Dare To Dream: Believe In Yourself And Win Success

Achieving success isn’t just a matter of having the right resources or being at the right place at the right time. It is also about being audacious enough to dare to dream. Yanet Borrego talks about dreams and how they drive your success in this special episode. Join Yanet as she talks about going against the current, finding the answers within, and why being with people who support your dream is critical. Join in and be inspired to dream your success.

Interview with Tony Robbins and Sara Blakely: Start small, think big, scale quickly | tonyrobbins.com

Believe IT (Book) by Jamie Kern Lima: Amazon.com: Believe It (Audible Audio Edition): Jamie Kern Lima, Jamie Kern Lima, Simon & Schuster Audio: Audible Books & Originals

FREE Resources:

Need Clarity? 3 Simple Questions to boost your clarity and make authentic decisions that lead to fulfilling outcomes. You also have journaling space for each question so you can capture your insights.

Starting your day without direction? Start your morning on purpose with my go-to 5 mins routine.

Let's Connect!

---

Watch the episode here:

Listen to the podcast here:

Dare To Dream: Believe In Yourself And Win Success

Our episode is all about the one thing you need to pursue and accomplish your dreams. That one thing is believing in yourself. When I think of believing and wavering faith that things will go right for you or things will happen for you in this context of following your dreams, it is an abstract concept. At the same time, it is so important because when I think of myself as I’m going through this entrepreneurial journey as my first year as a full-time entrepreneur, the journey sometimes gets lonely.

It is so important for you to keep in mind what brought you here in the first place as you are trying to gain clarity in your dreams and set up your direction, establishing that why is so important. That is why even when I work with my coaching clients after we do the release work, the first thing we start working on is gaining that clarity on that direction and establishing a strong why for themselves. The whole purpose of life is to get those lessons learned, so you can be wiser in the next step that you take.

Believe In Yourself

Whenever you are going through challenging problems, issues, or obstacles in the way which are going to hit, it is so important to remember why you started this journey in the first place. As I’m progressing through my entrepreneurial journey after transitioning from corporate, I find that one of the key things for you to follow and pursue your dreams, whatever your context is, is that belief in yourself that you can make it happen. Not only can you make it happen, but it is going to happen for you.

The truth is that whenever you start working on your dreams, whenever you start gaining clarity on maybe the business or the side hustle you want to have, so many times, their how is not clear. Many times, when you start this journey, you have this unwavering commitment and faith that things are going to happen for you, but you don’t have every step of the staircase. 

You are taking that first step and hope with hard work and commitment that things are going to work out. Everyone that have accomplished great things in this life or everyone that is living their dreams started that way. They continue going that way because there is no guarantee of anything in the world. The only guarantee is, however you react to different situations, emotionally and mentally, the effort and the time you put into things, your faith, knowing that things are going to happen, is the only guarantee at the end of the day.

Believe you can get to that vision of yourself accomplishing your dreams, whatever that is for you. That is why this episode is very important because the one thing you need to succeed in your dreams and pursue your dreams is to believe in yourself. You have this innate wisdom within you. You already have this inner voice or this intuition within yourself telling you when you are on track or not.

I love giving this example of romantic relationships. There are times that we get into a romantic relationship and at the beginning, we start noticing the red flags, but we are so attached to this idea that the person can change or whatever vision we have of the relationship, that is what is going to happen. Even though the facts and the actions of the other person, a lot of times, it is giving us the information that this is not the person or relationship that aligns with you, and often, we decide to ignore those red flags.

That happened to me in past relationships. I was in a relationship. I had this amazing vision and idea of what a relationship was and what I wanted to have. Even though this person wasn’t aligning with those values, I was distorting my own reality to think that person was the right person for me. Inside me, this voice was telling me, “Yanet, look at the red flags. This is not the person for you.”

Practice Meditation

Often we ignore that voice and keep going. A few months or a few years after, you start realizing that the voice you ignored at the beginning was always right. This happens with career, family, friendships, and running a business. It is that inner voice that we need to discipline ourselves to start listening to. Sometimes, we might be in a situation where externally, we are perceived as successful. We have everything that anyone would consider success, such as a high-paying job, a great community of friends, but inside, you know there is something bigger or deeper that you need to connect to set that direction. Sometimes, you feel that this path that everyone is following is not the path for you.

It is important to connect back to that voice and start believing in yourself and permitting yourself not to need permission from anyone else. The only permission you need is permission from yourself. I always tell all my coaching clients, “This journey is an inside-out journey. I truly believe that all the answers you are seeking are lying within you already.”

Many times, we are trying to seek the answers outside of us, seek external approval, and seek someone who tells us what to do, but the reality is that when people tell us what to do, the level of fulfillment is so much lower than when we start realizing our own truth. That is what you are here for. That is why all of us are here on this Earth for. It is to understand what is our purpose here? What is our higher calling?

The only vehicle for you to get there is to start listening within you and believing more in yourself. That is the only vehicle to get there. That is why I love coaching so much because it is a very inside-out process. I’m not telling my clients what to do, but I’m helping them with the tools and techniques I have learned throughout the years. I’m helping them to access their answers within themselves already.

That is why I fell in love with it. It is not about telling because I’m going through the same process, too. We all are, even Oprah and Tony Robbins. It is about helping people navigate themselves and recognizing that they already have the tools and the answers within themselves. That is the beauty of it. Whenever you finish coaching, therapy, or mentorship, guess who you are going to be left with? Yourself.

Coaching is about teaching my clients how to think instead of what to think. It is helping them navigate themselves, which is going to serve them their whole life. Talking about this topic of believing in yourself, there is this unwavering faith that you got to have for your vision of your ideal self. When I was thinking of this episode, I was thinking of the prime example in my life of this unwavering faith, believing in dreams, and believing in my mom. I was born in Cuba. It was just my mom and me my whole life. That has been the case because we left our family in Cuba when I was nine years old. They are still in Cuba. We have been able to navigate our whole life by ourselves. My mom decided to move to Mexico, and we stayed in Mexico for three years.

Give yourself permission to not need permission from anyone else. The only permission you need is permission from yourself.

 

At that moment, we were still thinking of going back to Cuba. Cuba is a communist government. You are not allowed to leave. You always have to come back to the country because you don’t have that freedom. Three years after, weeks before our flight to go back to Cuba, my mom told me that we were not going back because she wanted a better future for me.

We ran away and hid for six months, and then we crossed the border to the United States. We asked for political asylum. When I look back at that journey that my mom had to go with me, with her only child, I cannot stop thinking how much she believed in herself and not only believing in herself but believing that we were worth that opportunity even though there was no guarantee. We were worth that opportunity to step into a country where we could have more freedom and options.

The unwavering faith and commitment to the potential future, which was not there yet at the moment, but the possibility of making it there is what drove her. She made it happen with few resources and with a strong, unwavering faith. She had that belief in herself. More than that, she was a mother. She had the belief that we, as a family, deserve better. Sometimes, when we are pursuing that dream, we don’t have that guarantee in the present.

What we have is that inner voice telling us, “You can do it.” You were meant for something bigger and something better like my mom. She didn’t want to go back to the country where she was born and get stuck without options and freedom. She wanted better for her and me. That was what took her to be here where we are in the United States.

For a long time, that was a major driver for me. Everything that she had sacrificed and had done for me to be here, that desire to be able to give back to her. Now, she lives with my fiancé and me, and she helps us with a lot of things. I’m deeply grateful for that. When you don’t listen to that inner wisdom telling you, “You are meant for something bigger and better.” These walls that you see around you, you can break through those walls and experience so much more than what you are seeing.

When you don’t listen to that voice, that voice starts getting louder until finally, you start listening at it and taking aligned actions with your values, desires, and dreams. We have one life to align as much as we can to that inner desire and inner calling that each one of us has within ourselves. The other important thing in the process is to focus. What are you focusing on? Are you focusing on what you don’t want, or are you focusing on what you want? That has a lot to do with what you believe about what you can do. That has a lot to do with the belief towards and in yourself.

When my mom decided to run away from the Cuban government and to ask for political asylum, she had to focus on the people that had made that transition. There had been many that hadn’t made that transition from Cuba to the United States. I can tell you millions of stories that I have heard of people who have not made it. Was she going to focus on those unsuccessful stories or the ones that made which was more factual data to support her dream of getting here in the United States?

That is why I always say the ultimate entrepreneurial journey is the entrepreneurial journey of the immigrant. You start in your own country. You don’t know how you are going to get to the country you desire to have more opportunities and freedom. Whenever you get there, you realize that there is no traced path for you. You start realizing that you got to start forging the path yourself. As you take step by step, you start gaining more clarity of what is possible for you.

It is all driven by faith, this vision of a bigger future, and this belief in yourself. The key enabler of everything is, do you truly believe that it can happen for you? Do you believe that you are worth the time, effort, and money of investing in gaining clarity in your direction or in your path? Do you believe you are worth that? Everything starts with the belief you have about yourself to make your dreams happen.

I wrote a couple of questions here. Do you believe that you are worth the time and the effort to gain clarity on your direction, find your purpose, and start living your dreams, or do you believe that it is not possible for you? Are you afraid to be judged by others, or do you believe you are worth creating your own fulfilling path? Why is this important? The decisions you take on the daily basis depend on the beliefs you have about yourself. Believing in yourself is the same thing as believing that you are enough. It is the same thing as believing that you are worthy of living the life you deserve.

I remember when we immigrated to the United States. We moved from Mexico to Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico is a US territory. This was back in October 2002. The only worry in my mind was that during the six months that we were hiding, I didn’t go to school. When we traveled to Puerto Rico, I was thinking, “How am I going to make it happen?” It is October, the end of the semester. I don’t have a school, and I don’t know how to follow through with my educational year.

At the end of October, we go to a Catholic high school. They were all nice, inclusive of me getting there in the condition that I was in, which was like, “I don’t know any English. The school is bilingual. I’m making it here at the end of the semester. What can you guys do for me, please?” I remember visiting this Math class. The teacher at the beginning wasn’t supportive of me joining the class.

She was, “You are making it in October. You don’t know any English. I don’t think you can make it.” That thought of someone thinking that I couldn’t make it strengthened my belief that I was capable of making it that year. I remember joining the class at the end of October. I did so well that I was able to be excused from the final exam.

My score was so high that I didn’t have to take the final exam. It was because of my belief in myself, even though people around me thought that I was not going to make it. That’s why it is so important. Sometimes in your path, you may be going against the current, the popular opinion, or the conventional path, and you believe in yourself.

Coaching is about helping people navigate themselves, already recognizing that they already have the tools and the answers within.

 

That is why it has to be so strong for you to take the next step. You don’t even have to worry about winning the marathon at that time. You just have to take the next step. It doesn’t matter what situation you are in if it is a family, career, or romantic relationship. Whenever you are in moments that you doubt yourself, the next thing you have to think of and do is take the next step. Don’t worry about the next twenty steps. That is going to get you close enough to the direction that you are pursuing. Many times, we tend to deprioritize ourselves and prioritize others’ opinions and needs. To pursue and fulfill your dreams, whatever that is for you, you got to prioritize what you think.

You have to be able to take decisions within yourself and say, “I’m going to do this and then communicate it to the rest of the world. You got to make the decision from the inside first, without even having the influence on others’ opinions.” I always said, “The most challenging decisions that I have taken, I have always made all of them within myself and then I have communicated to the exterior.”

If you don’t do that, many people can influence your decision and then you start doubting yourself. I want you to practice the opposite. I want you to practice that muscle of believing that you know what things are right for you already because you do. You are the only person that knows what the right decision is for you. I want you to hear it from me because it is true.

The only permission you need is the permission from yourself to know what is right for you and to allow yourself to dream and think that you are better than your circumstances. That is important. I always tell myself and others, “Others have done it. Many people have done it. Many people have been able to fulfill their dreams and achieve their goals. Why are you different? if they can do it, you can do it, too.”

One of the things that I always love is looking at other people’s stories. Honestly, that is one of the reasons why I created this show. I wanted to showcase and amplify the voices of people that have taken on conventional paths so I can inspire all of you to also do it if you think that is the way for you. I love reading or listening to other people’s stories. Two of the people that have inspired me the most and their stories are Sara Blakely. I don’t know if she is a CEO now, but she’s the Founder of Spanx.

She sold the majority of her stocks. She always says, “I didn’t have a manufacturing background. I didn’t know how to design clothing and not knowing how is your competitive advantage was. When you don’t know how, you figure out your own how which may be different than everyone else’s. That is your unique strength for whatever you are trying to create if it is a product, service or anything else.”

I love Sara Blakely because she didn’t have an idea of what she was doing when she started. The only thing she had was this vision of herself inventing a product, making it happen, and impacting the lives of many people. She didn’t even have a business plan. I’m not saying don’t do a business plan, but it is true. She had this vision that whatever she was imagining was possible for her.

She had this unwavering commitment and belief in herself. She sold this company, Spanx, and the majority of her stock for $1.2 billion. This person didn’t know what she was doing at the beginning ended up being super successful. Sarah Blakely had an interview with Tony Robbins, and it is so inspiring. I have recommended this interview to many of my coaching clients working on the entrepreneurial path. I truly recommend that for you, even if you are not pursuing the entrepreneurial path. It has many hidden gems in this interview.

The second person is Jamie Kern Lima. She is the Founder of IT Cosmetics. Years ago, she started to have rosacea like me. Rosacea is a type of acne, but it is not curable. It is redness in your face that you have for the rest of your life. She realized that there were no cosmetics in the industry for people with rosacea and sensitive skin, so she created her own. It took her ten years to get to where she could sell her company.

During those ten years, so many people didn’t believe in her. She has this book that I truly recommend. I read it and I loved it. It is called Believe It. Again, it took her ten years from not knowing what she was doing because she didn’t have any background in the makeup industry. Having this vision of serving, helping people, and providing this product for people with rosacea, which is pretty common, with a lot of effort showing up consistently, she sold this product to L’Oréal for $1.2 billion. It was crazy, just unheard of. It was because she believed that whatever she was doing was going to help so many people. It was going to serve the world.

Make A List Of The Hard Things You’ve Done

As always, I’m big on giving you a step-by-step of how you can believe in yourself more or even strengthen that connection within yourself. The first one is I want you to make a list of hard things you have done. Things that when you were exposed to those situations and challenges, you told yourself, “I don’t know if I can do this. I don’t know how,” and because you followed through and showed up, you figured out a way. I want you to think of a list of these things and write them down in your journal or your notebook.

Whenever you face a similar situation of not knowing if you can figure out challenging situations, go back to that list and read everything you have written. There have been many things during my whole life, in my career, in romantic relationships, and family. I would say one of those moments was when I went to Puerto Rico. I was twelve years old at the beginning of that semester.

I didn’t know English in a bilingual school. I told myself, “I don’t know how I can make it happen.” I don’t remember this well, but I remember one of the teachers, later on, who told me that every day, I would cry in school, and I completely erased that out of my mind. It is because it was very overwhelming for me. I didn’t know how I was going to make it happen. With my Chemical Engineering degree, I had moments that I was like, “I don’t know if I can make this happen.”

All of us have had situations where it seemed almost impossible at first. Because you showed up and kept going, you made it through. I want you to think of a list of these situations in your life and write them down. That is going to be your secret spot to go to regain that belief in yourself because you can do hard and challenging things.

In order to pursue and fulfill your dreams, you have to prioritize what you think for the first time.

 

Find People Who Have Succeeded And Follow Their Lead

The other thing is finding stories and people who had gone before you and made it happen, such as Jamie Kern Lima, Sara Blakely, and the people I interviewed in this show. All these stories are for you so you can also believe in yourself. If they did it, you could do it, too. The last one is to surround yourself with people who can focus on the possibilities rather than the limitations. Surround yourself with dreamers, with people that when you are going to talk about an idea, don’t shut it down completely, but they start talking about the possibilities of that idea.

Your environment determines your belief system, too. If you are surrounded by people who tell you all the time, “You are crazy. How are you going to do that? You have never gone through that before. No one in your family has made it happen.” Have boundaries with those people. Don’t spend time with them. Spend time with the ones who encourage you and support you to dream.

The last one is meditation. Meditation is a powerful tool to reconnect to that inner voice. It is a great tool to regain that confidence that all the answers you are seeking are within you already, at least one minute of deep breathing and connecting. Many times, we listen to everyone else’s input, except our input.

Meditation is a good training mechanism mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and physically to start getting comfortable listening to that inner voice and trusting it. It takes time, but the more you consistently do it, you can get there. If you have never meditated before, dedicate one minute of breathing, silent meditation every morning. Start small because it can be overwhelming if you have never done it. Take one minute, breath in and out, silent meditation every single morning. If you are an experienced meditator, you know what you are doing. Keep doing it.

Those were the four things I wanted to recommend you do to reconnect and believe more in yourself. The first one is to make a list of hard things you have gone through and go there whenever you need more faith in yourself. The second one is to find people who had gone before you and made happen what you are seeking to happen and what you want to connect to.

The third one is to surround yourself with that community of people who support and believe in your dreams and focus on possibilities rather than limitations. The last one is meditating. Come back to the present and get comfortable to start trusting and listening more to your own input. Believe in yourself and decide that living your dreams is worth it.

You are more than enough. Whenever you start believing in yourself, magical things happen. I hope you enjoy this episode, and I hope you have a wonderful day. Thank you so much for tuning in. I always say, if you found this episode helpful, share it with friends and family, and don’t forget to leave a review. I will see you next time.

Important Links:

• Spanx
• Sarah Blakely - Previous episode on The Tony Robbins Podcast
• IT Cosmetics
• Believe It
• Start your Day on Purpose
• 3 Simple Questions to Make Better & Faster Decisions
• Facebook - Yanet Borrego Coaching
• Instagram - Yanet Coach & Speaker
• LinkedIn - Yanet Borrego Coaching
• YouTube - With Clarity & Purpose