“If you want to be truly successful invest in yourself to get the knowledge you need to find your unique factor. When you find it and focus on it and persevere your success will blossom.” - Sydney Madwed
Time is a valuable thing so don’t waste it doing meaningless things. The only commitment you need to make is to yourself. Invest time – your time – in self-improvement, career advancement, and developing certain skills that will help you prosper.
In his inspiring book The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari (A Fable About Fulfilling Your Dreams & Reaching Your Destiny) which eventually became an ultimate guide to motivation for success and confidence building, Robin S. Sharma says: “Investing in yourself is the best investment you will ever make. it will not only improve your life, it will improve the lives of all those around you.”
Most people believe that after graduating from college there is no reason workj on expanding their knowledge any further. The truth is we are perpetual students in the School of Life, and Life never ceases to teach us lessons on different matter.
People tend to slow their intelectual progress (at work, personal life, social relationships) and follow a fixed mindset due to several reasons:
- Insufficient amount of time
- Money – high expenses or low income
- Laziness and lack of desire to learn
Fortunately, we live in the Digital Age. Internet can be an endless source of information and knowledge. You only need a motivation to drive you and once you choose to learn in order to grow intellectually and professionally, you will follow that path even when the going gets rough at some time.
Here are some ideas on how to invest in yourself:
Online Courses from the world’s best schools and universities
You want to learn new foreign language, launch a start-up, learn how to increase your productivity, or to brush up on your online advertising knowledge? Have you ever considered enrolling in an online course? Such courses provide with so many benefits you have hardly ever imagined. You only need to register and browse until you find the right subject which will grasp your interest. Whether you are interested in learning the basics or mastering in Adobe Photoshop, Lightroom, Illustrator - Lynda.com is a great place for artistic souls offering valuable training as well as useful resources and freebies.
Moreover, websites like Udemy, edX , Coursera, Open2Study and SkillShare provide courses that help people improve their skills and make a significant career progress. Take them into account, pick up a course and see what happens. Some courses are totally free, whilst others come with a fee. You have to make up your mind what is going to be the best for you. If you dig deeper, you will find many more online courses specialized in a particular subject that matters to you such as creative writing, graphic and web design, accounting, drawing, learning to code, entrepreneurship, online marketing, etc.
Duolingo is another valuable educational website you should consider visiting. It offers great variety of language learning materials and video lectures by native speakers.
Visit public seminars, conferences
A perfect way to stay up-to-date with what is going on in your market niche and catch up with the new upcoming trends is attending seminars and conferences on a regular basis. Not only you will learn useful information, but also you will make new acquaintances and foster relationships which might turn into valuable business assets in the near future.
Webminars
Whether you are searching for self-help advice on both professional and private matter, webminars are very useful way of gaining the information you need. Some of them come for free, while others require paying a fee, especially when the person leading the webminar is some kind of a celebrity, life coach or highly respected expert in the field.
Read smart books
Reading always helps when it comes to learning and self-improving. However, if you want to receive solid knowledge, fiction won't help, but try to focus on reading biographies of successful people as well as other non-fiction books specialized in the particular subject. For example, if you are interested in starting your own business, read as many business literature as you can. Donald Trump, known as the guru of business for sure can provide you with some good advice on how to negotiate, take the right decisions and make the best business deals. Luckily, he has written a lot of books and they all are available in bookstores and Amazon.
