You are your greatest asset in life, no matter what your capabilities, your potential. Everything about you is your greatest asset because you're the one who's generating your wealth. You're the one who's keeping your kids alive. You are the one who is helping to sustain your marriage. You are so incredibly important. Welcome back to the Ashlee Jaine show, ladies. You are absolutely in the right place if you are looking for mindset inspiration to help you glow up and show up as the very best version of yourself. And that is exactly what our topic is today. Have you ever heard of investing in yourself? Because honestly, this was a foreign concept to me up until just a few years ago. It was a concept that I definitely had grasp before kids. But then as soon as I had kids, they became my entire world, and I was very much so. I put myself on the back burner to say the least, and I know that a lot of you here can relate. And especially if you've got little ones, you know exactly what I'm talking about, but I want to share my journey of investing in myself, and I want to share with you why it's so important to invest in yourself. And really, that all comes down to the fact that you are your greatest asset in life, no matter what your capabilities, your potential. Everything about you is your greatest asset because you're the one who's generating your wealth. You're the one who's keeping your kids alive. You are the one who is helping to sustain your marriage.

You are so incredibly important, and I want you to really understand that that was something that I think that it was just a turning point in my life when I realized the importance of investing in yourself. So I went from not buying myself anything, not doing any sort of self-care, any sort of self-love practices for years until it's almost like I just the my flame and the fire within just kind of fizzled and burnt out. And it was a really I wasn't me anymore, and I can even look back at pictures for those times in my life. And just it's really hard for me to identify with that person and to accept that that's who I was. And I know that it all happened because I had the best of intentions. You know, I wanted to be all I cared about were my children and my husband. And so I just was so focused on being the wife and being the mother that I kind of just left Ashley in the background. And so it's just so strange, just looking back and looking at those pictures and seeing who I was and just now with where I am, I'm just like, I don't think that I loved myself at that time, and I think that I sacrificed a lot to try to be what I thought was the best wife and the best mom. And I don't regret it because at the end of the day, I have my husband, I have my children and everybody is happy.

Everybody is healthy. And I think it was one of those instances where I just had to kind of grow through what I went through. It was a learning opportunity for me because if I hadn't experienced all of that and if I hadn't have went through that that time in my life, I wouldn't be able to be here and speak to you on it. I wouldn't be able to be here and share what I learned along the way with you. So I'm grateful for it in that sense, but it definitely did take a toll on me. And it's definitely, really interesting looking back now on who that person was because that person wasn't me. Because before kids, I was always someone who, you know, loved shoes, loved getting my nails done and love doing all of those things. And then I became a mother. And then I think for the first child, I probably stayed on top of getting my hair done and doing my nails and, you know, taking baths and things like that. But then when the second kiddo came around, it was just like, you know, it was all about them, and it was all about my husband. And not to mention, you know, we were young and we had no money. We were so broke. So having the funds to do those things was nonexistent. So I guess in a way, I didn't really have much of a choice, but I definitely still could have done some self.

Love and some self-care practices and incorporated those in my life from time to time, and I don't know, maybe that's something that I can do like an entire episode on just throwing out some self-love and some self-care practices and ideas and things like that. Because honestly, I think a lot of women just associate that with going to get a massage or going to the spa or something that costs money, but it doesn't have to be anything that costs money. It really is just whatever makes you happy, whatever makes your soul feel good in that moment. And you know, the best things in life are free. So for me, that is bad or for me that is sitting in my car and just having a moment to myself in silence, which is free. So both of those are free, and there are two of my favorite things to do. So maybe I'll do an episode on that later on down the road. But right now, I just want to talk to you about the importance of doing those things and and why investing in yourself, whether it is time or money, why investing in yourself is so important. But going back to the old me, I've learned and I have grown so much just within the past few years, I would say, honestly, it probably started, or I kind of realized how out of touch with Ashley, I was probably about three and a half years ago. And that's a really long time that was like from my early 20s, all the way to my early 30s, where I just kind of was lost in the ether of being a wife and a mother.

And since then, I went down this rabbit hole of just self-love and self-care and really just investing in me and investing not only in, you know, my outer appearance because that is just a fraction of the equation. There is so much more that we need to invest in in ourselves other than the way that we look. So don't take for granted what I said about the nails in the hair because those are vanity metrics for sure. And if that makes you feel good, then I strongly encourage you to do that. But I do want to emphasize that there's so much more that you need to be investing in when you're investing in yourself. Health is a huge one, so when I say investing in an example of investing in your health is making sure that you're getting adequate nutrition, making sure you're taking good supplements, making sure that you know, eating your fruits and vegetables for the day and getting enough sleep at night and exercising a few times a week or whatever that looks like for you. Whatever that looks like in your life and in your weekly routines and things like that. But those are few ways that you can invest in your health. You can go on a morning run, you can drink celery juice every morning. You can, you know, I'm just throwing out ideas here.

You can have a smoothie for breakfast, whatever it is. Invest in your health and you'll also need to be investing in your mind set. And this one is so easy, ladies, because there are so many ways that you can do this, and virtually all of them are free. Now you can do things like coaching and mentorships and therapy or counseling and things like that. And those are all amazing. But of course, you are going to pay for something like that. But there are so many free resources out there to invest in your mind and to invest in your mind set. You can do, you know, meditations through guided meditation YouTube videos for free. You can start a gratitude journal. You can listen to podcasts just like this one to help you show up as the very best version of yourself to help you get your daily dose of positivity. To help you have those paradigm and perspective changes, there's so much that you can do, and all it takes is five to 20 minutes of your day or of a few days out of the week that you choose. So I think that's one of probably, I would say, mindset over health. Unless you're in very poor health right now, maybe you have some chronic health issues going on. Focus on mindset and then health and then focus on the outer appearance stuff you can. I know somebody like this and it breaks my heart, but she invests heavily in the way that she looks, the way that the clothes that she has, the things that she has, whether it's hair or makeup or nails or whatever.

But internally she's struggling, and I think she's seeking confidence in the things that she's buying in the clothes that she's buying and in the hair and in the makeup. It's just so obvious that there's still a void internally. So while those things maybe she feels like make her happy to. Rarely her overall like health and happiness and just well-being in general. You can tell that there's a struggle and it's not in a good place and it just breaks my heart. But my point is is that I don't ever want you to be that person. I want you to be the person who shows up as your best self, who has a positive mindset, who knows that the world is working in your favor, who is competent internally and radiant externally. I want you to be that person. I want you to be that version of yourself and to do that and to get there because most of us are not there. It is definitely a journey, my friend. Like this is something that is lifelong that we have to commit to. But to get there, we need to focus on investing the time and the money and the energy in ourselves in those three categories. Now I shared some examples of ways that you can do that I share the importance of why you need to do that, and hopefully none of you have really gone to as dark of a place as I was with it to where you've kind of just lost touch with who you are as a human.

Maybe you have. If you have, I can totally relate. And I just want to give you a virtual hug right now. I wish that I could wrap my arms around you and say that I understand and you will come out of this and you will find yourself again. But hopefully most of you haven't been there and hopefully you take this opportunity and this podcast episode to heart and you realize the importance of investing in