It takes money to make money – but that doesn’t mean you have to invest everything directly in your business. As entrepreneur and main business leader, your business benefits when you improve your personal and professional skills.
If you aren’t seeing much improvement in your business, it might be time to reevaluate your investment strategy. Here are a few ways you can invest in yourself and see significant changes in your business.
Invest in Your Intuition
Next time you get a gut feeling, you might want to follow it. Studies show that intuition is real; the mind is more than capable of making accurate predictions based on narrow windows of experience or limited information. This process is called thin-slicing, and the judgements that result from it are often correct.
You can enhance your intuitive decision-making by paying attention to the messages your mind and body are sending and weighing them equally against other inputs, like the thoughts and opinions of other leaders in your business.
Invest in Your Creativity
Creativity is a muscle, and if you allow your creativity to atrophy from disuse, you cannot draw upon it to bolster your business. Creative is an essential tool for entrepreneurs, who often need to imagine new products or services – or new ways of selling those products or services – to beat the competition.
Research has found that you can increase your creativity as you age, but it does take time and practice. You might start by picking up a hobby, like painting or creative writing, to gently flex your creative muscles before you apply them rigorously to your business.
Invest in Your Confidence
Everyone has insecurities, but those who hide them behind a veil of confidence are more likely to find success. Confidence is trust in your abilities, and people gravitate toward confident figures like moths to flames. By exhibiting confidence, you are more likely to gain the resources your business needs, attract top talent and build a consumer audience eager for your products.
Unfortunately, confidence is something most people lack. If you are timid or crippled with self-doubt, you should try to fake a cool, self-assured demeanor while you work diligently to bolster your self-esteem.
Invest in Your Education
You don’t know everything about business leadership, and it might take you a lifetime to naturally absorb skills and knowledge necessary to effectively build your business. Thus, you should constantly endeavor to learn faster and more efficiently – ideally through formal classes and academic programs.
Fortunately, you don’t have to put your entrepreneurial dreams on hold while you invest in education. In fact, you can earn your MBA online, taking only as many classes as you can balance with your growing business. Then, you can directly apply your lessons to your entrepreneurship efforts, enhancing both your career and your education at once.
Invest in Your Health
Starting a business is a full-time job; in fact, it often requires more than forty hours per week to complete the myriad tasks associated with business ownership. Still, that doesn’t mean you should neglect other aspects of your life to focus on your business – and you especially shouldn’t neglect your health.
When your body is in tip-top shape, you have more energy and enthusiasm to build your business. Any disease, mental or physical, reduces your ability to function as a business leader, so it is critical that you invest in exercise and healthy foods to maintain peak physical performance.
Invest in Your Happiness
The idea of business success might bring you joy, but your startup should not be the only bliss you chase. If other aspects of your life do not also contribute to your contentment, you will likely put too much pressure on your career and begin to experience symptoms of burnout.
It is possible to choose to be happy – to focus on the positives in your life rather than the negatives. However, it is easier to make this choice when your life is filled with elements that bring you joy.
Invest in Your Support System
No entrepreneur is an island; you need hordes of people around you to lend you support. First, you need employees whom you can trust to produce high-quality work and establish a healthy, happy work environment. Then, you need a social sphere, with friends and loved ones who champion your entrepreneurial efforts and help you let off steam. When your support is strong, you will remain strong, even in the toughest times.