You have a clear vision of what your dream job is and what you want to do in your life. You feel exhilarated and you are looking forward to getting up every day and going to work knowing it will be a joyful experience. But you get a slap in the face when your parents, your close family, and everyone who deems themselves as more experienced than you start questioning your choices and doubting your abilities. They will try to persuade you to give up on silly dreams and find a “real life” job that will put food on the table. Nobody can live off their dreams, right?
Don’t let anyone convince you that you can’t be happy with the choices you make.
It’s a very common situation for our parents, and other people from the older generations, to doubt our choices when it comes to important decisions in life. They feel they know more since they’ve been here longer than we have. And they feel it’s their right to question our choices and to lead us to what they think is the right path.
When loved ones don’t show us support in realizing our dreams, we can get depressed and start questioning what is right. “It’s really foolish of me thinking that I can be well off doing that job,” you might start thinking. Never let anyone instill a seed of doubt into your mind – we are all different, and nobody knows what’s best for you except yourself. You should be very aware of what you can achieve and confident in moving towards that goal. Don’t be afraid of failure, it can be the source of the most valuable lessons we get in life. When that happens, look on the bright side and just ignore comments like “We told you so.”
We are all good at something, you just need to find the passion that drives you
Sometimes family and loved ones think they know what career choices are the best for us and they want to impose their opinions on us. They have the best intentions, but when we disagree with their suggestions, they immediately express a fear that we won’t do well in life.
The reality is if you take their advice, you’ll end up miserable. Success comes because you feel passionate about what you do. That is the key – you need to find something you feel passionate about and keep going forward even if it seems you are going against the world. Your passion will motivate you, and you will be able to shut down all those voices telling you that you’re wrong. You shouldn’t worry about what people around you will think about your career choice. If it makes you happy, that’s all that matters. And that’s all it takes to become good at something.
Believe in yourself. What people say to you speaks more about them than you
If someone keeps criticizing you, you should stop for a moment and consider what it really means. It doesn’t have anything to do with you – it has to do with their own fears and insecurities. Maybe they wanted something different in life but they were too afraid to see it through and now they see you on your way to pursuing happiness. They want to bring you back to earth desperately either because they think you’ll suffer like them if you fail to realize your dreams or because they are jealous since you have the courage to do something they couldn’t. Either way, just be aware that it doesn’t say anything about you and don’t let it affect your confidence.
Shutting the voices around you, and the voices inside your head, that tell you “you are not good enough” is the key to happiness and success. You are worth it and you can do it. Embrace all the ups and downs as the part of your journey, believe in yourself, and never let anyone get into your head to drive you away from your path.
Featured photo credit: Tim Marshall via unsplash.com
