Episode 1155: Budget Your Self-Development

[00:00:00] Scott Maderer: Thanks for joining me on episode 1,155 of the inspired stewardship podcast.

[00:00:07] Sharon Grossman: I'm Dr. Sharon Grossman. I challenge you to invest in yourself. Invest in others, develop your influence and impact the world by using your time, your talent and your treasures to live out your calling. Having the ability to avoid burning out is key.

[00:00:25] And one way to be inspired to do that is to listen to this, the inspired stewardship podcast with my friend, Scott Maderer.

[00:00:34] Scott Maderer: and then later I spent it on actually programs and certifications and trainings. I spent it on going away to conferences. All of these things could fall within that budget of self-developed. And whether you're self-employed or you work for someone else, it doesn't matter. You still have to set aside time and money and have a plan for developing [00:01:00] yourself.

[00:01:00] Welcome, and thank you for joining us on the inspired stewardship podcast. If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time, your talent and your treasures for your true. And the inspired stewardship podcast, we'll learn to invest in yourself, invest in others and develop your influence so that you can impact the world

[00:01:26] And today's episode about impacting the world through stewarding your treasures. I talk with you about the value of setting a budget for yourself development. I share why you need to have a plan for yourself. And I also share why this needs to be consistent over time. As we talk about stewarding your treasures.

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[00:02:12] Most of us know that we should spend a certain amount of time and energy on developing ourselves on doing things that actually help make us better or more able to do or understand certain things. And when we think about making an impact on others, We know that to be able to do that, we actually have to develop ourselves.

[00:02:42] We have to have skills and knowledge and abilities, but what's interesting is a lot of people don't actually set aside money for self development. They don't actually think about what cost [00:03:00] is there going to be for self-service. They often will either spend money, Willy nilly, just the newest shiniest object, or course comes along and they buy it and then they discover that they never actually spend any time or energy in it.

[00:03:16] They maybe watch one video and then never go back to it. How many of you raise your hand? Yeah. Purchased courses that you've never actually even watched or started, or maybe you've just watched the first couple of videos and then it sat there in your catalog forever, or maybe they don't spend money at all on self-development.

[00:03:41] And so one of the things that I think you should do is have a budget for self-development. A lot of times, you'll see a figure like 10% of your take-home pay now, depending on your situation and depending on your goals and what you're trying to do with your money, that may be too [00:04:00] high, that may be too low, but you need to think about in the context of your bigger priorities and values, how much might.

[00:04:09] Do you need a set aside in your budget to pay for self-development to pay for training, to pay for books, to pay for courses. Now, I would say also if you're spending money on those, you need to actually follow through and participate or watch or do the things. You need to also set aside. And this why it's important to have an overall plan for yourself development to understand what are your goals?

[00:04:40] What are your values? What are you trying to achieve with this money? Not just self-development for self-development sake, but self-development so that you can be positioned to make an impact. And what's more, there needs to be some sense of consistency to this point. [00:05:00] There needs to be a direction that you're going, there needs to be a goal that you're trying to achieve with it.

[00:05:07] It's not just about learning for learning's sake, though. There's nothing wrong with that. And it's fine to even set aside a certain amount of time and money just to learn something that interests you. But the point is to be intentional about that, even if you're just doing it for the fun of it, what is it?

[00:05:24] And what percentage of your time and money are you spending on just doing it for the. There needs to be some sense of consistency to what you're doing. This is why I've consistently set aside a certain amount of money every single month for decades now to use for self development. Some months I don't spend that budget instead, it builds up over time.

[00:05:47] And then I use it to purchase larger things like a course or a program. As part of my annual review process, when I'm looking at my plan for the year, part of what I do is look at [00:06:00] my budget for self-development and try to think about what is it that I'm actually spending and why am I trying to spend this?

[00:06:08] What are my goals for the year? And how does self development fit into that larger picture? Because it's not just about the monetary budget, it's actually about. Following through with it as well. It's actually about the consistency of it. It's actually about doing it and doing it year in and year out for years, my budget was spent on books and then later I spent it on actually programs and certifications and trainings.

[00:06:42] I spent it on going away to conferences. All of these things could fall within that budget of self-service. And whether you're self-employed or you work for someone else, it doesn't matter. You still have to set aside time and money and have a plan for [00:07:00] developing yourself, whether it's you're going for a promotion or whether you're trying to learn something like how to communicate better with your spouse.

[00:07:08] This all fits within that larger catalog of self-development. But what you have to figure out is what are the areas of my life? That I need to develop in. And what is it going to take from a plan perspective in terms of time and money, and then you begin looking for those opportunities and plugging into them.

[00:07:28] This is how you budget for yourself development. Thanks for listening.

[00:07:35] Thanks so much for listening to the inspired stewardship podcast, as a subscriber and listener, we challenge you to not just sit back and passively listen, but act on what you've heard and find a way to live your calling. If you like this episode on the stewardship of treasure. You can sign up for our treasures tips by [00:08:00] going to inspired stewardship.com/treasures or text in the U S 4 4 2 2 2 treasures tips.

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