by desing | Faith & Purpose
Let’s face it. Getting rejected can sting! Who in the world enjoys being rejected? Other people can say or do cruel, mean and hurtful things while others are simply sharing their opinion, not really knowing how their words or lack thereof can positively or negatively infect the lives of others. And in this day and age of social media, in which everyone is hiding behind a screen, opinions are getting more and more judgmental and outright mean as we speak.
But here’s the key that we all must understand while on our journey of success:
All good will be attacked.
But here’s the other kicker:
It’s not what happens to you in life; it’s what you do about it.
So it’s safe to say that no matter what you do or how good you do it, someone will ALWAYS have something negative to say about you, your cause or your business. This is a FACT.
Nevertheless, that does not change that it can hurt and if we are not careful we can allow the opinions of others to determine our joy, peace, happiness or self-worth. To that I say, “No more!”
I was at an event recently where I felt compelled in my heart (and I know God enough to know that this is how He usually speaks to me) to share an abusive relationship from my past. I didn’t think about it, I just did what I knew I was supposed to do. But a few minutes after I shared my piece, I started to hear those annoying voices of doubt. “What are these people going to think about me?” or “Should I have said anything?” or “I don’t want anyone to judge me to think that I am weak.”
As soon as those thoughts crept their way into my mind, another set of thoughts took over. “Maria, you are serving God. Is God mad at you for doing this? Does God still love you? Do you believe you were serving God? So why the heck does it matter to you if these people judge you or not. You are serving God and not the opinions of other people.”
I immediately felt better. I knew which voice I needed to listen to. Not to mention, I ended up receiving several different “thank-you’s” from other women who had experienced the same thing but who were too ashamed to share. In that moment, I gave other women courage and here I am worrying about what other people may think of me. Smh…
I share this story with you to show you that the only opinion that mattered at that moment was my own. I could have allowed other people’s “perceived” notions of me to make me feel insecure or unworthy but I refused to.
So what’s the point? On your journey of success, personal development and embracing your legacy, you are going to have plenty of people who will have negative opinions of you. The best thing to do is to accept that as part of the process and remember that your security is never to be contingent upon other’s people opinion or support of you.
People. We are fickle nowadays. One day we support something and the next day we will tear that person’s character apart with hateful words. Getting judged by others is just as certain as winter coming after fall. Just as you prepare for the winter (because unfortunately it is coming), is the same way that you should prepare to deal with negative commentary.
How you deal with it is your business. I deal with it knowing that my worth, security and value comes from God and He is filled with love for me – no matter what I do. He has called me and predestined me. So if I’m good enough for God, then I’m good enough for me. I let Him handle all the naysayers and continue to focus on my journey of becoming better.
I leave you with this. What makes you secure? What makes you whole? Once you love all of who you are, then you can better deal with the opinion of others. Remember that no one else’s opinion of you should ever change your opinion of you.
XOXO,
Maria I. Melendez
@embraceherlegacy
by desing | Faith & Purpose, Tools
“Learn to work harder on yourself than you do on your job. If you work hard on your job you’ll make a living, if you work hard on yourself you can make a fortune.”
That’s the tone that I want to set off for this week’s message.
In the last (24) hours, I have realized just how powerful we are as human beings, I put an emphasis on that word “being” for a special reason because we are all being or becoming who we truly believe we will become. I wholeheartedly believe that you become what you believe, not what you want or desire, but what you truly believe about yourself.
Believing something does not start when we actually “see” the manifested evidence but believing starts in the mind way before we can actually see something. Our minds are the pinnacle of what makes us human beings so darn special and tremendously different from any other living species in this universe. We have the power to think and shape our worlds with our minds because every thing, every action and every successful venture was first manifested in the mind.
I am learning that in order to achieve true success then you have to change what is on the inside of you and that will be the catalyst to change what’s going on outside of you. Instead of trying to change your circumstances, I want you to start thinking about how you can change yourself.
We put so much hard work into our jobs and careers, spending years on educating ourselves, spending countless hours working harder at our jobs, getting up early and leaving late and doing all that is in our power to change our outside circumstance; instead of turning that same energy inward and work on our being, our character, our way of thinking, our way of looking at our circumstances, our philosophy, our attitudes or our gift of communication.
I want to encourage you to make a commitment to start going to work on yourself. How can you become better? How can you become more valuable? That is the major point that I want to stress here – in order to have more, you are going to have to become more. We are all on the journey of becoming and embracing our unique purposes, which we were each beautifully gifted for. I want us all to focus on becoming more – working harder on ourselves that we do on our jobs.
“Maria, so how do I do that?” I am so glad that you asked!
- Make a choice to no longer become easily offended and allow conflict to interrupt your circle of peace. If someone else’s action or lack thereof are interrupting your peace then, my dear, you are giving away too much power. Whatever conflict is going on in your world, community, family, business or job is not to interfere with your inner peace. If someone offends you, then make it water off a ducks back and let it slide off of you. When we focus our energy on being upset with others then that is energy that we are wasting when we can apply that same energy to our personal development.
- Develop a plan to make yourself more valuable. There is a reason someone can make $52 million a year at a company and another can make $20,000 a year. We are not paid for our time; we are paid for our value to the marketplace. I am not saying our value to God, our loved ones or purpose; I am strictly speaking in fiscal terms. Think of ways that you can make yourself more valuable to your company, if you can make your company $1 billion dollars, then you better believe that you are valuable to the marketplace and your salary will be an example of that.
- Be patient. Whether you are stuck in traffic, waiting on the subway train, or waiting for your success to physically harvest – I need for all of us to have a little more patience. Instead of looking at a circumstance with your “impatient” hat, then try to look at it from a different perspective. Perhaps God could be saving you from a fatal accident; that’s why you’re stuck in traffic. Or perhaps you are not ready yet for the success that is in store for you, maybe there is something that you are supposed to learn in your season of “waiting.”
- Don’t wish for less problems, wish for more skill. Instead of wishing or praying the problems away, ask God to give you a strategy or skill set to triumph over and learn from your challenges.
- Check the doubt at the door. The way someone else or a circumstance can have control over you is to instill doubt over you. If you are in a situation where perhaps your business is not making as much money as you thought it would then you may begin to doubt if you are doing the right thing and begin to question yourself. Doubt is another way to control you and fuel negative thinking. Eliminate the doubt from your mind.
- Get a personal development daily routine going. What you do in private determines public performance. Have a routine in place to help you work on yourself daily. It can prayer, exercise, reading motivating material, journaling, learning a new word – whatever it is, get a routine going.
- Define, set and achieve personal development goals. Enroll in leadership training, read a book on a topic that facilitates your personal growth, enroll in a coaching program, study effective communicators. Strive towards investing into yourself to become your best self.
I want you; yes YOU, to become more! Become better and become more valuable. This is an essential factor to defining your one-of-a-kind legacy and attracting the success you desire. You can make a living but you have the potential to make a life that is so great that it impacts generation after generation to come. Which will you choose?
Always embrace your legacy 🙂
XOXO,
Maria I. Melendez
@embraceherlegacy
by desing | Faith & Purpose, Tools
So the other day I read this post that read “6 + 3 = 9 and so does 5 + 4, the way you do things is not always the only way to do them. Respect other people’s way of thinking.” When I say that this was right on time when I read it! I will be candid enough with you to let you know that I have been fighting one of life’s inevitable storms for a few months now and at first, I was struggling big time because I thought my journey of success would be easy, breezy and beautiful. I thought that the red carpet of success would be rolling out for me by now and although others see me as successful, I ultimately define my success and I feel like I have so much further to go.
But lately, I’ve been experiencing a new found peace in my journey. Since I was a child, I always yearned for an extraordinary life with an extraordinary amount of success. And now I am realizing that it will take an extraordinary path to reach my ultimate life goals. Another major culprit that was causing my issues with this life-changing storm in my life was comparing myself to others. I didn’t even notice that I was doing it until one day I stopped and thought about what I was thinking about. Sounds crazy but sometimes we can allow our thoughts to run ramped and determine our moods and actions. We can see others achieve their successes and feel like “When is my time going to come?” For me, it wasn’t even about that. My issue was that I felt like “When will I get to enjoy the fruits of my labor?” or “God, what is taking you so long? How come I can’t enjoy the pleasures of life right now like everyone else? Aren’t I serving you? Where are you? Why is it so hard?”
That’s when I decided to change my thinking. I looked around at the people that were “enjoying the fruits of their labor” and I realized that most of them were not living the life that they wanted; they were still tied to a job or circumstance in life that was not allowing them to become what they truly desire. And it hit me. “Maria, you have been diligent and dedicated and you have proved to yourself that you stand for something. You have gone after your purpose to manifest your dreams in spite of whatever odds you may have faced. You are living in purpose and defining the legacy you want to leave even when it’s making you uncomfortable. You are the essence of what you preach.” I fell into a state of peace which I have never experienced before. So much so that if God were to call me home tomorrow or earlier than I expected, then I would leave in peace knowing that I lived every day standing for something and becoming who I wanted to be so I could honor what God has called me to do. WOW! At my age, not too many people can say that, but I can.
So why did I just tell you all of this? Well, I want you to know this very fact. We are all trying to get to that number 9. Some people will get there by adding 8 + 1; some people will get there by adding 2 + 10 and then subtracting 3. The key is that we are not to judge how others get there and most importantly we are not to judge ourselves either. You equation to get to “9” may look COMPLETELY different from others and that is perfectly fine. If you are not where you want to be then start to embrace the season that you are in. If you are reading this then I am going to go out on a limb and say that you do not desire a mediocre life, one that is said to be reasonable but which is really a mask for fear. You want to live a life of freedom and one that demonstrates to the world that you are living in your purpose, embracing your legacy and manifesting your dreams no matter what the cost. So what if you’re in a rough patch that is a result of you chasing your dreams? Most people are in rough patches and they are not even pursuing their passions. Now I am not saying to judge them, because once again, we are all experiencing our own journey to get to that “9.” Nonetheless, embrace your season of difficulty for your dreams and applaud yourself for courageously going after what YOU want and not what the world tells you is “normal.”
I think that we allow others to define what success is or what “normal” is for us instead of boldly setting our own rules and setting our own precedence.
I leave you with this question. If you were no longer here next month, would you be satisfied with the message that your life sent? Would you feel as though you have accomplished what you wanted in spite of your circumstances? Would you be proud of your legacy? I hope that you would be and if you wouldn’t be then praise the fact that you are still on this earth and you have the power to change that. Utilize what you have access to and if there is any way that I can serve you through any of our purpose living tools or Embrace Her Legacy resources then feel free to see if any of them are a good fit for you.
We are all embracing a new season, one that is usually to provoke change and achievement. I am here to serve you in the best way that I can but it’s ultimately your decision to live in purpose and embrace your legacy!
XOXO,
Maria I. Melendez
@embraceherlegacy
by desing | Faith & Purpose
So I was reading something the other day about the journey of life and how it may not necessarily be about becoming something or someone but “unbecoming” everything that is not really you so you can be who you were meant to be in the first place. I found this powerful because lately I’ve learned to become more comfortable in whom I am not. See, I hold myself and others around me accountable to a certain level of excellence, integrity and character. If you ever came to me for advice, please do not expect me to be one of those people who will tell you what you want to hear, I will tell you what you need to hear – of course, all in love. But as we know, love speaks truth even when it may hurt.
I would fight myself for not being someone who I was not (someone who pacifies and sugar coats the truth) until I started to accept that perhaps God made me this way for a special reason. I am that person in your life that will hold you accountable for everything that you say, do, say that you will do or fail not to do. I started to imagine, “How different would this world be if more of us held each other accountable for our actions or lack thereof?”
Think about it for a second. Let’s say you tell someone that you want to lose (15) pounds by the end of the year and you are set to start a new workout and diet plan come next week Monday. You tell this person that you will work out 3x a week and cut your sugary food intake by 50%. Imagine if that following week, this person called you and asked for an update on your progress and not only does this person call that first week, they begin to call you every week holding you accountable for the goals that you set. You would be way more than likely to accomplish your goals because you know that someone is holding you accountable for it.
Many of us have this mindset of “minding our business” when we see people around us making mistakes but yet we talk about those people and the mistakes they are making with everyone else but that person. How is that really “minding your business?”Please do not confuse what I am saying. I am not telling you to judge others for their failures, or to put your nose all up in people’s lives but if you see a friend who is struggling with a goal, relationship or major decision then instead of talking about them or “leaving it to God,” then why not try becoming an accountability partner for that person. We are a human race and we all have the same basic desires: to be loved, to be accepted, to be understood, to live in purpose, to be at peace. So why not help each other along the way?
Friends tell you what you need to hear and not what you want to hear. When I was miserable at my job at a major record label and complaining to my friend about by misery over dinner, it was her will to tell me about myself and how I had been complaining for over a year that made me look in the mirror at myself and decide to make a change. She held me accountable and had she not done so, I doubt that I would have ever left my job to pursue my purpose.
It is time that you hold yourself accountable and others around you accountable for the things they say that they will do or the things that they do not do. God uses people and no one can fulfill the call of God over their life without other people. This is part of what I do with my coaching clients and part of what my vision coach does for me, hold me accountable and because of that I have grown INCREDIBLY in my vision. If you want to know more about how to work with me as a coach and accountability, then please click here.
So here are some pointers for effective accountability:
- The key factor for change is motivation, not information. If someone is not motivated to change they will not. So do not try to force that on anyone.
- Accountability cannot work effectively if you are operating out of negative emotions like guilt, shame or discouragement, which is what we tend to do. Do not make someone else feel bad but use positive reinforcement to encourage them to do something proactive about their situation. This goes for yourself as well, operate out of your own positive reinforcement not negativity because if you do, the change will not be long-lasting and can even egg on a backwards slope into more negative behavior.
- Accountability relationship is built around 7 principles:
- Voluntary (Someone should want to be held accountable, if they do not want to, then it may fuel unhealthy accountability)
- Positive
- Pre-emptive (Proactive, not reactive)
- Consistent
- Honest
- Specific
- Energizing
Peer accountability with your peers should have:
- A permission to ask
- A clearly defined question to ask when holding each other accountable. Develop and write down the question you want your friend to ask you
- Structure – define when and how often accountability will be provided.
I challenge you to get an accountability partner and if you want to learn more about how I can support you through accountability via Vision Coaching or Goal-Setting please feel free to learn more here. As always, it’s my honor to serve!
XOXO,
Maria I.Melendez
@embraceherlegacy
by desing | Faith & Purpose, Tools
So most of you know that every week I send out my “legacyism” messages that are created to empower, motivate and inspire you. My messages are usually influenced by something that I am currently dealing with or have dealt with – which is how I work most of the time as I like to speak from personal experiences.
This week I decided to switch things up a bit and I recorded a video for this week’s post.
One of our biggest setbacks in life can be the wrong relationship. I believe that relationships can make you or break you and you cannot effectively honor the call over your life if you have a slew of unhealthy relationships in your life. Honey, you are worth so much more! And trust me when I say that I have been there, done that and go the t-shirt!
You have to know the difference between those people who are assigned to you and those people who are attached to you. People who are attached to you are those soul-sucking folks that take away from your life and do not add anything. They eat at your peace, well-being and spirit. Every time you deal with this person you are more tired and frustrated then invigorated. Simply put – they are like leeches sucking at your soul.
Then there are those people that have been assigned to you. God works through people to ultimately achieve His will. There are people who have been assigned to you for whatever reason it may be. Perhaps it is to encourage, motivate or inspire or perhaps it’s simply to put a smile on their face. Some people are assigned to us for our growth, for a moment in time, for a season or for a lifetime. There are people who are waiting for you to use your gifts, talents, skills and abilities to serve them – this is the essence of living in purpose.
So I want you to take an inventory of the relationships in your life. Is there someone who has been attaching themselves to you that you need to let go? Are there people who perhaps have been assigned to you? Are there people who you can serve?
Even if you may not know who has been assigned to you, I want to challenge you to live daily in an awareness as to who you can be of service to. You don’t have to do anything extravagant, sometimes it can be as simple as listening to someone, being a great friend, sharing words of wisdom to someone at the office or helping someone with their grocery bags.
I share more about this in this week’s video post so I hope that you have a chance to watch it here. Feel free to comment on the video with any questions and I will do a follow-up video post with answers. Thank you so much for joining me on this journey and I hope that I can help you embrace your legacy in any way that I can!
As always, it’s my honor to serve!
Maria I. Melendez
@embraceherlegacy
