I have often struggled with having the false belief that there were super powerful people out there and fell for the discouraging belief that they were more capable than me when it comes to a certain goal, or how to live life.

Other the years I have watched many have success at things that I have desired to be and do, and have succumbed to the false belief that they must have just been more disciplined or capable than me for them to have succeeded. Other times I have even told myself that others must have had success because they must have been dishonest or somewhat just not good in order to get where they got.

The underlining thought was always, “They can be successful but you cannot.”

Recently I realized how false and limiting those thoughts were.

One day, I realized this as I was teaching my children… I am kinder to them than to my own self.  I am often merciful and compassionate. I know what to say to comfort them more than I can be a friend to myself. I realized that I was not believing in my capabilities. I was comparing myself to others and feeling discouraged rather than tapping into the belief that I could use their journey as inspiration for my own life.

I often learn lessons while I am teaching my own kids. They truly teach me more than my own self. We often ask the kids  to help us feed the dog water on a daily basis. The older kids really struggle to keep up with it. I was watching our little 2 year old Dorian after he had just finished climbing up a stool to fill up a cup with water to give water to our dog Paco. Dorian had been hearing us  telling our kids what to do over and over again, so one day he took the time to actually do the chore on his own.  He now has been taking  on a daily basis that responsibility without needing us to remind him. He will then come and tell me and loves to be praised.

I realized that kids love to be praised. If they find that by doing something they will get praise in return, they will often try and try again to do things to receive that praise. I knew that I needed to be careful not to compare my older kids to another sibling.I took this moment to let my older kids know that I wasn’t going to try and tell them that Dorian was better, but that sometimes is good to watch others doing things that we are not being really good at, and instead of feeling bad for  what we are not doing, we can take some time to analyze instead and recognize that we can be capable of doing what others do as well. We also have to have the desire to do it.

Our older kids often tell us that it’s hard to do things and they aren’t capable of achieving certain goals. I didn’t want my daughter to feel like her 2 year old brother is so much better than her, I wanted her to watch him and think, “Hey he is so young and can do this, so can I.”

At  times I realize that for my kids that struggle to keep up with a task, are struggling to  believe in their own abilities  and strength. Don’t take me wrong, laziness sometimes plays it’s part, but other times they simply don’t perform because they don’t think they are capable.

And then it hit me. How I had not applied that principle in my life as I watched other adults accomplishing great things that seemed super hard to me.

Sometimes we struggle to learn from others, because we look at their success and feel jealousy. Instead we need look at them and think that we can be that way too. We tend to be jealous of the things in others we wish we had. Success for others can make us jealous. But if we truly want what someone else has done, we don’t need to be stopped or compare their journey and convince ourselves we can’t do it because they had better luck than us. We can start look at others as an inspiration, rather than a competition.

We all are humans and we all walk this journey. Limitations will come. I understand not everyone can do everything. But I think we all have something that we know we can be good at and often shy away from it because of fear or because we think that the success just wouldn’t belong to us.

I was once a regular girl that lived in the countryside in Italy. I dreamt my whole life, but often pushed those dreams aside because I thought that they didn’t belong to me. But I still dreamt. Life has helped me accomplish a lot of my dreams. Especially the ones that I TRULY wanted and pursued.

Enlisting God’s help can also has also helped go farther in life Than I would have on my own.

Just like I would never want my kids to think that only others can be good at something and that they are not, so do I want everyone to believe in themselves and believe that they can change their lives and dream away. I also want my own self to believe that. The path can be rocky at times, but it doesn’t matter where we are, if in our minds we are living in that sometimes distant dream. I call it dreaming of Candyland. Whatever your Candyland might be, and hopefully it’s something good for humanity, look ahead and don’t stay stuck in the present. Enjoy what life brings you now, but look up to where you wish to be.