New year resolution , investing in myself

As the year draws to a close , I found myself asking , should I make new year resolutions , or am I too old for them? Are resolutions for the young and hopeful?

If twenties were about self discovery , then the thirties surely are about ‘ghar grihasti’, the home and the family. But then, rather than letting the winds of time buffet me on my journey, would it not be nice to have a road map, a compass to which way my thirties are headed?

With these thoughts in mind I decided to design my new year resolutions this year, not for a year, not for a few months, but as long time goals.

I got the idea from my financial advisor actually. This year has been a year of monetary upheaval, for the country at large, with demonetization and such. For me personally, it has been a year, when I started work after a year long sabbatical, without the safety net of a job to go back to, I started a-new as a self employed doctor/surgeon.

The worries and woes that, that entailed is for another time, but what I learnt is managing my finances. 

This year, I made a large financial investment, the risk of failure, and never recovering my investment had me scared sleepless, until I shifted my paradigm, from investing in an outward object to investing in myself. I told myself that even if I loist that money, I would have learnt a valuable life lesson, and that would be payment enough, if i chose to think of it as investing in myself. lose or gain, every experience in life will only enrich us, and so investing in oneself is a foolproof investment. 

whether true or not, I slept much better after this epiphany dawned on me.

As doctors we are rarely taught anything about managing finances during our 10 to 15 years of education, and though it might be common knowledge to most youngsters and graduates in other fields, investments were a whole new learning field for me.

Systemic investment plans, work on the principal of compounding, and unlike a piggy bank where putting away a little every month means breaking the bank open and finding the sum total of what you put in, a SIP means or is supposed to give you much more than what you put in.

Thus, my new year resolution will be to invest in myself. And by myself I mean in all fields of my life.

Another term I learnt from finance –diversification. Diversify your investments, so that when one is down, another avenue ois getting you returns.

Luckily I have a pretty diversified life as it is.

And thus, I plan on investing in my relationships: with my husband, with my parents, sibling, friends, colleagues, neighbours.

I plan on investing in my hobbies: my blogs, my travel, my art, my writing.

I plan on investing in my child: his needs, his education, his emotional needs, his creative growth.

I plan on investing in my work: my clinic, my writing

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The difference between resolutions and investments?

Resolutions make us believe that once we fall of the band wagon, say of losing weight, then we have failed, or if one day I am unable to feed my son his dinner or read him his bedtime story, I have failed.  

But investments, they rise and fall. They are long term commitments. Don’t fear the falls, don’t rejoice in the rises either, what matters is that in the long run, one have a healthy growth.

And that is what we must aim from ourselves aswell. Invest in yourself, your well being, if a certain something gives you more joy, then invest in it more, if a certain relationship is bringing you down, consistently over a long time, an dyou realize it is not a dip you can rise out of, it is time to sell the shares to that investment.

Another thing finance taught me this year, was accountability. And that means keeping count, of your blessings, and your shortcomings and faults aswell.

I am a spinner of yarns and of words , so don’t take my word for it, find your own ways to stay accountable, it could be short term resolutions or long term investments in self. As for me, I am in it for the long haul, till I turn 35, and since I write my birthday retrospects, most of my readers would know that that is not very far away.

Midlife. Now that is a milestone I am working towards.

I have invested in some high risk /high gain folios of my life, and then I have invested in lowrisk regions of my life, but they pay rich dividends as insurances in my life. The relations we build, they hold you up in times of crisis, I would suggest everyone invest heavily in insurances of life, that is our family.

Here is to a healthy, happy, and wise new year and self.

over the years, I have written often and recurringly on Nwe Years. Here are two special ones one is from way back in 2009 and the other one was 2011 just before the beginning of 2012, which had been prophecied to be the year when the world ended. I hope you enjoy reading these two posts as well.