Make These 5 Investments In Your 20s to Embrace Contentment in Your 40s
Start planting the seeds for a *rich* lifestyle today.
Start planting the seeds for a *rich* lifestyle today.
“In the end, we only regret the chances we didn’t take” — Lewis Carroll
Consider your life when you’re 40 years old.
Envision earning a lot of money for doing precisely what you enjoy.
You have a big house, a loving family, and enough leisure time and freedom to book a vacation anywhere you choose.
Now consider an identical timeframe, but with all the odds stacked against you.
You are 40 years old and work a 9-to-5 job. You have a crappy house on which you’re still paying a mortgage. You have a wonderful family but little time to devote to them because work and the struggles of life leave you drained and exhausted.
Which of the two lives sounds appealing to you?
Obviously the first scenario, right? If only there was a template on how to make that possible.
In this article, we will look at five investments you need to make in your 20s and 30s so that you live a stupendous 40s and 50s without any regrets. Excited to know more? Let’s dive right in!
1. The Investment With The Best Returns
That is investing in yourself.
Yes, it is right! You have to invest in yourself during your 20s or 30s. This is the perfect time to lay a solid foundation for your later years. With the correct investments, you will enjoy life without any regrets when you’re in your forties and fifties.
The three ways you can invest in yourself are summed up herewith:
1. The asset that will never betray you
Invest in your health by working out, eating well, and caring for your body as if it were a temple.
Working out doesn’t need you to go to the gym every morning and lift heavy weights. All you have to do is select an exercise that’s appropriate for your body type and fits with your schedule. Then stick to working out intuitively. Make it a point to get at least five hours of physical activity every week.
2. The asset with insanely good returns
Invest in learning new skills and new tricks of the trade so you can stay relevant in the market.
By this, I mean that you need to pick a domain and learn all the skills needed to become the best in it. This is absolutely vital for progress in your profession.
In the long term, it broadens your work prospects in ways you can only dream of.
3. The aspect you need to be constantly working upon
Once you’ve mastered a talent, you must invest in getting better at that skill.
It doesn’t suffice to simply continue working at a level you feel comfortable with. You must upskill yourself, which means studying more about the skill. As a result, you will perhaps become irreplaceable in your field.
Thus continuous learning, taking care of your body, eating healthily, and getting adequate exercise are the greatest investments you can make in yourself in your twenties and thirties.
2. The Investment That’s Not Fully In Your Control
Your relationships with the people who matter.
After all, you can’t control how another person feels about you, but you can definitely keep your behavior, expectations, and demands in check.
This is an extremely under-rated investment and is often ignored by mainstream career gurus. It has two major implications:
1. The “forever” people
The first is, of course, your family and close buddies, who will be there as a strong wall to support you and help in keeping your sanity when everything in your life goes wrong.
Don’t take your closest connections for granted. Make sure you express love and respect to everyone belonging to this special category.
2. The ones to seek and offer help
The second way of investing in relationships is networking.
Reach out to as many people as you can who’re doing outstanding work in your chosen profession. Talk to them and form a network of relationships.
You may have heard the following well-known quote:
“Your net worth is equal to your network.”
Diversify your network and build as many connections as possible. Every day, send at least five DMS on social media to people who are relevant and can push you to improve your talent. Believe me, if you follow this religiously now, by the time you’re in your 40s and 50s, you’ll have a strong network that continues to help you succeed and grow.
3. The Investment Money Can Actually Buy
Your time.
So, what exactly does this imply?
Essentially, when you’re in your twenties or thirties, you need to figure out how to buy back your time.
There’s a very important lesson that I learned early on in my life. Selling your time for money is not a viable strategy to build genuine wealth. When you sell your time for money, everything you have, including your wealth and network, is contingent on how many hours you can work.
However, if you can invest your money to buy back your time, that would be a truly valuable investment for your future self. You can become a “time billionaire,” enjoying complete control over your time and utilizing it as you choose to.
Building something once and selling it several times is one way forward to buying back your time. You can approach this in a variety of ways. In my previous posts, I’ve talked about creating a digital product, an ebook, a newsletter, or literally any online community.
These are only a few methods of saving your time, but there are plenty more. I’m curious as to what your ideas are on this. Do leave your thoughts in the comments section.
4. The *Exponential-Growth* Investment
Invest in building a personal brand online.
The days of showing up to a job interview with your resume are long gone. Your resume can now lie on your LinkedIn profile. Employers will try to assess your credentials for an opening by looking at your LinkedIn page.
If you want to get to a good place career-wise in your 40s and 50s, you should absolutely invest in developing a personal brand online. The best place to do it right now is LinkedIn.
LinkedIn used to be a professional social networking platform. Today it has evolved into a creator platform that promotes text, audio, image, and video content creation on a regular basis.
If you’re wondering how to use LinkedIn to generate quality leads, look no further. I’ve prepared a checklist with all of the tips and strategies you’ll need to dominate LinkedIn.
5. The Investment With Scalable Income Potential
Invest in starting a side hustle.
Side hustles are hobbies or projects that you work on in addition to your regular work. They help you enhance your talents whilst earning money. They are an excellent way to supplement your income and make yourself recession-proof. They are also a fantastic excuse to make valuable connections, good friendships, and create your own online community.
My own side hustle journey began during my undergraduate studies. I used to take on random content writing gigs to supplement my income. I had zero clue that this hobby that began as a fun side hustle would soon become a full-time job. You’ll never know the truly life-changing impact of side hustles unless you start one.
Final Words
Let me briefly summarize all I’ve discussed so far. Here are the five investments you should make in your twenties and thirties to avoid having regrets in your forties and fifties.
- Invest in yourself: By this, I mean investing in your health, learning new skills, and constantly upskilling yourself.
- Invest in relationships: This includes relationships with the people around you, your close friends and family, and also expanding your network by connecting with people who are doing great stuff in your niche.
- Invest in buying back your time: Some of the ways to buy back your time are creating a digital product, an e-book, a newsletter, or literally any online community.
- Invest in building a personal brand online: We’ve extensively looked at the importance of creating a personal brand and using platforms like LinkedIn to monetize the same.
- Invest in building a side-hustle: Use a side-hustle to supplement your income and make yourself recession-proof.
So there you have it: the five great investments that I believe every individual in their twenties or thirties should make. What other items would you add to the list? Please share your thoughts in the comments.
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