come to the party and that they won't need to save them some cake either as he will eat chocolate mouse at the club's restaurant instead. Tommy gets angry and yells that he didn't even want him to come anyway. As Louie jumps on his bike, his mother comes outside to warn him that "someday he's going to learn there are some things in life that are more important than money". Completely unmoved, Louie tells her that he knows all this already, "but it's just that it takes a lot of money to buy all those things"... then leaves for work.

Don't be like Louie, don't chase the money and forget about everyone else around you. Money doesn't buy happiness. Instead, they do open up more opportunities in your life. Use them to build a better, easier life for your family and yourself.