When someone tells you that you can’t do something that you want to do and believe in, use the doubt to your advantage to motivate you. You can do anything with hard work, motivation and faith in yourself. Use their doubt to fuel the fire of motivation deep within you.

I believe doing what you want to do in life is important. I’ll never forget being 8 years old and discovering my true passion: dance. I loved it! One day after dance class on the way home I told my mom that I wanted to be a professional dancer when I grew up. She laughed at me and told me that she didn’t think it was something I should do. Guess what? I did it. I’ve always kept that image of her laughing in my head. I used it to motivate me to work harder towards my dream. The dream wasn’t her dream—it was mine. By not letting my mom’s negativity get to me, I was able to transform her negative energy into a positive energy I used to fuel my fire to pursuing my dream of dancing and teaching. Bottom lineL I did what made me happy and I was successful at it. Hard work, dedication and belief in yourself will lead you down the road you wish to travel.

In addition to doing what you want in life, it’s also important to stick by the decisions you make, no matter what they are, and to have no regrets. In the autumn season of 2010 I wound up getting really sick for a few weeks. It forced me to take a month off of dancing. I was working 40 hours a week at my day job and teaching dance part-time about 20 hours a week in the evening. When I was well I discovered I had so much more free time on my hands. I felt relaxed and rested and decided that I didn’t want to teach dance anymore. When I announced my decision to stop teaching I received some negative feedback from two people that I love the most in my life. Ironically one of the people was my mother! The other person was my boyfriend Pete. He told me that he didn’t want to see me stop teaching and he felt that I would truly regret it. I took what he said into consideration and decided that I had made the right decision. I’m glad I stuck with the decision I made. I have more free time now to try new things and develop new skills. I also have time for a social life and have had a blast developing close friendships with people. I love my life! I don’t live my life with regrets. I can’t change the past. I can only believe that the decisions that I’ve made are strong decisions and stand by them no matter what the outcome.

If you do have a bad experience with something, learn from it and let the experience guide you to the next level and you’ll learn something along the way. In January 2011 I had a lot of free time on my hands. Since I love the art of sport and movement, I thought I’d take up running. The longest distance I’d ever run at that time was 3 miles. I had a plan in mind, and it was to train for a half marathon. So I went to Fleet Feet Sports in Schererville, one of the local community running stores, and signed myself up for their half marathon running program. One of the training races that we ran to get us ready for the half marathon was called the Taltree 10 Miler. Race day conditions for Taltree were less than desirable. It was a cold, rainy April morning. Making things worse, I was getting over being sick and hadn’t slept well for several days. I wound up feeling sick on the course and had a miserable run, but I did manage to finish the race. After I crossed the finish line, I went straight to my car and drove my sick butt home. My running and performance that day did not go at all like I planned, but it made me want to do more and get better, so I signed up for the Chicago Marathon. Running isn’t something I consider myself proficient at in the same way I do dancing, but I figured running a marathon would put me up there with the best runners. Did it put me up there with the best? No, it didn’t. I’m still slow and at the back of the pack. However, I learned that I really liked running and that I really liked the challenge that marathoning provided me. As usual, it made me want to do more! It fueled my fire!

No matter what you do in life, live passionately, work hard and use life’s ups and downs to learn from and motivate you. By adding fuel to your fire you will keep on burning strong no matter what path you choose in life. Live strong, be strong and don’t let anyone get you down. Keep on moving!

Sara