You’ve heard the phrase, “We all have the same 24 hours in one day.” That is true, so we must be deliberate with how we spend those 24 hours. Do we waste them, or do we invest in them? Our lives are a result how we spend/invest our time. So, don’t waste that time by doing nothing. Invest that time by being YOUR BEST YOU!

I am sharing my personal stories through my articles as examples, but what is important is to not focus on the story I am sharing, but to focus on the principles I am sharing.

You must learn how to apply and practice these principles to ensure you are growing into the best version of yourself, to ensure you are moving towards your vision and turning it into a reality.

1. Applying What You Learn

When I stopped going out drinking on a weeknight, and eventually later in my life stopping drinking alcohol completely, they were sacrifices I needed to make. I was wasting my time doing this, and I need to stop so I could invest in that time instead.

You may have a similar issue to me, or you may have a completely different issue that is wasting your time. For example, watching lots of television, spending hours on social media, you may not exercise enough or at all.

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There may be other things that you feel are stopping you from moving forward, and you need to sacrifice them to keep moving in the right direction towards your vision.

I am a football (soccer) fan, and I love to support my hometown team of Liverpool in the UK. When I lived in Liverpool, I would always look forward to the weekend when Liverpool was playing because it was an excuse to go out, meet friends, watch the game, and have a drink.

If they weren’t playing, then I would sometimes still meet up with my friends and have drink with them. It’s what we did when I lived at home.

Then when I moved away to Scotland, and eventually London, I was mostly on my own. So, I would go out more often, sometimes with work colleagues to talk to people.

I am only giving one example of something that held me back, but there were more things that I had to sacrifice than my social life. It’s the same for everyone else in this world, and that means you too. It can be the accumulation of lots of little things that are holding us back, not just one huge thing.

The fun things I was sacrificing wasn’t easy for me, but I needed to trust myself and convince myself that making these sacrifices was the right thing to do. I did this by continuing to work on myself every day and growing every day.

By doing this I found different ways to have fun and enjoy myself that didn’t involve doing things that held me back.

I am sharing these stories about myself so you can realise how I applied the principles you are learning about, and you can determine from what you are reading about me, how you can apply these principles too.

2. Developing Character

By making the sacrifices I am describing to you, I was developing my character, and character development is something that you and I, and everybody throughout the world has in common.

It is your character that will be holding you back, so you must understand what you need to do to develop your character so you can move forward. When you can do this, you will be moving towards your vision and the life you want to create for the future. You will realise how to make it happen.

I’ve been in the engineering world since 1999 (16 years old) when I started my mechanical engineering apprenticeship. Back then I thought I was going to be an engineer for the rest of my life, like my brother and my dad were.

As I grew older, I knew I wanted more, so I worked on myself to move into a different engineering industry (railway), and eventually move into leadership positions, achieve my bachelor’s and master’s degrees in engineering, and eventually become a chartered engineer.

But I was still going out drinking and partying far too often, and I knew it was holding me back. So, when I gave it up and I started to save time and money, I needed to start investing those resources a lot more wisely.

Since 2015 when I moved to London and started to lead a new team in my role as performance manager for Siemens, I started to invest in leadership books and materials that would help me. I was still going out and drinking at that time, but I was focussing a lot more on my own personal growth.

3. Focussing On Personal Growth

As I was growing and I eventually stopped going out and drinking, I was investing even more in my leadership, personal growth and influence journey and starting my own online business, writing my own books, creating my own online courses, which eventually grew into a coaching business.

I wasn’t wasting all my money on holidays, drinking, and other things that would hold me back. I was only spending my time and money on things that would help me move forward.

It was in 2015 after reading, “The 21 Irrefutible Laws Of Leadership” by John Maxwell, and watching lots of videos of him speak on YouTube that I wanted to do what he did. I wanted to write leadership books, I wanted to be a leadership speaker, and I wanted to be a leadership coach.

So, I searched online to see if there were any training courses to become an author, speaker and coach, and I actually found a John Maxwell leadership training course. It looked amazing, but the costs to be able to be a part of it were substantial for me.

But I wanted to do the course so much and I wanted to work on becoming an author, speaker and coach that I found the money and I invested in it. You could wither do the course in person in America, or you could do it online. I lived in London, and I had a full-time job, so I decided to do it online.

4. True Purpose

It is now 2024 and I am writing my own books on leadership, personal growth and influence. I am also a fully trained leadership coach.

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I am still working on being a speaker, but don’t worry I will become the leadership speaker I know I can be. I know that what I am doing write now is helping you and so many others around the world.

I am living to my true purpose in life, and I am living deliberately on purpose. I am nowhere near achieving my vision in life yet, but I am working towards my vision every single day.

So, what are you willing to invest in for yourself? What do you need to change in your life right now? What are you willing to change in your life to make it better right now? If you don’t invest in yourself then you won’t get anything.

If you invest in yourself then you will get something. If you invest a lot in yourself then you will get a lot. It is all up to you.

If you are overconfident in yourself then you will think that you don’t need to learn anything. If you have no confidence in yourself then you will think you don’t know how to learn.

I welcome hearing how this post has influenced the way you think, the way you lead, or the results you have achieved because of what you’ve learned in it. Please feel free to share your thoughts with me by commenting below.

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All the best,

Tom (Lead, Grow, Influence)