I remember listening to a Jim Rohn talk a few years back about investing in yourself. Mr. Rohn said the following is the big challenge in life:

“You can have more than you’ve got because you can become more than you are.”

To my shame, it has taken me a long time to figure out what this really means. He went on to say the other side of the coin is:

“Unless you change who you are, you’ll always have what you’ve got.”

Investing in yourself means prioritizing time, money, and energy to improve your current and future life. You put in the work today that is required for you to live a fuller and more prosperous life in the future. You look for ways to expand your knowledge, discipline your actions, and take the necessary risks.

If Mr. Rohn is correct, we can become more than we currently are. We can be better, improve, and become the best version of ourselves possible. In the process, we can live more exciting and fulfilling lives. If you steel yourself to put in the time required and never stop until you achieve your goals, you will know what it means to be investing in yourself.

For this to happen, it means that we have to change.

One of the best ways to invest in yourself is to invest in your career. It is just paramount that we improve our knowledge and skills. In an environment that is changing so quickly with technologies like artificial intelligence (AI), we have an opportunity that doesn’t come along very often.

Now is the time; investing in upskilling yourself for a very uncertain future is so important.

What is certain is those that don’t put the time into upskilling themselves will soon be left behind as technology is about to do a step change in speed. More vocations will be torn down in the next few years than we have ever witnessed.

If you read or listen to any coach teaching about investing in oneself, they all have one common theme. They all talk about the need to improve your discipline. Learning a new skill takes time and energy; it does not come easily.

Learning something new can also be very difficult, especially if it is far out of your wheelhouse. To learn a new occupation or increase your knowledge, you must become very intentional with how you live, day in and day out. You must find time for a new and expanded routine every day.

If you are serious about investing in yourself, you will most likely have to sign up for some lectures or an online course. You will need to develop an action plan and spend time setting your career goals. Are you looking to set goals for a job you are in? Or are you looking for ways to help you build an extra income through some side hustle?

For a long time, I battled to master learning new expertise until I did one simple thing. At the time, I was listening to some very successful business people who got up as early as 4:00 or 4:30 a.m. each day to get an early jump on work. So I initially tried this technique as a test. It produced such incredible results for me that getting up at 04:30 every day to work on myself has now become a habit.

This strategy of getting up so early to do work is a perfect hack to live more intentionally:

• Firstly, waking up at this time to start work gives most people an additional 1½ or 2 hours per day to work on themselves. This is 10 hours a week. So you gain an additional workday every single week. Now imagine this over a year – if you use this time wisely. Add in some weekend work, and you can see the power of this small change in your day.

• This small change is attainable for most people. Yes, it is a little difficult initially, but once you start to see how much work you can do on yourself, this small sacrifice is inconsequential. This is just an exceptional way to spend your time each morning.

• If you start your day with a plan of getting up early to work on yourself, it sets the tone for the rest of your day. It becomes the rudder that steers the rest of your day. Repeating this same routine every day becomes extremely powerful. You become unstoppable once you have ingrained this habit into your life.

• This time of day is quiet, children aren’t awake, your mind is clear, and you can do some serious work. You are getting ahead of most other people every single day.

If you decide you want to become the best you that you can be (we only live once), then the following will help:

• Getting up at 04:00 or 04:30 can become draining if you don’t sleep enough. Be disciplined enough to go to bed early to get your needed sleep. If you are well-rested and begin getting up early to work on yourself, you tend to be less fatigued throughout the day. You are excited about the work you are getting done. You can’t wait to get up early, or you can’t wait to get home at the end of a day to work on whatever project or skill you are building.

• Going for a walk every day or some type of exercise is golden. This will help you keep a positive attitude and keep you more alert during the day so you can work harder and get more done.

• Set up specific weekly goals; it doesn’t help to get up at 04:30 every morning if you don’t have a game plan on what you are working on. What do you plan on having accomplished each week and each day? Having a set of goals is like water to a garden.

• Eat better. You need all the energy possible to live intentionally. If you are serious about investing in yourself, eating correctly, exercising, and sleeping well, catapults your energy to new levels. You are able to do copious amounts of additional work on yourself as well as still be energetic and fun with family members and friends. Your family won’t mind you working more at night and on the weekends if you are still full of fun and energy when you do spend time with these important people in your life. Living a healthier lifestyle will also help you live a longer life. Remember to make time for the people you enjoy spending time with.

• Decide what you spend your money on. Consider how you could invest more money in courses that can help you learn quicker. Rather spend money on educating yourself or software tools to build a better side hustle than spending money on things. Consider how much a university degree costs. You could create a new business that makes more money each month than a university graduate takes home each month. Start investing in exactly what you need to help you work your plan.

• Focus on the small achievements. Investing in yourself can be a long game. It may take years to get a side hustle going or to expand your knowledge in a complicated field. Sometimes you forget what you are doing this all for – especially if it takes a long time to see results. So celebrate that each day this week, you got up at 04:30 and learned how to do this or that. Picture yourself getting up early every day despite the circumstances. Picture yourself working at night even when you are tired. Do all the preparation in your mind. These little steps are what make the large achievement possible. Get good at repeating the same routine every week. I have found that routine works best for me. Celebrate the routine, celebrate your discipline, and don’t get hung up on the results. The scoreboard will eventually look after itself.

For many years I would come home from running my own business and plop myself down on a comfortable sofa in front of the TV. I somehow thought I deserved a break after a demanding and busy day. That I somehow owed myself some rest.

This wouldn’t have been a problem except that, for a few years, I found myself watching TV late into the night. I would get up grumpy the next day with a headache because I hadn’t slept enough. On top of this, I would eat impressive amounts of food while lying in front of the TV.

I put on weight, had low energy levels, and didn’t accomplish much. What a waste of time that I will never get back. Many people live like this daily and never seem to be able to break out of this cycle.

I’m forever grateful that I learned new habits and decided to adopt an attitude of ‘never stop learning.’ We all need to come to a point where we realize we aren’t living to our full potential.

It can be helpful to learn what doesn’t work, if we want to live our best life.

Do not let TV become your master. It will not serve you well. The less TV you watch and the more time you spend on educating and bettering yourself will have a massive difference in a few significant areas of your life:

• Your bank balance. The time you spend building a side hustle or learning whatever is necessary to impress our bosses and get a raise is time well spent. We invest in ourselves and spend hours getting better so that we not only get our weekly paycheck but we build another source of income. Ultimately, you get to spend more time doing what you want and make more money to buy things that make you happy. On top of this, a growing bank balance may help you relax and enjoy life more!

• Energy. We want to live life to the fullest. Eating poorly, going to bed late, and filling our minds with junk is a recipe for disaster. Extracting yourself from the TV and working to better yourself is so worth it.

• Relationships. The less time spent in front of a box means you are open to interacting more with those around you. At the end of our lives, we will not think about what films or TV programs we watched. We all know it will be about the relationships we have.

• Psychology. One of the things that got me off TV was listening to a Brian Tracy talk about the psychology of TV. He spoke about people who watch a lot of sports on TV. Mr. Tracy explained that these people have a tendency to be spectators in life. He said think about any person you know who watched a lot of sports on TV. This activity is not only a massive time suck, but also you get used to being a bystander, someone on the sidelines watching from your comfortable chair. Would you rather not want to be one of the warriors getting into the field of play? Making things happen, taking risks, getting hurt, making the winning play. These are all metaphors for what is really happening in our lives. Are we building something, taking a risk, putting the time into training and preparation? Don’t be a spectator; get off your bum and take a chance on yourself. You will be amazed at just how competent you are – if you put in the time.

I know it sounds crazy, but if you can get into the habit and routine of adding a few hours daily to work on yourself, things start to change. You may not see this change initially. People around you may even think you are being a little extreme at first. However, over time you will notice some changes happening in your life.

Don’t expect to tackle everything all at once; we want to get small things done to improve each day. Just work on your project each and every day. Decide that you will make whatever you have decided to work on just a little better each day. Don’t give up, don’t acquiesce, do not fade into the night.

Set small daily and weekly goals that you can reach.

One of the wonders of living in the times we do is that learning anything is literally available at your fingertips. You may be at the bottom of the totem pole. Still, with just a little research online, you can find excellent course material on learning almost any skill, building almost any business, and becoming who you were designed to be.

I have friends who have built something on the side to supplement their income to pay for the additionals they want. You may know some people who, like us, have learned whatever we can to impress bosses and get our jobs moving in new directions.

If you are serious and dedicated to these few extra hours each day, strange things start to happen. In the process of improving yourself, you become proud of your discipline. Most people find that they start eating better to have more energy and get more done in those extra hours. You get enough sleep; you prioritize exercise in your daily planner.

As time passes, you will see your savings account grow. It may be slow to start with, but you can slowly save additional income from your new endeavor. In time you will have a little extra money. You will have a small additional income to pay for a few additional nice-to-haves. You can even start to save and invest, save for the future.

Do you know how liberating it is when you start to generate some additional income because you decided never to stop learning? You stopped, disciplined yourself, and decided what was important to learn to move you forward. You implemented the game plan you came up with and put all your eggs in one basket, and took some risks. What a feeling!

If you decide to go this route, you may make mistakes. There may be times when you forget why you are doing what you are doing. There are going to be times you want to give up. But if you find the why, and the discipline to continue, you will be successful, it is inevitable.

Have you considered investing? Opening up an investment account and learning how to invest with options? Options can be a relatively easy way to generate additional side income. The goal of most side hustles is to bring in additional cash each month. Learning to invest your money with options can be one of your side hustles. If done properly, it won’t take up much time and can be a real money printer. You will need funds to invest – but be careful; if done incorrectly, options can quickly make you poor. If the right strategy is followed and you don’t get greedy, option investing is a great way to invest the money you make from your new endeavor.

Options must be one of the easiest ways to bring in additional money right away, but only if the right strategy is followed.

Check out our FREE ‘Options for Beginners Course’ below to see if learning options is for you.