Naumche Ivanovski on LinkedIn and Twitter .

Best investment:

Invest in yourself

Believing in one self is all about finding the inner place of strength and resilience.

In that manner, it is not the external circumstances that shape our reality, but the meaning we attach to those events based on the inner world of thoughts and emotions we create through our lifetime experience.

Having said that, investment in one self is by far the best investment on earth.

Let's review it in more details below.

• It all starts with you

Life is always happening FOR US not to us.

In that manner, learning to take full responsibility and ownership in life is a process of understanding that WE, not other people or circumstances, are the ones who have the wheel in hands.

Then and only then, we can truly experience the difference in perspective coming from proactive compared to reactive way of living.

While reactivity means we are preoccupied and dependent on other people or external events, and when they are negative, brings us to victim mentality: “this is how it is, I have no luck, I never had”, proactivity goes other way around: “when life gives you lemons, make lemonade”.

Powerful quote for unlimited power of embracing proactivity:

• The power of books

There are numerous benefits reading has on one's personal development.

At the start, it is the best way to boost creativity, as it is awakening your imagination. All of us eventually fall short on imagination and need an external boost to bring us back to flow state of mind.

Reading improves your memory. When you read a book, you are taking in all that the book is about. People, places, things… When you read you are using your memory muscle which lies in the cerebral cortex of your brain. And like every muscle in the body, strengthens when properly used.

Reading helps with communication, which is one of the determining factors in creating great career. It provides ground for greater acceptance of other people views, gives solid ground for applying effective listening as critical part of every communication. 

Improves focus and concentration. By sitting still and reading, you are training your body and mind to slow down, relax, and focus on one thing at a time. This is then applied to other activities because you are used to doing it.

Developing perspective. One of the critical aspects of leadership development is developing perspective through creating awareness of different views on history, present and future.

• Focus on important not urgent

Every day, hour, minute, even every second, we are faced with different choices. Should I do this or that, go left or right?

The summary of those small choices determines how our time is spent, do we procrastinate or accomplish, and eventually how we feel: energized and fulfilled or lazy and empty.

What is important but not urgent? Exercise is important, but not urgent, why bother now when I can do it other time?

In those choices, we are not deciding solely on the activity in place, we are doing more than that, we form our long term HABITS.

As cruel as it might sound, delaying important for urgent is actually compromising between, in the example of exercise, short term pain avoidance to long term physical health. Other time or now?

Offcource, this does not mean there are no urgent things in business and in life in general, there are, and we need to do them as well, such as following deadlines, executing on the promises given, unplanned tasks that require our immediate attention and so on.

However, through the process of learning and reflection we evaluate where we really are on the scale and strive to increase the participation of important over urgent tasks so that on a long run, we create space for as less urgencies as possible.