“Investing in yourself is the best thing you can do. Anything that improves your own talents; nobody can tax it or take it away from you.” — Warren Buffett
When you’re in your 20s, you probably have wild dreams for your future.
Maybe you want to have a career that you’re passionate about.
You might also want to build a business that greatly helps the people you want to serve.
Maybe you also want to be financially independent at a certain age.
Whatever it is, I know it’s possible.
Yes, it’s possible but it doesn’t mean it would be easy.
Now I don’t mean to discourage you.
What I want to communicate is that it would take you a lot of learning, hard work, patience, sacrifice, failure, not giving up, and self-investments.
In this blog, we will talk about 8 of the best self-investments you can make as a millennial to help you achieve your goals, live the life that you want, and become a better version of yourself.
Let’s go!
1. Invest in Self-awareness
If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you know that I always love to talk about self-awareness and how important it is.
Self-awareness helps you create better decisions in life that are truly aligned with who you are as a person.
Invest your time, money, and energy in discovering your values, your strengths, your weaknesses, your natural tendencies, the ins and outs of your personality type.
I can guarantee you that it would be worth your time.
A lot of millennials end up in jobs they hate, relationships that are toxic, or businesses that they don’t enjoy.
And one of the reasons for that is they haven’t taken the time to figure out what they want in the first place.
Of course, sometimes, self-awareness also comes from trial and error.
That’s why a lot of big leaders encourage young people to try a bunch of things before committing to one thing permanently.
So how do you invest in your self-awareness? Here are some steps that I recommend :
1. Take online personality tests like Strengths Finder, The Enneagram, MBTI, and DISC test
2. Read books and take courses about self-awareness and self-discovery
3. Make a list of all your talents, skills, and interests, and take the time to explore them and discover what’s worth spending your time on.
2. Invest in Learning High Income Skills
This is something I’m consistently working on.
In today’s world, no job is really secure.
They go to school, get a stable job, get married, and have kids no longer work.
The safest thing you can do now is to bet on yourself and invest your time and energy in learning high-income skills that can be applied to any business.
If you can help people acquire more clients or improve their customer service, there’s a high chance that you don’t have to worry about employment again.
Personally, here are the high-income skills I’m currently studying :
• Email Marketing
• Copywriting
• Social Media Marketing
• Content Creation
Please note that I’m not yet an expert on any of these skills. Heck, I’m only getting started.
I’m still in the process of learning the nuances so I can apply them to my own projects and my client’s businesses.
You don’t have to learn everything all at once since each one of these has learning curves.
Pick one that you like and spend your extra hours every day studying it and putting everything you’ve learned into action.
3. Invest in Your Health
One of the best things you can do as a millennial is to invest heavily in your health and wellness.
A healthy mind and a healthy body are very important especially if you want to achieve great success in life.
You may want to work on your side hustle until 2 am and wake up at 6 am to prepare for your work but it won’t serve you in the long run.
A lot of people in their 20s work their asses off neglecting their health and end up being depressed, overweight, burned out.
Is this something you want?
I bet not.
What can you do to invest in your health?
Here are some simple steps :
- sleep 8 hours a night
- exercise at least 3 times a week
- eat healthy and nutritious food
- drink 2 liters of water
- get some sun
Care for your health now and your body will thank you massively in the future.
Before you worry about your income, worry about the health of your body.
4. Invest in Books and Courses
Books and courses are probably the best investments I have had so far in my life.
The books that I bought and read opened my mind to new perspectives.
Aside from the courses that I personally invest in, I’m also beyond grateful to be given access to the courses of the best client I ever have in my freelancing career.
Reading books and taking courses is a worthy investment of your time and money because you’re learning from people who are way ahead of you when it comes to knowledge and experience.
They spent years and years of their life learning and perfecting their craft and they are distilling their expertise in a book and a course that you can consume in weeks.
Watching Netflix might give you short-term satisfaction but learning from books and courses of successful people will give you the greatest reward in the long run.
5. Invest in Financial Literacy
When you’re in your 20s, having a job, earning a decent amount of money, and fewer responsibilities, it’s very easy to blow up your money on clothes, shoes, and other extravagant things.
While there’s nothing wrong with that, it’s always wise to invest in your financial literacy learning how to earn, save, and invest money.
You don’t have to learn some advanced and complicated investment strategies.
You can always start small and simple.
Graham Stephan is my favorite YouTuber that teaches about money and investments on his channel.
Here’s my favorite video of his explaining how to get rich while in your 20s.
The reason why I highly encourage millennials to invest in financial literacy is that I experienced how greatly it affects your life.
When you have savings, an investment, and a recurring income, you have better peace of mind.
Mine isn’t that huge yet as I’m still in my early 20s writing this but I’m doing my best to improve my financial situation.
6. Invest in a Coach/Mentor
I am very aware of how a mentor can accelerate your growth and success but unfortunately investing in a mentor or a coach is something I haven’t personally done yet.
But, I’m beyond grateful to have been working for an amazing coach as her right-hand woman in her business.
She lets me handle the strategic parts of her business while she focuses on creating the best content and serving her coaching clients.
So while I don’t have a mentor myself, I still consider her as my mentor because I learned a lot from her.
Not only about business and marketing but also about discovering yourself, pursuing your passion, and being confident about yourself.
7. Invest in Your Relationships
Relationships are not only about networking with like-minded or successful people.
As I consume a lot of self-help information, I always read that you must invest in masterminds and build relationships with people who are ahead of you because they say that “your network determines your net worth”.
Well, this is very true and I agree with it.
But based on my personal experience, my life becomes more meaningful when I also invest (especially time and money) in my relationship with family, partner, and friends.
There’s nothing more precious in life than being surrounded by people who love and support you.
One of the best ways you can invest in your career relationship is to invest in masterminds, attend networking events, and connect with like-minded people that you could potentially do business with.
As for your relationship with your family, partner, and friends, spend quality time with them, give some thoughtful gifts, and treat them well.
Final Words
Congratulations on making it until the end, my friend!
It tells me that you want to improve your life and make sure that you make the most out of your 20s.
I know that all the investments we’ve talked about above are a little bit overwhelming.
They all require time, effort, (and yes, some money but they will be all worth it and you wouldn’t regret a single thing about it.
You coming to this blog and reading this article tells me that you want to spend your 20s (one of the most important decades of your life) doing things that are more important and meaningful to you than excessive playing games, watching Netflix, and doing nothing.
I’m with you on the journey, you are not alone.
