Chingona Revolution is hosted by Erika Cruz, a rebel who left a 6-figure tech job to pursue her own unconventional path to success by following her passion that led to her purpose. Every week, Erika will bring out of you that BADASS LATINA through her experiences to overcome self-doubt and family expectations and lead with COURAGE.
Chances are you failed to do something this year. Whether it’s starting your business or starting to date seriously after a divorce, we all have these projects we never actually get to. There is no shame in acknowledging what you failed to do. But I do want you to take charge of your life and actually succeed at your courage project.
You can bounce back from failure and change your life in 90 days. Seriously! It’s completely possible. I know because I’ve had over +200 clients and I’ve seen them change their lives within 90 days. They’ve moved on to second and third courage projects and their lives have done a complete 180! It’s always been possible for them, they just needed to overcome their fear of failure and keep going.
In this week’s episode, we’re going over the five reasons why you may have failed to achieve your goals in the past. Maybe you have attempted to reach a goal and it didn’t work out the first, second, or even the third time. That is completely normal, but it can stop people from trying again. I’m going to teach you how to face these failures head-on and keep going until you achieve your goals.
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Podcast production for this episode was provided by CCST.
Erika: Hello.
Hello. Welcome back to this week’s episode of Chingona Revolution podcast. Before we get into the episode, I want to remind you that today is the last day to join us inside of Courage Driven Latina. Courage Driven Latina is a 12 month transformational group program that’s going to help you take your idea into a fully executed project in 90 days.
Whether this is starting a business, creating content, writing a book, starting to date after a divorce, building your confidence, pivoting your career, pivoting to a different role or just raising your salary, then this program is for you. In today’s podcast episode, I’m talking all about how to bounce back after failure and how to change your life.
If today’s podcast episode resonates with you, let me know. Check out Courage Driven Latina. You can check it out by going to couragedrivenlatina.com or down below in the show notes. We also have it linked there. If you think somebody else would benefit from this program, please share and let’s get into the episode.
This week, we are talking all about how to bounce back from failure and how to change your life and how to change your life. Not over a year, not over five years, but how to do it in 90 days. So let’s get into today’s episode.
The first thing that I want to dive into is why it is that we fail. Why does failure happen? What role does it have in our lives? What does it mean about us? And all that good stuff. So I have five reasons as to why you may have failed in the past. Maybe you have attempted to reach a goal. You got started, you were really motivated, and then you had a hard time staying consistent.
Or maybe you felt overwhelmed. Or maybe you applied to something and you were denied. So maybe you’ve been going after something. a specific dream of yours or a goal, but it didn’t work out and that’s definitely affected your confidence and the way that you think about yourself. And it’s been hard to try again.
And I just first want to validate that experience of feeling like, Oh man, I failed. Can I actually do this? Believe it or not. I think this to myself pretty often, and I’ve had my fair share of failures that I’m going to share with you today. So it is very normal, and I just want to validate the uncomfortable feelings that may come up as we fail.
Because to try and put ourselves out there is such a vulnerable thing. That, you know, sometimes people can be haters as other people are taking action, but It takes a lot of courage to put yourself out there and it is a very vulnerable thing, especially when you’re applying to something or showing up on social media or something that makes you very visible.
If it doesn’t work out and it’s obvious to everybody, that is one of the most courageous things that you can do. All right, so let’s get into why it is that we fail. So the first reason that we fail is that You weren’t surrounded by a supportive community. So let’s just say that your goal was to negotiate your salary and ask for more money at work and you’re trying to build generational wealth, and the people that you ended up talking to about this were your immigrant parents or maybe your friends that have Uh, scarcity money mindset, right?
Maybe they, they themselves don’t feel that they deserve more money. Maybe they believe that money is, is greedy and evil and you should just be grateful for what you have. Or let’s say that your goal was to go create a podcast and then other people that are around you. don’t even listen to podcasts. And what if they just say something along the lines of, you know, Oh, there’s already so many podcasts out there.
And if you’re surrounded by people like this, like naysayers who don’t understand what it is that you’re even trying to do, or they haven’t been where you’re trying to go, it’s really hard to find validation in spaces like that. And I know it can be really easy to be like, Oh yeah. Like who cares what people think, but we’re all human beings and we all care what people think because our brains are wired to care for survival purposes.
We are social beings. We cannot survive alone on this planet. We do need one another. Connection is one of the biggest desires that human beings have. So, to risk that connection, and to be surrounded by people who are not being supportive, You are more likely to give up on, on a goal or a dream. You are more likely to fail because you’re not surrounded by people who are also going where it is that you are going.
So let’s see. I gave the example of wanting to ask for a raise at work. I gave the example of a podcast or let’s say that you want to start a business. So like my client Kay, she was on the podcast and she talked about how she wanted to start a business. one on one coaching for kickboxing for 20 years.
And the people around her were like, Oh, you’re not going to make money from this kickboxing thing or this coaching thing. It’s, it’s not really going to go to much. And she delayed starting her business and her project for 20 years. And then within 90 days of working with me inside of Courage Driven Latina, not only did she start the business, but she completely sold it out and now she’s working on another project.
So whether it’s business or life, if you are not surrounded by a supportive community, you are more likely to fail. Okay, reason number two is that you didn’t believe in yourself. So maybe you felt motivated and you started to take the action. Maybe you started the Instagram page, but at the core, you actually didn’t think you could do it.
Maybe you were telling yourself, nobody cares what I have to say, or, Maybe you posted something and it only got a few likes on the Instagram page, so you just stopped posting because at the core you didn’t believe in yourself. Or let’s say, we’ll just kind of keep using the same examples, I think, so let’s say that you want to go negotiate your salary at work and ask for more, for more money.
At your job, but you don’t believe in yourself. You are not going to negotiate hard. You are not going to negotiate confidently. You are not going to stand your ground. You’re not going to accurately represent your value and what it is that you feel that you deserve, which, you know. We’re all worthy, right?
We’re inherently worthy. But if you don’t believe in yourself going into a salary negotiation, it’s probably not going to go your way. Or you’re not going to ask for the raise, even though you want it, right? So the belief in ourselves is one of the biggest things that we can cultivate. The courage to believe in ourselves is the skill that will completely transform our lives.
I think it’s more important than investing. I think it’s more important than anything else. I think that is the biggest investment. The investment of believing in yourself and having the courage to believe in yourself is the thing that keeps paying back because that is going to give you the confidence to have your own back to Invest.
It’s also going to give you the confidence to negotiate your salary. It’s going to give you the confidence to take action even though people don’t understand what you’re doing. It’s going to give you the courage and the
confidence to walk away from the relationship that’s no longer serving you. So belief in yourself is so, so important. And that is the second reason why we fail. Because at the core, we didn’t believe we can do it. The opinion you have of yourself determines the quality of your life.
If you don’t believe that you are worthy of solid friendships, you are not going to have friends that inspire you. If you don’t feel you are worthy of more money, you’re not going to apply to the promotion. You’re not going to negotiate your salary. If you don’t feel that you are worthy or knowledgeable enough to become a coach, you’re never going to go transform people’s lives.
Belief inspires how we think about ourselves and inspires the actions we take, which inspires the results that we create.
the third reason why we have failed in the past or why you may have failed is because You lacked an obstacle plan. So I talked about this a little bit on the previous podcast whenever we shared the replay, the webinar replay, where I talked about an obstacle plan and how it’s so easy for our brains to go to like, Oh, what if this happens?
Or what if that happens? What if I post the content on my Instagram page and I only get two likes, or what if I pitch somebody, like I invite somebody to be on my podcast and they say, no, what if I apply to the job and I don’t get the job? And we get stuck in these what ifs, but these what ifs just kind of live in our head and they are fear and
It provokes anxiety. So what helps solve that problem is having an obstacle plan. So if you can tell, like really just taking the time to note down, okay, what are all the worst things that can happen? What are all the obstacles that I possibly could come across? And if I do come across them. How am I going to overcome them?
So let’s just use some of the examples that I had mentioned before. So let’s say that you want to ask for a salary raise. And an obstacle that you might face is that they tell you, that they have budget cuts, right? So what do you want to do then? If that happens, what do you want to do? Do you want to have another job possibly lined up?
Do you want to come back with research on what people in your area and industry and experience are getting paid? Do you want to maybe renegotiate what your role looks like if they’re going to keep the same salary? Do you want more flexibility? Maybe you get every other Friday off, right? So like we’re thinking outside the box here instead of just like letting an obstacle be the end of something.
It’s like, okay, if we can’t go that way, which way can we go? And another example. Let’s say that you want to start a business, right? So like we’ll just keep using K as an example, because I was actually just looking at her, courage project, which is the form that people fill out inside of courage driven Latina about what they’re working on.
So as a reminder, Kay is a kickboxing coach and she had this desire to take on one on one clients for kickboxing, but she was surrounded by people who kept telling her there was no money in that, that why would she waste her time doing that, and once we created her offer, she was Well, worried.
Of course she was. She was thinking, Oh, what if this happens? What if that happens? And that’s when we created an obstacle plan for her. And some of the obstacles that she thought about ahead of time is somebody may not like me and ask for a refund for their sessions, or the price might be too high, or there may not be any interest at all.
And then what we did is we looked at, okay, if these are possible obstacles, what are you going to do in the event that these happen? So if somebody doesn’t like her and asks for a refund for their sessions, You give them a refund, right? People are allowed to have the experience that they have. And there’s going to be people who are for you and people who aren’t for you.
Like at least they tried it or the price might be too high. Well, then her solution was, well, we can create payment options. And that’s exactly what she did. And it worked so well. And then the other one. That she said is there may not be any interest at all. And she said, if that happens, at least I tried, but I’ll never know unless I try.
Right. So, so many of us are over here trying to avoid failure because we don’t want to fail. Right. avoid taking action because we don’t want to fail. But I think the thing we fail to recognize is that. We are already in the worst possible situation. So let’s say that Kay never offered the one on one coaching for kickboxing.
She would have no clients right now. So she was already in the worst possible situation she could find herself. She can’t go backwards. She can’t have negative clients. Does that make sense? So it might as well give it a shot. Might as well give it a shot. So just to quickly recap so far, the reasons that we fail, number one is that we were not surrounded by a supportive community. Number two, you didn’t believe in yourself. Number three, you lacked an obstacle plan. You lacked a plan of what you would do in the face of obstacles. Number four is that you simply tried to do too much at once.
And you felt overwhelmed and you lacked structure. This is exactly what happens with New Year’s resolutions. People are like, I’m going to eat healthy and I’m going to work out and I’m going to spend more time outside and I’m going to learn a new language. And it’s like, okay, I love that you are this ambitious and you have all these different goals, but let’s just work on one right now.
And that, that idea of lacking structure or believing that you just need to have this endless to do list, that is not the way to reach your goals. The way to reach your goals is to create an attainable project, micro project, work on that, and then work on the following projects. So essentially creating little projects that help you get to your ultimate goal instead of having this big massive goal, which is exactly what we help you do inside of Courage Driven Latina, the way, you don’t have to be Latina to join.
Kay’s parents are from the Philippines and she’s crushing it in that program. And everything we about is relevant to her, right? Because At the core, like, we’re all human beings. We’re all women that are struggling with the same societal expectations.
Reason number five why we fail is Are you ready for this one? This one might be my favorite one. It was not for us.
Okay, maybe you applied for a job and you didn’t get it, but you didn’t get it because it wasn’t for you. I’ve shared with you all many times before I started my business when I was still working in the tech industry, I applied to TikTok, to Facebook, to Instagram, to Pinterest, to LinkedIn. I applied to all of these companies.
I only got to one interview at Google. Well, I got to the final interview rounds at Google and then they, uh, canceled the position. They went through a restructuring and I never got my foot in the door, but you know what? As much as that felt like a failure at the time, now I’m like, thank goodness because had I gotten into Google, I don’t know if I would have left to go start a business.
I needed to be where I was. Something better was there for me. Another example about it not being for us is a relationship, right? Like if a relationship doesn’t work out. Even if we want it to work out, usually there’s something better for us when on the other side of it. There’s usually something better for us that is more aligned with where we’re going, that is more aligned with what it is that we want.
Another example would be, um, like in, I’ll give you an example from my life. I had a food blog before I started coaching. And as much as I still love food and I still bake and I still cook and I still do all that stuff. Can you imagine if this podcast didn’t exist? I can’t imagine what my life would have been like without.
The like over 250 clients that I’ve coached all the lives that I’ve been able to, to meet and touch and impact and support. And just like, honestly, I love seeing people go through change. I love seeing people go through, I don’t know if I can do this to like a fully executed project. I’ve seen clients go from not knowing what the heck they wanted, wanted to do to starting multiple businesses or from.
being terrified to create content to having more followers than I do. And I love it. I love seeing that journey that my clients go through. And I would have never had this had I Had the food block worked out or had the jobs worked out. So sometimes something isn’t for us, but yet here we are on the other side, shaming ourselves that we didn’t stay consistent with the project or that we didn’t finish something.
It’s almost like with reading a book. If you ain’t into the book by chapter one, stop reading the book. And that’s the same thing with goals. If you think you wanted to start a podcast and then you got started and you didn’t like it, stop. You don’t have to keep doing it. That’s not even a failure. That’s learning.
Which takes me to my next point, which is how to rethink failure, right? I just gave you five reasons we fail. You weren’t surrounded by a supportive community. You didn’t believe in yourself. You lacked an obstacle plan.
You also maybe just tried to do too much and you lacked structure. And lastly, it wasn’t for you, which takes me to. How we can rethink failure. So failure is a normal part of life. We avoid failure because we want to avoid any type of pain. That’s just what it is like to be human. We want pleasure. We don’t want pain.
Right? We love meeting somebody new as a potential partner. Hate breakups. Right? We love starting a new job. Hate leaving a job. Even if it was toxic for us. Even if it was bad for us. Our brain just loves familiarity. And it loves to stick with what it knows. But failure is such a normal part of life. And can you imagine for a second if you never failed at anything?
What kind of person would you be? You would be an arrogant person who lacked character because the thing is that failure is just a part of the process, right? It teaches us so much more than winning does. So how can we forgive ourselves for the failures and actually be grateful for them? So an exercise that I have for you is writing down all of your quote unquote failures and then using the the list of five things I gave you.
Why did you fail? And then what did you learn from that? And that is going to change the way that you think about your failure. And when you do that, that is when you can change your life. So remember I mentioned as humans, we avoid change and our brain likes familiarity, even if it’s uncomfortable familiarity.
It’s almost like, Oh, I’m going to keep going to this job, even though I absolutely hate it, but I already know how to do it. Or I’m going to stay in this relationship because it’s just comfortable and it’s familiar and I don’t feel like going to go date and I’m just like, I don’t even have the time and energy for it.
And it’s not that bad. Right? That’s, that’s a huge piece that prevents us from changing this idea of, Oh, it’s not that bad. Or I should just be grateful. Yes, you should always be grateful, but you should always know that you deserve a life, a business that you love. It’s human nature to want to grow.
It’s such a contradictory, right? Like on one level, we want to keep growing and learning. And on another level, we want to be in a familiar place. And courage is the intersection of those two things. Courage is the intersection of allowing you to go pursue new things and stretching your comfort zone.
Because remember, courage doesn’t mean you’re not afraid. It means you still take action, even though you are afraid. And I’m sure you’ve changed many times in your life as have I, right? We’ve probably changed many times in our lives, but typically in order for us to change quickly, it requires us to have some type of crisis or like massive thing happen in our lives. I’m going to give you some examples. Okay. So let’s say that you or a family member were diagnosed with an illness.
Like I know, I don’t personally know this person. But I had heard about somebody who was smoking for many years, smoking cigarettes, right? And the, he was, he was a husband and the wife of this man was like, Hey, please stop, please stop smoking. It’s, I’m gonna leave you if you do not stop smoking. And that wasn’t enough pain for him to, to stop.
That wasn’t enough, of a cause to get him to stop. Or even his kids were like, Hey, like this is really affecting my, my lungs, right? And like the way that the house smells. And he still didn’t change. But one day he went into the doctor’s office and they told him, If you keep smoking at this rate, you will no longer be here within a year.
And that, that was enough pain to get this man to change. Right, so maybe you have had some type of diagnosis of some sort and that inspires a lifestyle change. Instantly. So this idea that it takes us so long to change. Nope. You can change quickly. If there’s enough pain there, it’ll inspire you to change quickly.
Another example of how people can change is if your job gets to the point where you’re feeling sobered out and you’re You are feeling anxiety just going into the office and you’re having dreams about your job and that like pain has gotten bad to the point where you’re like, okay, I’m ready to build my business.
I’m, I’m ready to leave this, or I’m ready to apply to another job. Or I’m If somebody proposes, right? That’s like, um, I remember being in a relationship with somebody for a few years and after he proposed, that’s when I was like, oh crap, is this actually what I want? But it took that proposal for me to walk away.
It really, it took that for me to see, is this what I want for the rest of my life? And the pain of like, nope, this is not what I want for the rest of my life was the courage that I needed. That pain gave me the courage I needed to walk away from that. And walking away was hard, but staying was even harder.
Or the other one that can happen is like, let’s say that you were consistently going to the gym a few years ago, And then you see a photo of yourself and you see that you no longer feel strong, you no longer feel in shape and you see that old photo of yourself when you were taking care of yourself and that causes this pain that’s like, nope, that’s it, no more messing around.
I’m going to go to the gym. Right? So do you see how these things, these moments of pain can inspire us to make quick changes? And this pain feels bad, like, right? It doesn’t feel good to feel the pain, but it does cause pain. changes in our lives. And I don’t want you all to wait for a crisis. I don’t want myself to wait for a crisis before we can change. And maybe you’ve been thinking, you know, about getting back to the gym or about creating content or about starting a business or about starting a new course.
And maybe your situation isn’t that bad and it hasn’t inspired you yet to jump forward and do it. And if you find yourself in that place, I want to offer something to you. The way that I inspire change in my life, because even for me, it’s easy to stay in my comfort, right? Like, everything I have now is something that I’ve dreamt about for years, but I’m at this point also where I’m pretty comfortable.
Like, even podcasting is comfortable now. Even coaching people comfortable now, creating content’s pretty comfortable now. I have different challenges in my life and in my business because I’m human, but I’m at this point as well where I’m like, okay, well, what do I want for my future self? And I don’t want to wait for crisis to hit.
I don’t want my business to fall apart before I allow myself to be creative and look for different ways of running my business. And the way that we can do this is we can wait for crisis to happen or we can connect to a bigger vision. Like what is the vision that you see for yourself?
And then how can you make that vision purpose driven? So one of the reasons that Courage Projects, Insight of Courage Driven Latina works so well is because the structure of the Courage Project is formatted to connect your project to a bigger mission. And I’m going to give you some examples because I think it’ll be really helpful.
So how can you connect to a bigger vision and make it purpose driven? Because research shows that the highest level of motivation is mission driven motivation. So let me give you an example. Let’s say that you really want to work on your confidence, right? So maybe your courage project is something along the lines of working on your current, working on your confidence.
So that and then it’s connected to a bigger mission, maybe your why behind it or your bigger mission is that so that you teach your daughter to also love herself or for you to heal generational trauma or for you to be able to speak up at work and in your relationships. Which is going to, in the end, help the world, right?
Or let’s say that your desire, your courage project, is to go create financial literacy content. You want to go create content about finance, or maybe you want to be a money coach. So your bigger why is like, yes, I want to create money content so that I can help my community. Heal from money trauma, build wealth, and have the freedom that they deserve to have rather than living in survival mode and paycheck to paycheck.
Do you see how that’s connected to something so much bigger than just, Oh, I want this thing. Or maybe you want to launch that podcast so that you can change people’s lives. Maybe you want to create a podcast that’s targeted on single mothers. and how it was that you got through it and sharing the real and raw and vulnerable stories of what it’s like to be a single mom.
Like imagine the impact that that would make on other people. Like, let’s say that you’re about to create a business. You have a business idea that can revolutionize The world. For women. Like, for example, think about the girl who first created, like, the little nipple covers.
Y’all, that is a game changer for us. Doesn’t feel like, Oh my gosh, that’s going to change the world. But like, think about the convenience and how much impact it has had. So let’s say that you have this goal to start a business. Maybe you want to create a tequila that’s non alcoholic. Obviously some already exist out there, but as somebody who stopped drinking last year, I had a hard time transitioning from not, from socially drinking to not drinking at all. And it wasn’t even like, Oh my gosh, I need to be drunk.
It was more about like, I love the taste of a margarita. Right. And that is such. That was a problem that people solved. So whatever business idea you have, think about all the people who need that business, all of the clients that you’re going to end up serving. And something that I want you all to ask yourself is who gets affected if you don’t follow through.
On your goals. Who gets affected if you don’t work on your confidence? Who gets affected if you don’t create the podcast? Who gets affected if you don’t create the content on social media that gives people financial advice? Who’s going to be affected if you don’t get the raise at work and you’re constantly having to work overtime?
I want you to think about how your goals are actually going to make the world a much better place. And if right now your goals don’t match up with that, think about it. How can your goal have a bigger why behind it? Because you are less likely to give up when it does have a why. And whenever you have a strong why, and you have this, this mission driven motivation, you’re not waiting for crisis to happen in your life.
You’re inspired by something else. And that inspiration is the inspiration to give back, to make an impact, to have purpose in your life. Courage Driven Latina used to be called Purpose Driven Latina, but then the trademark thing happened and then we had to change the name. But this program is all about helping you live a purposeful, fulfilling life.
And this is fundamental. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve met people who are successful on paper, but they don’t feel fulfilled. So this was a, a lot of talking in this episode for me. So remember. There are five reasons why we fail, but failure is so normal and it is a teacher. And typically when we want to change our lives, we have to wait for immense pain.
But I don’t want you to wait for that. You can create massive change in your life in 90 days. And you can do it by connecting to a bigger vision and connecting to a bigger purpose. And what’s going to really help you motivate, what’s really going to motivate you is asking yourself who’s going to be affected if you don’t do this.
Alright y’all, well, I hope you enjoyed this podcast episode, I hope that, you are preparing for the holiday season, I hope that you give yourself, I was telling my client this the other day, a self care sandwich which is before you are going to see family members that you know may cause some triggers in you, how can you sandwich that visit?
self care. So maybe before you go, you go for a walk and then after you’re done, you can go for, doing like a meditation or journaling or going for a run or doing something that’s going to fill your cup, whatever it is that helps you fill your cup. And if you are listening to this on the day of the release, which is the 17th of December, today is the last day. Day to join us inside of Courage Driven Latina. This program is a life changing program. We’re going to help everything I talked about today. We’re going to walk you through in the program.
We’re going to help you execute not just one project, not two projects, not three, but four up to four and five projects because you get access to this program for an entire year. And you will notice differences within the first 60 and 90 days.
so if you know that you’ve been wanting to join this program, Now is your chance. Do not wait. If you know that you want 2025 to be your year, this is the step that you can take to ensure that you reach your goals in the first 90 days inside of Courage Driven Latina. Remember, what took my client Well, what my client delayed for 20 years, she completed in 90 days inside this program.
I have another client who delayed starting her money coaching business for five years and within 90 days of starting the program, she left her job that was toxic. She started to create content and she brought on clients. So this is the last time we’re opening enrollment this year. By the time we open enrollment for this program again, sometime next year, you could have already completed two different courage projects.
Change is possible. It doesn’t have to take forever. And you are capable of doing it. All you need is the skill of courage and a structure, which are things that we provide for you inside of the program. So if this resonated with you, join us inside or share it with a friend, and I will see you on the podcast next week.