I’ve really been thinking about this topic a lot lately. I’m not sure we think of much outside of money as investments in our lives, but really ~ everything is an investment of one sort or another.

What we spend or save money on is the obvious one. And the bigger the amount of money in one purchase, the more we think about it, and get stressed, etc. But outside of actually ‘investing’ money in the stock market do you think of anything else as an investment? Do you think of your car as an investment? Do you think of your exercise routine or your self care habits as an investment? {my Starbucks habit might be a good emotional and taste bud investment, but it’s not really a good money investment, ha} Really everything in life can be looked at {and arguably is and should be seen as} an investment of one kind or another. Emotions, what we eat, exercise, how we take care of ourselves {or not}, who we spend time with, what we spend time on {again, or not},. our inner dialogue, what we put our energy and attention on.

I think as I inch closer and closer to the big 4-0 I’m really starting to take stock of a lot of areas of my life where I maybe haven’t been investing as wisely as I could be.

It’s easier to look at physical things and decide if it’s a good investment or not, and of course different people will have different feelings about the same things. I actually find that really fascinating in general. But on a whole, I would think that we could all agree that you want your investments to be growing in value.

A few years ago I met with a couple about helping them with some renovations in their condo. They wanted to make some changes to the kitchen and a few other things, and the whole time we were talking the guy was always telling me about how cheaply he did this or that.

They reworked the kitchen to add laundry but the layout was weird and didn’t really work, so they were trying to make it better, but didn’t want to really make it better because that would be too expensive, maybe just one or two other weird things… even though they had a great space, everything felt kind of… cheap and thrown together. Then just a few minutes before I left he said something along the lines of ‘it doesn’t matter what I do because we living in such a great location that someone will buy this place in a heartbeat when we sell.

Well, sure but they won’t give you a premium because you’re not offering a premium product. And that’s the thing. He’s only making poor investments in his place, but he wants to get a premium when he sells someday – as if he had been making great improvements. If you want to get the most return on your investment, you need to take good care of it so that it has a lot of appeal when you want to cash in. And you definitely have great opportunities to do that with your house, so make them count!

For non-physical things like your energy, self care, emotions etc. are your investments nourishing you? Are they adding to your happiness and helping you grow? I know for myself I’m really taking stock and starting to make some meaningful shifts to get a better ‘return’ for myself in some areas. For physical things like your house and your space, are the decisions you are making, the investments you are making, adding value?