Spending Or Investing?

Last week I shared with my Masters Club that I’ve changed my perspective on meditation.

I am a huge fan of meditation and it’s benefits to me are obvious & immediate. When I meditate I’m happier, more focused, more efficient, more calm, more creative – and I’m sure that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Yet, every single day I’m resistant to sitting down to do it. Every single day I don’t want to make the time.

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While journaling, I asked myself why I talk myself out of it. When I see “meditate” on my list, what are the thoughts I have that keep me from just getting started.

I realized that I viewed meditiation as something to spend my time doing and I always can justify a seemingly more pressing way to spend my time.

Yes, I could stop to mediate, but I really need to spend my time on this podcast or returning emails or making phone calls. I’ll do these other things first. They aren’t optional and meditation is. 

BUT.

Meditation makes all the other things easier. It helps me get them done more quickly and with a better attitude. It helps me come up with ideas and solutions faster.

Meditation isn’t spending time, it’s investing time.

When you spend something, it’s gone. You can’t get it back. When you invest, it pays you back. There are returns on any investment.

Meditation is an investment.

I was on the phone with my girlfriend Ella last night and was telling her that I’ve been very consistent with meditation lately.

In a passing comment about it, she mentioned how great it is that I’m investing in myself in that way.

I immediately shared with her my recent realization about spending versus investing.

She remarked that there are probably very few activities we can do that actually pay us back. She’s right.

But there are some. The key is to challenge ourselves to find them and then to take action.

I told her how since seeing mediation this way, as an investment, I’ve started asking myself how I can invest in my business each day in addition to the time I spend there.

Many of my business tasks are time spent. Getting things done. Checking things off a list to keep the wheels turning.

Where can I invest my time to create those downstream rewards?

I want to challenge you to think about your lives this way, too.

How can you invest in your body or health today by doing something that will pay you back, make things easier and bring downstream rewards?

Maybe the 10 minutes it takes you to prepare and put dinner in the crockpot before you leave for work in the morning is an investment of your time because it saves you time and money later.

Maybe 10 minutes of stretching and foam rolling is an investment because it helps you prevent aches, pains and injuries.

How can you invest in your relationships in a way that adds more value than the value of the thing you did?

Begin by asking where and how you can invest in yourself today and then take action on the answer.