Arivee Vargas: Hi I'm Arivee Vargas. I believe we're all so powerful beyond our wildest imaginations. We have the ability to overcome the fears, self-doubt, negative beliefs and all the other roadblocks that hold us back from having the life and career we really want and deserve. That's why I created the Humble Rising podcast.
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I want to help you get clear on what a joyful and fulfilling life and career looks like for you. And help you go after it with all you have. Each week, we'll talk to badass inspirational women sharing their journeys. We’ll dig into their successes, their failures, challenges, the different shifts, and their careers and personal lives and so much more. Be inspired, get motivated, and get ready to rise. This is the Humble Rising Podcast.
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Arivee: So, I've been thinking a lot about how you can both strive and push yourself to work hard and smart and sacrifice and hustle to reach your goals and to become that person you wanna be. And also take time for yourself and taking care of yourself, your body, your mind, your spirit. Enjoying it, being grateful for, you know, the present moment, being present with those you love, nurturing your relationships, nurturing yourself, taking care of your energy, you know, maintaining a mind, that's clear. That's at ease. The sense of calmness and with a sense of inner peace. And that sounds like a lot because it is a lot for you to try to do all those things. And I've wrestled with this question for a long time. But I'm realizing that the reason why I was struggling with it was because it's rooted in my thoughts of what I think I should be doing. The confusion of it is rooted in my thoughts of what I think that should be experiencing based on some notion of what is OK what is acceptable, right. Not what's actually true for me, you know, like what life should look like, what work, and career should look like? How should I show up as a mom? For example. As you know, I have an infant and she's very little. And the question is, why can't I just have a baby and enjoy just being with my baby and not do anything else? Why can't I just be content with the time with her and with my other children? Why can't I just stop? Like, why can't I just stop recording the podcast? Why can't I just stop writing, stop coaching, stop the giving, stop mentor, just take a big break for however many months? You know, why can't I just approach each day without a goal, right? And that's because it's just not me. It's just not me.
I enjoy doing things that excite me where I feel like I'm making a positive impact where I'm giving. I love my family. So, my joy extends to my family and those I care about, but also to things outside of my family and my children. That is what works for me, but I think it's even deeper. You know, I think it's even deeper than just this is what works for me right now, right? It's about the why. It's about why I do it and I know purpose sounds woo woo and it can be overwhelming to think about, right? We think of purpose. We get confused. It's vague. What if I don't have a purpose, you know? But I would offer for you to take a step back and think about it this way you don't have to have just one life purpose like you don't have to have that. You can have many purposes to throughout your life and you can break it down simply to why something is important to you. Why does this matter so much to you? What is this all for? So, when it comes to, you know, the constant striving and the sacrificing and the sacrifices you make and the often craziness of that brings right, we have to be clear on what we're doing it all for. For what am I busting my ass? For what am I not going to bed when I'm tired tonight, right? All the things that you actually do that are tough, right? To get to where you wanna go. Or where you think you wanna go. Right again. What is it all for?
Are you doing it because you haven't taken a minute to take stock of where you are and you're just doing what you think people in your similar position do? Or maybe you haven't considered another way or another path, right? When both of my kids were home for the pandemic, we were doing the best we could with the virtual learning and when there wasn't virtual learning with just having them here and working and sometimes, we're simply trying to get through the day. It was about just straight up survival survival. But I'm talking about the bigger picture here, right? So, I'm not talking about the certain objectives or results you have to achieve for work. I'm not talking about that. I'm asking you, why do you do that work in the first place? That work that asks so much of you take so much of your energy and time and focus and sacrifice. There's no right or wrong answer here, just the honest answer. You have to be able to answer that honestly. What are you striving towards and what are the sacrifices and that process of striving? What is that all for? Who is that all for? Why are you doing it? That's purpose.
You know this idea and I really wanna touch upon this because. I think it's important for a lot of you, this idea that there's this balance that you need to work towards achieving and maintaining this, this harmonious balance between your personal and your work life is just, it's bonkers. It's bonkers. It's simply BS. It puts so much pressure on you to tell yourself what you should be doing and not what you feel you need and want to do at different times in your life, right? And for so many women of color and especially the children of immigrants, we've had no choice but to hustle and sacrifice. When you're raised in a family that came to the US to create a better life for you and for for your children for future generations, you're gonna go through some shit. You're gonna see some shit. And your children are going to experience the world differently. They're going to grow up witnessing sacrifice firsthand. I understand what it means to work hard, literally see it, witness it, experience it, feel it in your body without being told it. They're gonna understand what it means to be the target of pressure to get experience that at least I have right under in my family, right. Understand what it means to hustle, to fit into a society where you feel like you don't belong anywhere because you're too different. Right? For me, like, I was too American to be Dominican. But I was too Dominican to be American. My cousin used to say if she feels like Selena, who she, you know, is so I mean, if you know Selena, you know that reference, but it's hard when you don't see people who look like you on mainstream TV. And the other places that would give you a signal of what's possible for someone Like You here. So, for me, the difference in my why and my purpose is that my hustle isn't just about me as an individual. The hustle is about something way bigger than me. Or the time I have here on this planet. The sacrifice, the work, the pursuit of reaching to fulfill what I see as all of my potential, of giving, contributing and hustling, and all of that. It's about leaving Legacy, leaving a legacy. Leaving a beautiful, rich legacy. Creating generational wealth. I cannot tell you how far behind we are because we don't have it. Our communities don't have generational wealth. We have so much spending power, so much and I’m specifically talking about Black and Latin-X communities right now. But we don't have generational wealth, or the necessary economic power and economic power allows you to make other necessary changes, right?
This is the major reason why I can never simply enjoy and step back and relax where I'm at like I just can't. I just can't do that. This is why I have a 12-week-old infant and I can't simply spend weeks and days and hours just looking at her and enjoying her right and doing doing nothing else but spending time with my children, which is what people say. That's how you do moms, new moms, you just. You know, you just stay home, and you take care of your babies if you're fortunate enough to have a leave for your fortunate enough to afford leave. And to be able to take leave, which is a privilege in itself, that's just not how I'm wired. And I'm really starting to really accept, I mean truly that it's not how I want to be wired either. I cannot leave this earth without having given all I could give. Like I know that, and I know that when I get to the end of the road, you know, my time is done, and I don't decide that right. But when my time is done, I don't wanna be asked. Uh, Arivee what happened down there? Did you get distracted from the work that you need to be doing? What happened to the work that you were meant to do? Who was that down there? That wasn't you. That wasn't the work that was meant for you. That wasn't the life that was meant for you. I'm like, oh no, no, I cannot be asked those questions. Nope, nope, no.
So, I believe every experience has led you to this moment in your life. Everything has led to this moment in your life and. I believe that there's a reason for each thing that has happened that has led to certain lessons that lead to more experiences than more lessons that more experiences and obviously your growth. And when you look back, can you see how all the bricks were being laid one by one with a purpose? And they still are being laid right. It's like one of those. If you see those really fancy brick pathways, each brick has to fit in with another brick and it's brick by brick, by brick. And it looks really, really nice. When they all fit together and they all fit together, it has to be perfect, right? But we’re not talking about perfection. But they fit nicely together, and they have to to create that pathway going somewhere, right? So, the bricks to me are like your experiences. And how you've grown from each one. Each brick creating a path in a singular direction. For me there's this fire inside it to make a positive impact and to contribute all I can right. To help future generations, including my children. And to uplift women and women of color and my community. And that's the struggle, the struggle. So, when you feel you feel your purpose and your bones and your body, and you feel that you need to live into everything, you think incapable of being and you know your values. Then you're you're living in alignment with that, and you're really trying to live in alignment with that just by being you and doing the work. To me, that's a healthy hustle. It's a healthy hustle because it's grounded in purpose. You know why?
When you're hustling for a greater purpose and you're striving to fulfill that purpose, that is never ending, right? The journey of self-discovery and learning is never ending cause you're always evolving, you're always growing. You're always gonna wanna learn more as you learn more. How can I maximize this? How can I contribute the more I've learned, how can I share it? The key is to remember that your purpose is intertwined with your well-being. It’s not either, or right. The key is that it is intertwined with your well-being. How you take care of yourself. How you engage in healthy relationships, how you maintain them. How you nurture them, how you treat yourself and others, it's all part of your well-being, right?
This podcast is called Humble Rising for a reason. Right. It's a humility of being anchored in something greater than yourself. Being grounded in your roots and a community. And also understanding that you're constantly learning. You're constantly learning, and here you listen to women stories, right? And you can be exposed to those experiences to what's possible out there to what other true lived experiences are. Hopefully you see yourself reflected in those. But they resonate with you, and you learn and you take what resonates and you apply the strategies to your life. That ring true for you in a way that works for you. And and I really can't stress this enough. I cannot stress this enough. The key is to do it in a way that works for you. That is true to you. That is true to where you are in your life. That is true to how you're feeling. That is true to what you need right now. What you're going through right now. It isn't going to be the same for anybody else. Right. So, what's the big take away here?
You have to pursue your goals, your dreams, your vision in a way that works for you, right? There's no single right way to do it. But think about what are the real and true reasons you're pursuing something. Why are you working the way you, are living the way you are and experiencing life the way you are, right? If you're always exhausted, you don't have healthy relationships with yourself or with others. You're you're now working at the expense of your well-being on a consistent basis. Right. I'm not talking about weeks. I'm talking about a much longer period of consistently not sleeping, not being able to maintain relationships and being closed off emotionally. So, I'd circle back to your why, that's you. Think about what you're doing and take a close, honest look at the what and the why. Right? Take an honest look at the what in the why. Better yet, don't just think about it. Write down those answers writing something down and reading it over makes it so much more real, and only you're gonna read it, right? So, you can be brutally honest with yourself here. And if you don't like the answers, guess what. You can choose a different way. You can choose differently. I'm not saying it's gonna be easy, but you can choose differently. You have that power right now. It doesn't have to be a huge shift. Folks like. Don't overwhelm yourself. It doesn't have to be a huge shift if you're trying to make a change. It's tiny shifts over time. It's tiny shifts overtime so that you can love the answer you put on that page the next time.
OK friends, I hope this is helpful to you. I'd love to know how you've navigated this type of challenge. Any insights you have you can connect with me on Instagram @Ariveevargas and you can also connect with me on LinkedIn. You can DM me there or just let me know in the comments what's on your mind.
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Thanks so much for listening. Don't forget to subscribe to this podcast so you don't miss an episode. If you want my weekly doses of inspiration and motivation, click the link in the show notes to subscribe. And if you've been asking yourself how to figure out that next step in your career, I've got a career clarity guide just for you. Check out the show notes for the link. Until next time, my friends keep digging deep and keep stepping into how incredibly powerful you are.
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