How much do you invest in yourself? It is remarkable how little we tend to invest in ourselves, when this is one of the highest return investments we can make.
High Return
Those who invest the most in themselves tend to be the ones that end up making the most. The most obvious examples of this are lawyers and doctors. They spend a significant upfront investment, in terms of college schooling. But they do this because they know the payoffs that wait afterwards. Over the course of their lifetimes, they will reap the results of that investment. Many times they have returns hundreds of times more than the investment.
Success coaches will tell you that self-investment has the highest return of any investment. This investment not only can help you financially, but it is also the most satisfying. The “intangible” benefits are also great. More knowledge, better health, better relationships; all of these can flow out of investing in yourself.
Conferences and Seminars
One of the most common ways to invest in yourself after college is to attend conferences and seminars. These can be found all over, on all kinds of topics. From learning how to buy investment properties to how to cook healthier meals. The internet has also blown open this realm, not just with webinars, that allow you to attend conferences from anywhere in the world. There are also many online courses, many for free or very cheap, that gain you access to almost anything you could want to learn. Even YouTube has some great educational content, if you can find it.
But how much are you willing to pay for these opportunities? Do you only attend conferences your employer will pay for? Would you still attend if that $2,000 ticket price was coming out of your pocket?
Simple Investment
I’ve noticed that many developers are reluctant to approach even very simple self-investments. I’ve written some on development and learning here before. How much more effective would you be if you just took a couple of hours over the weekend and… Learned your IDE? Read some documentation on the web framework you’re using? Sure, you can muddle through writing some unit tests, but what if you took $30 and a couple of hours, and read that book? If it saved you half an hour to an hour each week, how long could you recover that initial investment?
It doesn’t have to take a large investment, or a great deal of time. Start small, take some breaks during a week and work on your typing speed. Take small steps to becoming greater than you are today.