Is it Worth Chasing Your Dreams?

Just like you , I wear many hats and own many titles , such as wife , mom , yaya , fur mom , coach , but the most important one , jesus girl , I'm on a mission to lift you up and help you rise from the ashes of pain and suffering , reminding you each day is a new day to begin a new life , a new chapter and a new journey of rediscovery .

So come , sit with me in my virtual kitchen and let's chat a bit and remember . Today is the day that you say I am strong , I am fierce , I am Mommy on a Mission . Hola , hola , hello . All you , beautiful muquetes , and welcome to another episode of Mommy on a Mission podcast . I'm your host , mariana . If you are new to the podcast , welcome .

I'm glad you're here . And to all of those who continuously follow me , thank you so much for being here . As always , I'm so glad and happy that you have decided to join me today . So listen .

Over the last few weeks I've been seeing quite a few posts , you know , people really talking about pursuing their dreams , or they're setting up goals to achieve their dreams , whatever that dream is or whatever that goal is .

And I've had , you know , some people congratulate me and tell me that they're so happy and proud of me for writing a book and then getting it published .

And one of the things that I've heard has been man , sometimes I wish I could write a book , or I've always thought about wanting to write a book , or I've always thought about doing this or I've always thought about doing that . And my question to them is why are you still thinking about it ? Like , why haven't you taken the initiative to go after your dreams ?

And then I get this look on their faces almost like , yeah , girl , I can't . You know that's it's not going to happen for me . Or , and it's not , that's not realistic for me . You know , not somebody like me and I'll be able to achieve those goals ? And I'm like , but why ?

But it wasn't that long ago that I was saying those same exact things , like I would have never thought about writing a book . I mean , I thought about it , don't get me wrong , but I never would have imagined that I would actually write a book and then get it published .

And then , in the situation that I was , I never felt like I was going to get out of the situation that I was in . I , honestly speaking , thought that I was going to be stuck in that situation . But over time , I did have this one goal on my mind . If anything , if anything , my biggest goal was to get my degree .

If anything Like I wasn't even thinking about my book , I wasn't even thinking about becoming a what do you call it ? A news reporter or a journalist , anything like that .

The only true goal that I had was is that I wanted to get my degree so that I could have a better paying job , so that I could afford my kids and I to be able to live on our own again . And I wasn't even looking for anything huge . I just wanted to be able to afford for us to have our own place .

Not even imagining that I would find my husband at the time or anything Like I never would have imagined any of those things , because the life that I was living , it just seemed like it wasn't gonna go anywhere . For those of you that are tuning in for the first time .

I am a survivor of domestic violence and my former husband , or ex-husband , is a drug addict . He's , unfortunately , he is currently serving prison sentence because of his mistakes and for a while I never thought that I would be able to get out of that situation .

And when I did finally leave , and truly leave because I had attempted to leave many times before , but this time around when I did leave , I had a support system . I had people who were believing in me , who were telling me that I could go back to school and I could achieve that goal .

And , mind you , even when I did enroll and I was going , I still had this fear . I was still risking these things because , of course , it was gonna come with a student loan , but I couldn't worry about whether I was gonna be able to afford it later on or not .

My initial goal was just to at least get started and , with a hope and a prayer , I was just gonna wing it . And how many of us find ourselves in that same situation , like we'll ask ourselves is my dream really worth it ? And that's a question that a lot of us ask ourselves at one point or another . Is our dream really worth it ?

And pursuing a dream , I mean , it can be both exciting but , at the same time , terrifying , and that was the way it was for me . Like I was excited to go back to college but at the same time , I was scared . I hadn't been in school in such a long time .

I remind you , I was 30 years old when I decided to start my life all over again , and it did . It involved taking a huge risk and then stepping out of my comfort zone and put myself in a situation again that I was going back to school at 30 years old . You know , I wasn't young like the rest of the kids that were going to college .

I was older , but I knew that this was important and I knew that this was something that I needed to do . It was purposeful in my life and it was meaningful in my life , and that is one of the things that we have to consider when we're evaluating whether our dream is truly worth pursuing .

We have to consider the impact of our dream that it will have on our life or the lives around everyone else . Right , will it bring me joy , is it gonna bring me fulfillment , or is it gonna cause stress and hardship ? And all of those thoughts were on my mind whenever I was thinking about going back to school , going back to college , like you know .

Was this gonna be really worth it or was I gonna be stressing ? And at one point it did become a little bit of a stressor , because I was living without my family nearby . I was with my friends and my friends were helping me out , but , you know , friends can only help out for so long because we're not truly their family .

They love us as if we're family , but at some point or another we will overstay our welcome and that help that they were providing will no longer be help for free . It's gonna require some form of payment , and that was something that I needed to think about for the long term , even though my kids were going to school .

But I had to depend on my friends to watch my kids one night a week so that I could do homework or I could go to class what have you ? And so I had to start thinking about that , and that wasn't an easy plan to do . So , after a year of going to college , I decided that I needed to move back to Texas to be closer to my family .

For that reason and then another reason I was having to face some consequence for a bad choice that I had made .

I had to face up to that as well , and so it just kind of all tied in together and I really truly needed my family's support to help me with my children so that I could continue to go back to school and finish this out , because that was the thing I wanted to finish . I was motivated to accomplish , if anything , that goal right there .

And so I had to ask myself Am I doing this for me or am I doing this because , you know , I'm feeling pressured by others to do this ? Well , for this particular reason , I was doing it for myself and I was doing it for my children . But have you ever felt like you were living someone else's dream ?

I think sometimes we do right , I know that for some , and I'm not knocking anybody who has children in sports . But you have those parents that are supportive , want their children to try any sport necessary just to see if they're gonna like it and if they're gonna pursue it , so they continue to do it .

But then you have those parents that are trying to live vicariously through their children and then that can put pressure on the child and then eventually the child is now in this sport because they feel obligated to be in it , and so that's what I mean , like you have to think about am I doing it for me or am I doing it for someone else ?

And just like with anything else , there's gonna be roadblocks and there's going to be obstacles . I've said this before we're going to always face challenges , no matter what . Whatever it is that you're trying to pursue , you're gonna face some challenges .

There's gonna be things that are probably gonna cause you to stop for a little bit , but we have to prepare ourselves to face them . It's either we're gonna face them head-on or we're going to let it defeat us , and I mean it's . It's gonna have to be a decision that you'll have to work through , because you have to ask yourself is this really worth it ?

And then remember that dreams can change over time . So , for instance , I've always had that that I wanted to go to college . I started , just like everybody else , right after high school . I went for a few classes .

I didn't take it seriously , I let life get in the way things happened , and then I had a second attempt of going back to college , but then again I had that roadblock because I had that ex-husband , who didn't want me to go back to school or didn't want me to pursue my dream of getting a college degree , and would always put things in the way you know or

cause me to feel guilty because I was going to classes and I was working instead of being home with the kids . But at the same time , it's like how am I gonna stay home with the kids when bills need to get paid and we're struggling ?

But , of course , his mentality was that I needed to be home and you know he needed to be the one to take care of everything , but yet he wasn't doing it because of the drugs . So I had to realize that if I wanted to do this , then I needed to think about how I was going to do it . What was it gonna look like for me ?

And you're gonna have to ask yourself that same question too . Is okay , I've got this dream , I've got these goals set in place . Now what ? What am I supposed to do ? What plan of action am I going to take ? And so we have to think about that .

What is all going to take place , or what all needs to take place in order for you to be able to pursue your dream and successfully accomplish that . And so , yeah , I mean we're gonna have those doubts , we're gonna have those fears , but we have to remember that we can do it .

If it's not about , oh , I'm lucky enough to do this or I have to have the talent to do it , no , no , no , no , we really have to think about what do we need to put in place ? Okay , and the best way that I can say is breaking down your goals into smaller , achievable goals .

If you break them down smaller , then you're going to see the progress , okay , you're going to see , and you're gonna build that momentum of being able to accomplish that one goal , and then , when you accomplish that goal , then you can move on to the next one .

All in all , it's gonna be those many goals to get you to that bigger picture goal or that dream , and so that's what I needed to do . I needed to break it all down , so I needed to come up with a bedtime schedule for my kids , study time schedule for myself . I had to make sure that we had a routine set in place .

I needed to , you know , reprioritize my whole life in order to be able to achieve these goals , and so it started out with one class . I took that one class , I was able to complete it . Then I took on two more classes , and so and so on and so forth , until , before you know it , four years had passed and I was graduating .

But along the way , as you're achieving those smaller goals , celebrate them , celebrate the progress , celebrate the success , celebrate the fact that you finished a class , and don't think about oh my god , I finished one class , now I've got like 50 million more classes to go .

No , don't think about that , because if you start thinking in that way , then you're gonna self-sabotage and then you're not gonna want to do it and , trust me , I had been there . Because then you start thinking okay , if I start school , okay , oh my god , it's gonna be four years , my baby's gonna .

Okay , my baby's four years old , then he's gonna be eight years old , and oh my god . And you're gonna start thinking and thinking . It's gonna become overwhelming , and then you're gonna be like , never mind , it's not worth it . And then you have to go back and revisit why did you want to do it to begin with ? It has to be meaningful for you .

It has to , it has to mean something to you . You're doing it because it's meaningful to you , and you know what I think about this too . How many of us ? When January 1st rolls around , the very first thing that most people say that they're gonna do is join a gym and lose weight . Now , we all have good intentions behind that . We all want to .

You know that new year , new you mentality . You know we want to do it , but at the end of the day , most of the time we're setting up that goal because it's almost a common goal to set .

It's almost like that expectation that new year knew me I'm gonna lose weight , I'm gonna do this , I'm gonna do that , and by the second week we slowly stop going to the gym , we slowly stop eating healthy and the next thing , you know , we give up . And then we don't even revisit that why ? And , honestly speaking , perhaps it was not important .

And our goal has to be important to us . It has to be meaningful , it has to be like I said , is it worth it ? And so we've got to surround ourselves with supportive people who are going to encourage us . Perhaps it's gonna be people that have that same goal in mind .

You pair up with them and you hold each other accountable , because now you're developing a system in place . Same thing with me when I was going back to college . There were other people who had children who were going back to school , who were also older , and we created a support system . We were having group studies .

We were able to bring our kids to the group studies . The kids would play , we would eat . One of the husbands was barbecuing while we were studying and we were working on our project together and it made it fun because it was encouraging and it was supportive .

We were supporting each other , we were having fun doing it and we weren't thinking about oh my god , I've got to do this assignment . No , we all took little bits of the assignment and worked it out together and then we brought it all in and it made it that much easier for us to get through it . And the same thing happened when I moved back to Texas .

I had to find a new group . I had a regroup and I had to find somebody else and I had to form another support system and stay committed to your goal . Even when it gets hard , you've got to stay committed to your goal , believing yourself in your abilities . I don't know how many times I felt like , oh my god , I don't know if it's worth it anymore .

And I would just tell myself for what ? It's too late , I'm too old , I'm not gonna finish , it's gonna take too long . I don't even know if I could do it . I don't even know if I'm gonna find a job . I don't even know if I'm gonna be able to afford to student loan .

I mean , oh my god , all the , all these thoughts started to come in my head and and that's because there were gonna be moments that it was gonna get hard . But you've got to push through , amigas . You've got to push through and know that you can do it , no matter what . You're gonna be able to do it . Why ? Because it's important to you .

Okay , I mean , think about it . The goal I always say this , and one of my friends likes to always say it because she says that it always it made sense to her and that is the goal stays the same . It's the plan that's going to change . So if that's your goal , then work through that goal .

You may have to change up that plan every now and then , but that goal is still going to be the same . So , in addition to what I said earlier about you know , staying committed , staying focused surrounding yourself , you know , amongst encouraging and supportive people pushing through all of that .

If you feel like you are making mistakes along the way , don't give up on it . Stop , evaluate and ask yourself okay , what did I learn from this situation here ? What can I do to use it to my advantage ? How can I grow from this ? What can I do to improve on this ? Okay , never take mistakes as failures . Failures are just opportunities to learn .

If you never fail , then when are you going to learn ? So don't look at it as failure . I don't , oh my god . There were many times that I would make a mistake , for instance , like the weight loss thing . Right , we stop going to the gym , we start eating bad , and then what do we say ? Oh man , I don't already messed up , let me just start next year .

Forget it . I don't already screwed this up , so let me just stop and let me just start back up again next year , instead of saying you know what , okay , today I messed up , it's okay , the next meal I eat will be a healthier meal and then tomorrow I'll just start back up again . No , that's not the mentality most of us take .

The mentality we take is oh well , shoot , forget it . I don't already messed up , let me just whatever . Learn from it , grow from it and improve . Do whatever it is that you need to do in order to make your goal or your dream possible . Take care of yourself . You have to take care of yourself , mentally and physically .

Take a pause , take one of those days to take care of yourself , date yourself . I've said this before Go to the movies , go to dinner , go find an Amiga , hang out , do something , remove yourself from what you're doing , go do something completely different . Reset , regroup and then reactivate , but take care of yourself .

Another thing , and this is one that most of us don't like to do , and that's hearing criticism . Now , this first stylistic aspect , which is , ah , criticism can be a healthy thing , depending on who is criticizing you and what are they criticizing you about . Not everyone's criticism is worth hearing .

If it's constructive criticism , then ask for clear feedback and ask how is this going to help me improve and grow ? Because , see , you'll have people that'll say , oh well , you should have done it this way , or you should have done it that way because it was the way they would have done it .

My question would be okay if you want me to do it this way , how did it work for you and can you give me some examples of how it was successful for you ? What steps did you take , see ? Because you can't tell me I should have done this or I should have done that , and then you're not gonna break it down in steps . No , no , no , no .

Or you know you'll hear that criticism . I don't even know why you're doing it . You know I would have just given up , see , that kind of criticism I wouldn't even recommend . Ask for feedback and ask for steps . Let them give you an example of how it's going to help you improve and grow .

One of the things that I like to tell clients whenever they meet with me because , for those of you that don't know , I am a life coach and whenever they come to me , you know , one of the things that and this happens with a lot of us women is that we want to compare ourselves to somebody else .

Here's the thing you cannot compare your journey to someone else's journey , because oftentimes what you're doing is you're comparing your beginning to their middle , and what I mean by that is that they're already further along in their journey and yet you're trying to compare where you're at to the journey they've already been doing for a while .

See , what you don't know is the mistakes that they had to endure , the hardships they had to face . You know , the falling down , the getting up , the dusting off the knees . See , those are the things that we don't know about , because all we're seeing is where they are at today .

We're not seeing the before , we're seeing the middle , we're seeing where they're progressed . And that's one of the things that we have to do is we cannot compare ourselves to somebody else , because it's different , it's gonna be different .

Like I said , now that I've written my book and I've already had it published , I've got people that say , oh my god , you know , I keep trying to write a book and you know , and I just see you and it's like , yeah , I can't get there . And you know , one of the things that I tell them is like , are you serious ?

Like , oh my god , you don't know how many times I wanted to give up on writing this book . You don't know how many times I wanted to walk away from it . You don't know how many times that my head was hurting because of this book .

But it was something that I wanted to do and I knew that I was passionate about doing it , and so I had to come back and revisit it . That's the thing . Most people don't know that I had to go and talk to my coach and it's like , okay , I'm getting stuck because I'm having to relive a situation that I don't want to relive and we had to walk .

I mean , walk it out , we had to talk it out . So remember , pursuing your dream is going to be a journey . It's not a destination , it's a journey . It's a marathon , not a sprint , and it's okay to make changes along the way , because you're going to make them .

As long as you're learning and growing , you're going to change them , some things about it , and the most important thing is to stay true to yourself and your values . Keep moving forward . I mean , I take it one step at a time .

Listen , your dream is Really worth it because it's your dream and it is something that you want to do and it is something that you're going to be passionate about and , at the end of the day , it's going to be so worth it . So , please , don't give up , amigas . Don't give up on yourself . Don't give up on your dream .

Don't give up on the things that you are going to be accomplishing later on . Do not give up on that . You're not too old , it's not too late , and you can do this . Yo creo en ti , tengo mucha fe en ti . Trust me , I believe in you .

I trust that you're going to accomplish these goals and if you need an accountability partner , listen , reach out to me , send me a message on Instagram or go to my website , wwwmommyonamissioncom , and Schedule an appointment with me . Let me be your accountability partner .

Whatever it is that you need in order to achieve your goal , it can happen , it's doable , and we can create a plan of action that's going to work for you , but I believe in you . Si se puede , tú lo puedes hacer . Ahora es cuando , amiga . Let's do this .

If this message resonates with you or you feel that this message can benefit someone else , share this episode with them . Like me on Facebook , follow me on Instagram I'm also on tiktok . Reach out to me . Let me know how I can be of assistance for you , no matter what that is . Thank you so much . I'm you got for spending some time with me this morning .

I'm so glad that we could have this moment Together . Please enjoy your Saturday , enjoy your weekend , enjoy your cafecito . If that's what you're having right now , and until Next Saturday , I will tune in once again for another episode of mommy on a mission .

If you are hearing this message , you've listened to the entire episode and for that I want to say me Gracias from the bottom of my heart . If you would like to dive deeper into today's message and would like to connect me , send the DM on Instagram at all our mommy on a mission , or Facebook at mommy on a mission .

You can also find me at mommy on a missioncom . I hope you've enjoyed this new episode and if you did , it would mean the world to me If you would subscribe , share this podcast and leave me a review on Spotify and Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your podcast .

Tune in next week for some more words of motivation , inspiration and encouragement on mommy on a mission .