Invest in yourself - It's the best spend you'll ever make.

When I say Invest in yourself, I don't mean buy more stuff. You've probably got more than enough stuff already. Stuff is mostly clutter. It won't really enrich your health and wellbeing. Sure, there is the short lived endorphin release that comes with making certain purchases, but I'm not talking about 'retail therapy' here.

Lets look at the title of this post again for a minute, because I went through several titles before I settled on one which I feel really encapsulates the message I'm trying to get across. The "Invest in yourself" part has been constant, but what follows that has changed a lot even as I've been refining what I'm saying to make sure the message doesn't get lost or misconstrued. The spend here could mean a financial outlay, but doesn't have to. Thats why "money" is no longer part of the title. The spend could mean time, but again, that would be narrowing the scope of this post, and we already lead limiting enough lives as it is. A lot of these limitations by the way, are largely of our own making, but more about that another time. The "spend" I'm talking about is mental energy, or thought.

 If you ask pretty much any adult what they want in life their answer will usually flow pretty quickly and be something along the lines of 'health, wealth and happiness', or some variation of these 3 central themes.
Ask a follow-up question like "What does happiness mean to you?" and things start to get more revealing. The answers mostly start with 'I suppose' or 'I guess'. If this sounds familiar, maybe its time to  take a time-out (not the chocolate bar), and try to figure what these seemingly simple concepts mean to you. This might take 5 minutes, or it could be the beginning of a lifelong journey of self discovery. To make things more interesting, the things that make us happy will inevitably change as we go through life. For example, being the life and soul of the party may make us happy in our 20's but as we advance in years, most people are probably not going to want to spend every single weekend in a nightclub.

Similarly wealth to most people brings to mind the notion of a large bank balance, and the trappings of 'success'. Great, I'd love to have a ferrari in the drive. But lets face it; I live in Kerry, on the west coast of Ireland; I wouldn't be able to drive it anywhere, because the first pothole I hit would literally knock lumps off of it. Thats just material wealth, and it can all be wiped out in an instant. Ask anyone who has lost everything to fire, flood or a banking collapse.

What about wealth of spirit? When was the last time you committed a random act of goodness?  This could be anything from picking up a piece of litter in your neighbourhood, to helping someone, simply because you can. There is a reward from doing little things like these. It's not financial, you can't put a number on it, and you can't touch it. But you can feel it inside, and over time it becomes visible. People will start to notice something different about you, but wont be able to quite put their finger on it.  What they are seeing is the increase in your wealth of spirit. They just don't realise it.

Success, to my mind, is being able to spend my time and energy doing things I love to do. For me, I think this has always been making people happy, and enriching their lives. I don't mean enriching in the material sense, (though that can come as a knock on effect way down the line).

As someone who was heavily overweight, and did something about it, (I dropped 30% of my bodyweight) I know firsthand the kind of difference it makes to a person's self belief as well as to their physical health and wellbeing, when they are able to make long term positive changes. I know how happy i was to have achieved that goal, and that's why I work as a personal trainer. I also believe that life should have balance, and I am aware that burnout is a problem for those working in the health and fitness industry. For that reason, amongst others, I also do street performance work & circus skills workshops. These two occupations may seem very different, but they share a couple of common bases namely, physical activity with a strong motor-skill learning element and a practical applications of performance psychology, including disaster recovery. Also, they help make people happy.

It's been a meandering post I know, but I'm finally getting back to the point. You have to invest some time in figuring out what you really want from life. Then you have to figure out what it will take to get you from where you are today, to where you want to be in, say, five years time. It helps a lot if it's something you are passionate about. It's your passion that will fuel your drive to succeed. Not someone else's idea of success, but your own personal goal for your life. Or you could keep drifting along as you may have been for years, drifting along as your dreams slip away.

Time flies, but you are the pilot. The question is, where is your flight taking you?