First off, let me just say that finals in college are ridiculously time consuming. Whoever thought it was a good idea to pile on a heavy work load then top it off with a culmination of the ridiculous crap you learned should get kicked in the shin.

But, I digress.

I’m here to follow up on my last post. Remember the one about all the negative things people say to you?

If you haven’t read it: the summed up version is that people can be jealous bitches and don’t want you to succeed.

You know, those people.

Why are they so damn hard to get rid of? Why don’t we shrug them off when people put doubts of success in our heads? Why don’t we laugh and say, “Of course I’m going to be successful!”?

Well, for one, usually we have doubts in our heads regardless of what other people say, and we feel like they’re just confirming these. This is another matter on it’s own. Just know that putting something in your life that makes you happy is never wrong.

Unless you like killing things or something weird. Those are no-no’s.

But here’s some real honest truth about what usually is the problem: these are usually people we know, trust, and most importantly, love. We value their opinion. We come to them with most of our thoughts and they give us their honest opinion.

Here’s the killer though: when you’re pursuing your passion and they have nothing in their life they are excited about, most of the time they will belittle your dream no matter how much they love you. They’re speaking out of total fear and disappointment about their own lives, but they project it on you.

They basically say “Oh I failed at all of my dreams and here’s why you for sure will, too.”

This is my favorite line from Jeffrey Gitomer: “People will rain on your parade because they have no parade of your own.”

Here’s what you do: You have to protect those dreams. The ones you keep so deep in your heart and mean everything to you. Protect these like babies. But, if you’re trying to figure out if someone truly supports you or not: make a dream up.

Pretend that you want to do something outside of your usual routine. Maybe pretend you want to take up yoga or painting or professional rollerblading; just make up something.

Here is the pass or fail test: Let’s say you picked yoga as your pretend dream, if they say something like “Oh, I hear yoga is really hard”/”Yoga is expensive”/”That’s for people from LA”, THEY ARE TOXIC TO YOUR DREAMS! They are trying to word vomit their excuses for life all over you. Don’t tell these people your big dreams. Wait until you’re already successful then be like “Oh, yeah, I started that months ago and I already am doing pretty damn good at this.”

But if they say something like: “Oh! I have a friend who is a yogi, let me get your her number”/”There’s free yoga at x place on Fridays”/”I’d love to try it, too!” These people are priceless. They love you and they support you and they want you to be happy.

Sometimes the ones who try to crush your dreams are truly worried you’ll fail and will tell you that. But here’s the thing: someone who really loves you will let you pursue your dreams and if it doesn’t work out, they’ll let you sleep in their spare bedroom and still tell you it was worth pursuing.

And here’s the real deal: it IS worth pursuing.

Protect it like a baby from everyone if necessary, feed it, love it, support it, nurture it, and I promise you it will grow into something bigger and more incredible than you could ever imagine.