Ep #109: Investing in Yourself

Hi! Quick update. Mike and I have been living together for 6 days and we still love each other. Thought you’d like to know. And I pretty much reorganized the whole house and I had so much fun doing it. I frickin’ love organizing! And my new office is awesome. I love it. I’m so happy to be in here and talking to you about investing in yourself, specifically in your mental health and well-being.

When I talk about investing in yourself, your mind might automatically go to money. That’s usually what most people talk about when it comes to investing. But that’s not the only investment that’s available for you and also not the only investment I recommend you make in yourself.

When I Googled the definition for investment, because I love looking up words when I’m doing a podcast episode if you haven’t noticed, this is what it said:

“The act of devoting time, effort, or energy to a particular undertaking with the expectation of a worthwhile result.” Also, “to buy something whose usefulness will repay the cost.”

So here are your options – money, time, effort, and energy.

When you look at what you’re doing to help yourself to stop binge eating, which of these are you investing into yourself?

Whichever ones you’re investing, I’d then ask yourself why you are and why you’re not investing the other things.

Investing in yourself with these things is so important and let me tell you why.

Let’s start by using exercise as an example.

Why would you invest in exercising? Some people may say for weight management, some may say for physical health, some may say for strength, endurance, agility, flexibility, some may say because they feel better when they do.

So many possible reasons.

Now, if you want those things, any of them, from exercise, what will it take?

It’s for sure going to take time, effort and energy. These are things you’re going to need to invest to get the result you’re wanting.

If you don’t invest them, you won’t get the results.

Or, if you put in just a little of them, you’ll get little results. You get what you put in.

Then there’s also the option of investing money. You could purchase an online program, a gym membership, a boutique fitness studio class package, fitness equipment for your home. Depending on the results you’re looking for, none of these might be necessary, but they might just make it easier for you to get them and maybe get them faster.

When I was my fittest as an adult, I was living in Los Angeles and I mixed up my exercise because I had the luxury to do so since the weather was usually nice. It allowed me to do two inclined hiking trails that would each take around an hour or so to complete, which I loved doing, I also bought a mat and some weights for at home strength training, I had a gym membership, and I had a class package at a boutique fitness studio. So many options and what was so great about it was that not only did it help me from mentally getting bored of what I was doing, but they all worked different muscles so I had great muscle tone all over.

I look at all that and it’s very clear why I was in such amazing physical shape then. I invested time, money, energy, and effort to get the toned body I wanted.

Had I spent less time working out, I don’t think I would have gotten to the body I had, or maybe it would have just taken way longer.

Had I put in less energy and effort, then the same.

Had I not put in any time, energy, or effort, I would have gotten nothing.

Had I not put in money I could have had similar results, but I don’t think I would have enjoyed myself as much, I might have stopped putting in the time and effort if I got bored, and I honestly don’t think I would have had the same muscle definition.

Makes sense right?

So now let’s compare this to your binge eating, which is directly related to your mental health and well-being.

If you’re not investing anything into stopping binge eating, then you’re probably not going to stop.

Most likely, you’re not just going to say you’ll get the result of stopping binge eating and then you get it. I tried that many times, it didn’t work.

It wasn’t until I invested time, money, energy, and effort that I stopped.

I spent time thinking about how I was going to stop. I spent time working on my mind, my thoughts around bingeing, food, myself, my life, my body, all the things that were contributing to my eating.

I used energy and effort to allow urges, desires, craving, and emotions.

I invested money into coaching which is where I learned all the tools I still use to this day to not binge and to manage my weight.

Now could I have stopped bingeing if I had invested less than I did? It’s possible. But this combination of investment is what allowed for me to make it happen as quickly as I did and to build my skills as solidly as I have.

The less I invest, the more slowly the return comes. The less I invest, the less I get back.

Investing is basically you putting in something to get something. You can’t expect to get something from nothing. That’s not how life works.

You can’t win the lottery if you don’t buy a ticket. You won’t get a raise if you don’t put effort into your job. You won’t get a healthier mind and body if you don’t put in the energy, effort, and time.

If you want to come out on the other side as a better version of yourself, you have to invest something, or multiple things into making that change.

Now going back to the question I asked before, why do you think you don’t invest what you’re not investing?

Usually when people don’t it’s because they either don’t see the value in doing it or they fear they won’t get a worthwhile return.

Let’s start with the first one, not seeing the value. This just goes back to your compelling reason to stop binge eating. If you don’t see any value in stopping binge eating, and yes there a people who do if they don’t think it’s affecting their life so negatively, then you’re not going to invest anything in stopping.

If you didn’t see any value in exercising, if you don’t think your life would improve greatly if you did it, then you wouldn’t invest in it.

So you’ll want to evaluate this for yourself. Is stopping binge eating a worthwhile investment for you? Is there value in it?

For me there definitely was. My life improved in so many ways once I was able to stop binge eating, I feel so much better physically and emotionally, I am able to focus my attention and energy onto other things and other goals, it’s so much easier to manage my weight, I’m not wasting money on unnecessary excess food. That was the return I got on my investment and it is extremely valuable to me.

Which brings me to the other reason – you don’t think you’ll get a worthwhile return on that investment.

You think it will be a waste of time, energy, effort, or money.

You’re afraid that you’ll invest one, some, or all of those things and you won’t get it back.

But here’s the thing. You’re already wasting all of that and getting nothing back.

You’re already wasting your time, energy and effort on bingeing, preparing for a binge, handling yourself post-binge, overly restricting, over exercising, thinking about food all the time, any or all of theses.

You’re also wasting your money on binge foods that you don’t need, don’t really enjoy, and that cause you to feel crappy.

So much wasted money, time, energy, and effort is going into your binge eating.

That’s the waste right there.

Now, you may see that but still worry that your efforts will result in you still being where you are, bingeing as often as you are.

But what if they don’t?

When you give up on yourself before you even try, you’re not giving yourself the opportunity to possibly get everything you want.

It’s like thinking you’ll never win the lottery so you never buy tickets. Wouldn’t it be so unfortunate if you could possibly win but you never gave yourself the chance to because you had zero belief that you could?

That’s what you’re doing when you don’t even try, when you make zero investments in stopping binge eating. You miss out on the opportunity to win the life lottery, to have a better life than you have now, or the best life.

Whatever you’re investing, when it comes to your mental health and well-being, what you invest you will get back.

I see the people who invest time to work on themselves everyday or most days. They end up creating more time for themselves in the future, time that isn’t taken up by binge eating and thinking about binge eating.

I see the people who invest energy and effort into planning and prepping their food, into allowing and processing through urges, cravings, and emotions, into managing their thinking, into using the tools they’ve acquired and building their skills, and all of this results in them having more energy and using less effort in the future.

I see the people who invest money in coaching, or other kinds of help, and the get a return on that investment with food savings for the rest of their life.

I remember so many times when I was really confused about why I didn’t have more money than I did. I made good money at my job so I should have had more. But I didn’t because I kept spending a little here and a little there all on binge foods or even just on overeating foods. It all added up and in the end, it stopped me from having more money to do truly fulfilling and fun things.

If you don’t know already, I’d take a moment to add up, even just a rough estimate, how much bingeing is costing you.

And I’ll also say how much more value I’m able to give in my work because I feel so much better. When I was bingeing, during most of that time I was working in restaurants and when I had a food hangover, I’d give away tables if I could, I’d leave as early as I could, and I wouldn’t show up as my best self and therefore wouldn’t get as high tips and make as much money as I could. The value I was producing in my work was not high and therefore, neither was the compensation I received.

People think that money comes from time. You work an hour, you get paid this amount. You work a year, this is your set salary. But what if that’s not exactly how it works?

Imagine if you were on top of your game, you showed up as your best self each day, you felt good, and therefore your production and your work were high level. Your value as an employee, as a business owner, as a service provider, whatever it is that you do, the value of your work goes up..

That can create more money for you. More valuable workers make more money. I can speak for myself even. As I’ve been coaching for longer and helping more people, learning more about binge eating and our minds, I’ve become more valuable as a coach and therefore charge more than when I first began.

If I was lethargic and thinking about food more than my clients and not feeling good about myself, I wouldn’t be as valuable as I am.

So that all being said, if you make yourself better on the inside, then the value you’re going to create will be deserving of more money. So if you invest in your mental health and well-being, your return could show up as a raise, a promotion, or a better career than you have now, just sayin’.

And one more thing about a money investment, and I’m going into this one because I feel like this one, more so than time, energy, and effort, stops people from getting help they could truly benefit from, not just from me but from any help that costs money.

When you make a financial investment in yourself, you have skin in the game. What this means is that you’re not going to quit so easily.

Think about a program, a gym membership, something that you paid for that was really cheap or maybe free. How committed were you to it?

How many people have we heard say that they pay for a gym membership, maybe $10-$40 per month and never go?

How many people pay for inexpensive diet programs but then don’t follow them or quit when it gets hard?

This is partly because when it gets hard, or you don’t feel like doing it, it’s easy to brush off how much your paid for it.

I bought something from the Dollar Store a couple days ago and it’s too small for what I wanted to use it for. So my first thought was to just throw it away rather than to return it because, it was only a dollar. It wasn’t worth my time to go back to the store and go through the process of returning it just for one dollar.

But if it had been $100, I would be back at that store no question.

When you spend a little on something, it’s easy to throw it away or not follow through on what you’re paying for.

But when you make a serious investment in something, you show up. You make time for it, you put in effort to do it, and you don’t quit.

Yes you can invest time, effort and energy without investing money, but for most people, money is the most valuable of all of them so when you invest a good chunk of money, it’s game on until you get the result.

And when you invest money, it’s more likely that you’ll put in the time, effort, and energy and do all the things will make the investment worthwhile. That’s how results get created. I honestly can’t imagine a person coming through my program, solidly investing all the things, and not seeing results.

What you invest into the results you want matters.

You’re making investments all the time.

You invest in your job. You spend money to make money even if that’s just gas money, clothes for work, or any other expenses that go along with it, all so you can make money in return.

You invest in your relationships. You invest time, energy, and effort, and maybe money as well if you’re doing things that cost money.

You invest money into a car so you have transportation.

You invest time and money into vacations so you can relax, recharge, and have fun and energy and effort into preparing for the vacation and getting yourself there.

So why not invest in something else that’s going to make all that even more enjoyable?

When your mental health and well-being aren’t high priorities and aren’t as good as they can be, then everything else suffers.

But when they are, that’s when everything becomes more enjoyable. That job, your relationships, your vacations, your day to day, you’re able to enjoy them so much more because you feel good, because you’re taking care of yourself.

Now, I know you may think you just don’t have the things to invest. You don’t have the time, money, energy, or effort to invest. But I want to challenge you on all of that.

When we really want something, we make it work. You’ve done it. You’ve made time for new and important things. If someone you love needed your help with something, would you be able to make time for it? If you really wanted to help them I bet you would.

You’ve also come up with money to make things work. I mean, what would you do if your car broke down today and it cost you $3000 to fix it? Would you be able to find a way to pay for it? If having your car is really important to you I bet you would.

So when it comes to your binge eating, your mental health and well-being, what are you willing to invest?

Time, money, energy, effort, all of the above?

Remember, the more you invest, the more of that thing you get back.

Think about what you will get back when you invest each of those things. What’s most important for you?

Do you want more time because the time you’re spend bingeing you can allocate to something else?

Do you want to spend less money on food since you’re not bingeing anymore? So less wasted money that you can do whatever you’d like with? Or make more money with the amount of value you’re putting into your work because you feel so much better, have more confidence, and have more energy?

Do you want the effort to not binge to become less effortful so you can have more energy later to put into things you really want to put effort into, like other goals or fun stuff?

When you make an investment, you have to be forward thinking and this is not something we do when we binge. Bingeing is something we do when we’re impulsively thinking about this moment and this moment only. So it’s time for you to start thinking more big picture. Where will your binge lead you and where will investing in yourself lead you?

The future can be so much brighter and better and if you want to get there, you have to make an investment in yourself now to get it.

Choose your investment and if the investment you want to make is in working with me in my group coaching program, which is a fantastic investment by the way, then go to coachkir.com/mini to get started.

You’re worth investing in. You matter. Now get to work.

Bye bye.