The housing market is softening, and may continue to slump for quite some time. Energy prices are hitting business' bottom lines. Job cuts in the financial and housing sector are taking their toll. No one is completely immune from job loss, and investing in yourself is a great way to build up a Plan B if or when you find yourself looking for new ways to pay the bills and support your lifestyle. Unless you're working 15 hours a day, seven days a week, 52 weeks a year, you probably have a good 10-20 hours per week to invest in yourself if you really look at how you spend your time, develop a plan, and work it through. It's guaranteed that others will spend your time for you if you don't decide how to spend it yourself!
- Start a blog. Yeah, I know that there are 5.7 gazillion blogs according to Technorati. But, as they say, some of them have to be good, and there are a whole bunch of them that are pretty bad. There is still a lot of room for good ones. You're an expert in something, so write about it! If you blog about your profession, you make a reputation for yourself independent of your employer, and also make yourself more valuable to your employer (assuming you do everything by the book and don't reveal the secret formula for Coke® or something like that).
- Get started on a back-up profession. Something that has a barrier to entry (not everyone will go through the effort to get started with it) and something that will be in demand. This back-up profession may be pretty far afield from what you already do, but working as an auctioneer may be a good move to make, especially if you work at a mortgage company.
- Start up a side business. A blog can be a side business all by itself. Or tutoring, website design, lawn mowing, holiday house decoration, anything. Some of the better-paying lines of work are ones that other folks won't do.
- Exercise. What little exercise I do (I could stand to lose about 80 pounds) does make me feel better, and in any case it improves your efficiency when you are working.
- Learn a skill that helps you to be more self-sufficient. Like gardening, marksmanship, sewing, carpentry, etc.
- Learn a second language. Spanish is a good language to learn if you live in the US. Near the Canadian border it might be French, or elsewhere in the world it might be Chinese.
- Take a Myers-Briggs test. These tests aren't foolproof or all-knowing but self-realization about what makes you tick and what you tend towards when you relax can pay dividends. (For me, it was realizing that I'm strongly P.)
- If you're busy with lots of causes, organizations, and activities, evaluate them honestly and keep only the most important one(s). I'm ripe for letting a couple of things go, and I've already said no to a couple of new ones recently. If you're always working for other people and other organizations, it's at the expense of other things, including investing in yourself. Now, it is important to help others, etc., but if it's running your life rather than enriching it, it may be time to let someone else enjoy the opportunity.
I like these. I do a few but hadn't thought of it as investing in myself. That sounds even better than "side projects" and the like. 🙂
Thanks for sharing – I think learning a second language is definitely the key to investing in oneself.
Another way to invest in oneself is to buy a few books on the same specific topic and excel in it.
Your post was good food for thought! I thought about it long and hard while sitting in traffic wondering where all my time has gone. As much as it was hard to write the emails to the people/organizations I signed up to volunteer I felt more in control of my life, where it was going and most importantly my time. Thanks for inspiring some significant changes!
Learning a skill is always a good investment in yourself – be it a foreign language – or a musical instrument – or cooking or practically anything else. The world moves so fast nowadays – who could have foreseen that computer knowledge I picked up years ago – would be SO valuable years later? Ot that TYPING would be such a valuable skill…. But at the time, increasing my level of computer skills DID help me make a bit more $. Also, keeping up with new technologies can give you an edge, especially if you are a boomer.
GREAT advice, as always. I particularly agree with the side business. It's great to have several streams of income. It's insurance against a rainy day to have money coming in from several sources if one or two jobs don't work out. Even selling items on ebay can be a side business!
I have to second the above comment. Learning a second language is one of the greatest ways you can invest in yourself. You’ll have greater career opportunities and you’ll open yourself up to other cultures. You really see the world in a new way when you become bi-lingual. It’s unfortunate more Americans aren’t.