Live Expecting Things to Change In Your Favor

by desing | Faith & Purpose

So last week’s post and Periscope message of motivation on overcoming failure, really hit home and inspired many of you. It takes vulnerability and authenticity in order to truly inspire others, and although I’ve struggled with doing so in the past, I’m blessed to know that you can find encouragement from my own journey of navigating through failures.

In last week’s message, I shared a point that I feel led to expand upon this week and that’s to change your mindset and expectations. When you’ve dealt with failure, especially when it’s a repeated failure in the same area, trying to believe that anything good can happen is ridiculously difficult! Your mind begins to feed you those lies to not expect anything at all. Your heart doesn’t even want to expect a positive outcome because you’ve failed and been rejected the last 5 times.

If this is your current situation, then this is your wake up call to change your expectation.

I realized that I was allowing the failures, rejections and disappointments of my past to steal my hope and expectations for my future. I expected the worse or things to go the same way they’ve always been until I had an “a ha” moment and realized that I had the power living on the inside of me to change my situation.

I’d pray but in my heart, I really didn’t expect any change. I’d declare positive expectations but I didn’t believe what I was saying. I’d “believe” that the meeting would go well, but in my subconscious mind I was waiting for the rejection.

I don’t care if you’re currently looking for a new job and you’ve been rejected at your last 6 interviews, or if you’ve been trying to get your manuscript published and you’ve heard “no” from 15 publishers, or  if you’ve gone to 10 banks to get a loan for your business and you’ve been declined every time, or if you’re praying for emotional healing in a relationship and you’re still struggling with those feelings of despair, I want you change your mind and wholeheartedly expect things to turn around in your favor!

Did you know that Daymond John (branding expert, founder of FUBU and the “people’s shark” on Shark Tank) was declined by 27 banks before starting FUBU! AND get this, he never got the loan. His mother took out an additional mortgage on her home to finance his dreams while he lived in her basement! Howard Schultz, who is the CEO of Starbucks, was turned down by banks 242 times!

Yes, 242 times!

Your “failures” may not be in career or business, maybe it’s in your family, health, relationships or marriage. You must know that God (yes, God) is able to turn your situation around but you must believe that. Your relationship with your father may be strained but things can change if you believe it can. The doctor may be telling you that you’re likely to have breast cancer because your mother and grandmother had it. You have to believe that just because it happened to them does not mean it’s a death sentence for you. Your younger sister may have ran away from home and is out on the streets, you have to believe that those prayers of yours are working and soon she’ll come back home. Why pray if you’re not going to believe that things will change?

The key to living with expectancy of good things happening is hidden inside of your heart. If your heart is filled with resentment, guilt, shame, regret, unforgiveness, anger, fear, or worry then living with expectancy is going to be almost impossible for you. You have to strip yourself of those negative emotions because they are holding you back.

Things can change in your favor. Today is your day to start that shift but it begins within your mind and heart. Will you make the commitment to change your mind and start living with expectation?

Destroy those negative thoughts and replace them with positive expectations – today!

XOXO,

Maria I. Melendez
@embraceherlegacy

Five Things To Do After You’ve Failed

by desing | Faith & Purpose

I don’t know one person that wants to fail or enjoys failure. Failure hurts and the fear of failure is perhaps one of the most common reasons why most people fail to give their dreams a try.

Failure can be painful, and even embarrassing. How do I know? Because I’ve been there, done that and got the t-shirt. We live in a world where success is so glamorized but how many times have you ever had someone authentically speak about their failures? Failure is this secret thing that’s going on behind-the-scenes that everyone is dealing with but no one is talking about.

No one is giving lessons on how to deal with failure. There have been so many times when I’ve experienced the labor pains of birthing my dreams or the growing pains of becoming a woman where I yearned to talk to someone who had gone thru what I was dealing with it. All I wanted to ask was “How did you get through this? What did you do?” That person never showed up so instead of looking for it in others, I started looking for it inside of the unchangeable force that lives inside of me.

That’s when I learned one of the greatest lessons: Everything that I need is already inside of me to accomplish the destiny that has been set before me.

You might want the comfort of others but that may not always be there. You are so beautifully made and you must know that all that you need to get through whatever failures you’ve experienced lives inside of you. It may not feel like it but its there. You can’t draw strength from someone else; true strength comes within yourself.

Nevertheless, I’m going to share with you five things you can do after you’ve failed to learn the lesson and gain power over that failure. We give failures way too much power over us and it’s time to get your power back! Don’t allow your failures hold you captive any longer and this is how:

1. Understand that failure is just an event and it doesn’t define you – This is first and most crucial step. Your failures do not define who you are; failures are events in life not the end of life. If you allow failure or successes to define you, then that means that both failure and success have the power to determine your worth, purpose and meaning. This is too much power to give away. You are worthy whether you’ve failed or succeed.
2. Change your mindset and expectations – Once you’ve experienced failure, it can be such a challenge to expect good things to happen. If you adapt this mindset, then you are giving that failure power of your future destiny. The failure from your past is going to steal the success of your future. You will get what you expect and you will attract what you believe. The greatest battle in life is the one fought in your mind. If you keep expecting the negative outcomes then that’s exactly what will manifest. You have to tear down those negative, fear, worry based thoughts and replace them with thoughts of your desired outcome.
3. Have a positive evaluation of what happened – In order to move forward, you have to adapt a positive evaluation of your past. So instead of blaming yourself, others, holding onto bitterness or what you could have done differently – have a different outlook on what happened. What can you learn? Why do you think that failure had to happen? How can this prepare you for your future? In light of you want for your future, what’s the wisest way to address your past? A good way to do this is to name what you went through because words have power to adjust your perspective. You can address that failure as a “bad breakup” or “God eliminating the wrong person to make you prepared for the right person.” Or instead of “my business is failing and I’m broke” change it to “I’m learning perseverance and how to become resourceful so that I can effectively run my successful business in the future.”
4. Take responsibility for any part you have – This part is obvious but not easy. You must learn to take responsibility for your part of the failure. Accept it, own it, forgive yourself if you need to and move forward.
5. Determine what wisdom you can take away from the failure – After you’ve assessed what part you’re responsible for, determine what lessons you can take away from this failure. What can you do differently next time? How can you apply what you’ve learned to the next time? What can you avoid doing this time? What parameters or boundaries do you need to set next time? These are the questions you ask so that you truly become victorious over those failures!

If you’ve had some failure with your goals and you want to work with an accountability partner, then I highly recommend setting up a Goal-Setting Session. This is a great way to gain insight from someone else who may see mistakes that you’ve missed.

Remember that the way that your heart feels is a result of what you’re concentrating on. Fix your eyes on the future and take your eyes off that failure.

XOXO,

Maria I. Melendez
@embraceherlegacy

What to Do When You Don’t Know What to Do Next

by desing | Faith & Purpose

Have you had one of those moments when you’re working super hard towards your goals and it seems like the harder you work at it, the more resistance you encounter?

You feel like you’re hitting dead end after dead end but sometimes it’s not a dead end but a redirection.

Instead of recognizing that, like most of us, you keep going towards that goal trying any and every strategy that you think may work (my fellow entrepreneurs can relate to what I’m saying) but you’re still hitting that dead end.

Nothing seems to be working as you’ve tried everything and you don’t know what else to do.

Well, here’s a little advice –

Take a break, walk away for a moment, gather your thoughts and get back to it later.

I don’t know about you but there seems to be this social pressure to always be busy because in our culture we’re misled to believe that our worth is in how busy you are or how much you’ve produced.

However, being busy doesn’t always mean that you’re being effective. You want to be effective with how you’re spending your time instead of trying to put on the façade of always being busy in order to validate your worth.

You are and always will be worthy because you are a living, breathing human being. You don’t need to have all the answers and everything figured it out in order to achieve your success. When you let go and allow the ideas to come to you, you’ll find that success will begin to attract itself towards you instead of you struggling to reach for it.

There have been times where I’ve felt guilty for taking a day off or like something was wrong because I really didn’t know how I was going to solve the “dead ends” that I was facing. But then I had to ask myself why I felt that way, which is when I realized that I was looking for meaning and purpose in being busy and having all the answers to my success.

Maybe you’re in a current situation where you keep trying to figure out how to drive traffic from your Instagram to your website in order gain sales, or you keep trying to get that promotion, or you keep trying to get your boyfriend to propose to you or you keep trying to break that smoking habit but nothing you try is working.

Perhaps it’s time to let go of trying to figure it all out. Get off of Instagram for a few days and go have some fun with your friends or grab a glass of wine alone. Take a few days off of work and take a short vacation or a “staycation” where you stay home and enjoy some down time instead of going crazy trying to figure out how you’re going to get promoted. Take a break from looking for a job for a few hours, pack a good lunch, go sit in the park and read a good book. Stop trying to get your boyfriend to propose to you and trust that if he’s the one, it will happen at the right time which may not be your timing. Celebrate every day or every hour that you go without smoking that cigarette and take it one moment at a time.

In those quiet moments, your spirit will speak to you and give you the direction, wisdom and guidance that you need. Instead of rejecting it, embrace it and trust that you’ll be redirected to finish what you started!

Don’t feel guilty for taking a break, we all need it.

XOXO,

Maria I. Melendez
@embraceherlegacy

Don’t Be a Punk, Fight For Your Success

by desing | Faith & Purpose

You may be familiar with the iconic line from the movie, The Color Purple where Sophia (beautifully played by Oprah Winfrey) has had enough and she says “All my life I’ve had to fight!”

Sophia hit it on head!

Anything good in this life is going to require you to fight for it. It’s so easy to give up on anything once things get tough because no one enjoys experiencing pain, frustration, disappointment or delay. Whether it is your dreams, your marriage, your family, your happiness, your prosperity – you have to accept that you are going to have to fight for it!

Life will throw you some unexpected circumstances that may try to steal your joy, peace, hope, patience or integrity. Sometimes those circumstances can be so scary that we allow ourselves to be bullied into the corner by them.

If this is your current situation, then it’s time to fight back! Don’t allow life to bully you into a corner any longer because everything in your life is going to be a fight for territory. There will always be an opposing force trying to stop you from your success. You are not defined by your circumstances as your circumstances do not define who you are. Who you are is expressed in how you choose to respond to what life throws at you.

You can choose to wine or win, sink or swim, be bullied or fight back as the choice is yours. Bullies know exactly who to pick on; the ones who are not going to put up a fight. Bullies will never go after someone that they know will fight for their lunch money; they prey on the weak which shows how weak they really are.

Sometimes we give our challenges too much power over us, especially if it involves our finances. Having money is great but don’t let money have you. If you’re not in the best financial situation because you’re not making enough money, in between jobs or your business isn’t making as many sales as you thought, please stop feeling sorry for yourself and stop judging your success by a season in your life. All seasons eventually change. Make a commitment that your prosperity is worth the fight so relax. The right opportunity is coming at the right time.

Everything that happens to you is happening for you and it’s happening for a reason that although you may not understand, it will work out for your best in the end. Keep getting back up again and again and again, until you accomplish your goal.

You might be experiencing a rough patch between you and your husband or boyfriend. Well if you love each other, and that’s where you want to be then make a commitment to fight your relationship. Don’t look for the exit sign at the first sign of trouble. Fight for what’s rightfully yours!

Like Sophia made very clear, all your life you’ll have to fight. But the good news is that it’s worth it! When you fight for your success you will cherish it so much more because if it were handed to you, you would probably take it for granted.

You’re a warrior whether or not you may know it. Some circumstances come into our lives so that we can strengthen character traits that we’ll need to use later. The only way you can strengthen a character trait is by exercising it. Just like physical exercise makes your muscles sore because you’re using muscles that aren’t used to be strengthened, your character attributes will “feel sore” as you tap into them. It will hurt to exercise patience, tenacity, strength, selflessness or perseverance if you’ve never had to tap into that part of you before.

You have the RIGHT to a successful life! Consider your challenge as just another bully that’s trying to punk you around and choose to fight back!

XOXO,

Maria I. Melendez
@embraceherlegacy