Where did my dreams go?

discover your dreams again and how to begin pursuing them as a mom.

Where did my dreams go?

Have you ever been living your life then you look on social media to see the girl you went to school with is living her best life on European vacation? —FYI, this isn’t about comparison. This is about realizing you had the dream to travel Europe, too, but somewhere along the way you forgot it was a dream. Or does this sound familiar: you dreamed you would be a B.A. businesswoman; you delayed that dream because you wanted to be home while your kids were little. You KNEW you would pick the dream up once they were older. Now, they are older, but you have not had time because the kids are older and thus you are busier. If either these things don’t sound even a little bit familiar, it’s cool. I was talking about myself, ha-ha.

When I lost my dreams

At the end of my senior year in high school, I traveled to New York City, Florida, and Washington, DC within about a six-week timeframe. It was the most fun I had ever had. It opened my mind to possibility. I felt like a jet setter and I wanted to have a career that allowed me to travel all over the world. I wanted to see places and to be successful. When I became pregnant at a young age, I never thought that dream would come to fruition. Everyone I knew told me to give up because “moms don’t have careers like that.” I believed them and I kept working my job. I need to say this—You can work your regular job and concentrate on being a mom. You can work your dream job and not pursue anything else. That is great you should enjoy how you live your everyday life—I mean believe bigger!  I didn’t forget my dream, but I didn’t pursue it. I thought it was pointless. I lived my first decade as a mom without an identity outside of being a mom, because I didn’t know it was acceptable to want to pursue anything outside of motherhood.

How I got my dreams back

I believed it was my path until I met women who wanted things outside of motherhood! These women wanted to pursue big goals because they had kids not despite having kids. It was like someone hit me in the face with cold water! One woman, my friend turned mentor, was adamant about having dreams turning them in to goals and actively pursuing them. She always says, “we must model for our girls what it looks like to have our own lives as business owners and we must teach our sons what it looks like to have a strong wife.” 

Another thing that opened my eyes to women being more than wives and mothers is the passage Proverbs 31:15-18.

15 She gets up while it is still night;
    she provides food for her family
    and portions for her female servants.
16 She considers a field and buys it;
    out of her earnings she plants a vineyard.
17 She sets about her work vigorously;
    her arms are strong for her tasks.
18 She sees that her trading is profitable,
    and her lamp does not go out at night.
(emphasis mine)

The Proverbs 31 strong woman is taking care of her family, she is taking care of her help, and she is taking care of business. Boom. (I also read: women can have help. Women you can hire help, you don’t have to do everything on your own! That is a different blog post.) I wanted to be that. I realized the people who told me to give up on my dreams and goals when I had my oldest advised me to do so because that is what they had done and what everyone they had known had done too.

My friend, the one mentioned earlier, and I were in a group discussion once. We were listening to people essentially complain about situation no solutions were being offered. She looked at me and said, “If they don’t like it, they can [make changes to live the life they want!]” (brackets to be concise) Que another bucket of cold water. I had been living my life discontent to match the way others lived theirs. Those words woke me up! For me aside from the obvious lack of self-esteem, I didn’t know I could do more, want more, or be more. I had always been taught “you get what you get, and you don’t throw fit”. I didn’t need to throw a fit, but I am allowed to want to more than the typical life. I think I envisioned my life as a box. I could be successful in this box, because if I stepped out of the box and I failed at what I was pursuing, then ‘they’ were right— “Moms don’t have careers like that”.   I had a mindset shift. I decided ‘they’ were wrong, and I was going to step of the box and fail but when I do inevitably fail, I am going to stay out the box and try again.

How I pursue my dreams

Once I decided to pursue my dreams, I had to switch my mindset from “maybe one day” to create a map: “I will do Z once I have accomplished X and Y”. For me figuring out I wanted to do X, Y, and Z was the easy part. How I would do X and Y is where I needed help. You see, I had dreamed up The Mama Rx years ago, but I didn’t have the discipline to be successful. This is when I knew I needed a mentor. It is when I began to seek help.

I reached out to my now mentor because she was probably the first adult I knew who spoke about having goals and had created steps to reach them. She introduced me to an environment where when taken advantage of it helped to develop personal discipline and professional habits. Through social selling, I have begun to develop personally and professionally. It has developed skills that enable me to reach my dreams.

For instance, I had been pursuing passive income in the digital space, but I was unsure how to create something with so many moving parts efficiently and effectively. Using the tools and habits I had created in my social selling business; I created a plan with small goals to get me to the finished product I had set out to complete. My new habits began to spill over into other parts of my life—motherhood and marriage.

At home, we have begun creating goals as a family—individually and as a whole!  It is rewarding to see my oldest reach a goal she had been working on for a couple of months and to see her learn how to plan out her goals! I get to teach her how to work hard and we get to celebrate together.

So, yeah–okay, I am not a jet setter—yet. ? But I do get to travel quarterly for my businesses, and I am meeting new people every day. I have come to know that I always wanted to be a mom, it is that I didn’t want to be ONLY a mom. Personally, knowing other women who model how to be successful in the areas I seek to be successful in has been life-changing and encouraging.

Do you have friends who encourage you and stretch you? If not, how can I help?
Are you living the life you imagined? What can you do to create change?

I hope this sparks something in your heart to begin to make some small steps toward your dreams/goals! It will be worth it. Personal growth is one of the most rewarding endeavors I have set out on. It never stops. I look forward to hearing from you! What is your next step?