Here we are: the final TSLF blog post of 2022. Can you believe we’re at the end of the year already?

So, I know it’s customary on most platforms to give a little “end of the year” recap. Have you seen those reels trending on Instagram lately? Everyone seems to be putting together their own little “highlight reels” to show how far they’ve come this year.

At first, that was my plan, too. But honestly, I think I have something better…something that will really benefit you going into the new year.

I still want to talk about how far I’ve come, but I don’t just want to look at the events of the year. I want to share one particular area of my self-development journey that’s been a big evolution point for me, because it’ll give you something to chew on as we head into the new year. I’m talking about how the way I’ve been investing in myself, in entrepreneurship and personal development, has evolved over time.

Ways My Mindset Around Investing in Myself Has Changed

So, obviously I’ve been investing in myself a lot as far as entrepreneurship and personal development go, but the way that I’ve been investing in myself has definitely evolved for the better, particularly over the course of this year.

When I say investing in myself, I’m talking specifically about investing in coaching and mentorship courses. I love doing it; I teach this and offer these services, but I also invest in them for myself. And lately, my approach to this has changed dramatically.

In the beginning days of investing in myself, I always met myself where I was at, but I made sure to stretch myself a little bit. This is really important—I met myself where I was at, but always stretched myself a little bit.

A couple years ago, stretching my way through investing in myself meant getting a book and reading through a new perspective, maybe even a perspective that challenged my own. That was a stretch back then. And before that, before I started investing in myself through paid means, that stretch was listening to podcasts and watching videos on YouTube. So back then, rather than money being invested, it was my time.

Time

The way I’m investing in myself has shifted from spending a lot of time on things to utilizing my money as a resource to save me time instead. I made this shift because something I have learned as an entrepreneur—and this will be good for you to learn regardless of whether you’re an entrepreneur or not—is that people say, “Money is time, and time is money.” I didn’t understand that concept for a long while, and I spent a lot of my time trying to learn what I needed to learn in the beginning. It was a free method, which is awesome—there’s nothing wrong with free—but free things often take a lot more time and effort invested on your part.

For me, I went from spending my time listening to podcasts and YouTube videos to realizing that I wanted something a little bit more streamlined. Everything was scattered; I was listening to dozens of different people with dozens of different ideas and opinions, and I was starting to get all jumbled up. I needed something more focused.

So after the freebies, I switched to actually spending my money on books. That was a stretch for me at the time. It was hard to start investing in myself that way by spending that much money on books. But it ended up being worth it to me, because ultimately, it was saving me time.

I started to really appreciate time. So that’s the first thing that has changed in the way that I invest; I value time so much that I’m willing to spend in order to save time, because money is a resource I can always get back. Time is not, but money is.

Group Programs and Mentorship

So, my process for investing in myself shifted from Googling everything about entrepreneurship and personal development to reading the books I was buying, and all that was great. But then I realized that as good as this was for me, I didn’t have anybody to share it with. I didn’t have anybody to bounce ideas off of.

It was great, it was definitely serving me and helping me grow, but I also had questions about what I was learning in those books. I wanted somebody else I could ask about certain topics where I got confused or stuck, and I wanted people to talk to about it all so I could really dive in deeper and get different perspectives. So the next step in investing in myself became purchasing courses around self-development and doing group programs!

This was a wonderful next step in my journey through investing in myself, but every single time I did a mini-course, I wanted to be part of a full program. Once I went through a program, I realized I really wanted a mentor. I kept wanting to take that next step and save myself more and more time.

Thankfully, once I got into the phase where I actually had a mentor, things really went a lot quicker, because I finally had someone I could send all my questions to directly.

Since they’d already navigated the same things I was navigating through, they were able to help me navigate my way through my own stuff that much more quickly. They became my compass in a big way!

Trusting Yourself

A lot of the scariness surrounding investing in myself was about not being sure if I was investing in the right thing for myself. But every time I invest, pushing through that anxiety actually becomes a whole other method of self-development. One of the biggest benefits that comes from investing in myself is the self-trust that it builds.

Self-trust isn’t passive—it isn’t about lying down and listening to meditations and saying affirmations all the damn day. You have to actually make moves and start investing in yourself in a way that requires you to trust yourself.

I was shaking in my boots when I made my first big investment in my self-development work. But now, even though I’m still stretching myself with each investment I make, I am no longer shaking in my boots. Why? Because I have invested so many times over. I have laid the foundation for that level of self-trust.

I firmly believe that every time I commit to investing in myself, it always works out in my favor. Actually, I’ve never had an experience where a course or a program disappointed me, which is also a testament to my self-trust and my ability to lead myself. But even if I did end up disappointed, there’s still something to learn from that. It’s still a part of my expansion.

I will tell you this. There’s no way I could be where I’m at today—podcast-wise, business-wise, and human-wise—if I did not invest, because I always see investments as an opportunity for my own expansion. If you just keep on making the same moves you’ve always made, you’re always going to be in the same place.

You have to understand the way your brain works. If it doesn’t have new information, it’s going to always stick to the status quo. You need to actively change it up if you want to see change happen.

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The Ultimate Evolution

Here’s the ultimate evolution that’s occurred this year:

I no longer invest out of need. I invest out of desire.

In the beginning, my thought process was, “I need this. I need to work with her. She’s the one who knows everything. She gets me. It has to be her. I have to work with her because she has something I don’t have.” Or it would follow along the lines of, “I need to learn this skill because this is going to take me to the next level.” Or, if I was contemplating investing in something, even if it was something I really desired, I would tell myself that I couldn’t do it, because I didn’t need it. It wasn’t absolutely necessary, so I couldn’t invest in it.

Investing is not about need. Need energy is really just another version of scarcity energy. It’s a have to mindset, not a want to mindset. Have to operates out of scarcity; want to comes from a place of abundance. We know we have everything we need, and now we can have everything we want, too.

I don’t invest from a place of trying to get rid of aspects of myself or trying to fix myself anymore. I don’t invest from a place of lack. Instead, I invest from a place of, “I desire that thing. I really want to be in that room.”

You have to understand the energy and frequency of going after the things you desire. There is no need in that. We don’t need self-development or personal development. It’s a desire.

So if you’re approaching programs, courses, and other investments with need energy, you’re going to try to milk everything you can from the mentor and the experience, but you’ll be so frantic to soak up everything that you’ll actually end up not getting to experience it at all.

So I advise you: take a look at where you’ve invested out of need rather than desire, whether it was books, courses, mentors, or even therapy. Then I would take a look at whether you’ve ever invested out of desire, and compare the two experiences. What was the difference? I guarantee you that when you invest out of desire, you are far more willing to do what is required of you, and your expansion will be a hundredfold. You just show up differently when you’re coming from a place of desire.

Be sure to connect with me more on Instagram @theselflovefix. I’d love to hear what you thought of this post and what your major takeaways were.

Head over to my website to learn more about how we can work together to shift your energy & transform your life.