How to Maintain The Dream Life You Had Before You Became a Mother - Setting Life Goals

Written: February 2011

Do mothers have a dream life too or do we give up or postpone our own dreams and life goals for the sake of raising our children?

As mothers we often put our careers so willingly on hold in the interest of raising a family. And often, as our children grow up, our own dreams fade away and many replace our own dreams by projecting our once-had dreams onto our children. This post is about being a great example to your children by holding on to your once-had dreams and making yourself a promise that one day you will get back to those dreams and fulfill them (and your children will love you for it) or you will create new dreams and follow them.

Ask yourself: What happens when your children become young adults and are ready to move out on their own?

• What will come of your life?
• What is your dream life?
• What are your life goals?
• Will you pick up your dreams where you left off?
• Or have your dreams changed completely?
• Do you even have any dreams of your own or have they become forgotten in raising your own children and making those of your husband come true?

Here’s My Story

I got engaged at 19. He always had dreams to become a banker and started his career early in life. As a result of being with him my self confidence started to soar and as I watched him climb the professional ladder and live his dream life, I too started to have dreams about what I wanted to achieve in life. I grew up in Europe and always loved languages. One of my l life goals was to speak one language for every ten years of my life. Totally achievable, wouldn’t you agree?

Unfortunately my telling my fiancé about my dream life to speak other languages didn’t go over so well, because it meant that I would have to leave him and live in other countries to learn those languages. He decided that my career should be that of raising our children while keeping the house clean and having his meals ready at the end of a hard day. After all, that is what his mother did and he expected the same from me.

Living a life cleaning and cooking was not part of my life goals and it certainly didn’t spell out my dream life, at least not at the age of 19. While we loved each other very much, and I admired his drive to want to be the main bread winner, I decided to end the relationship and move out and embark on my own dream life to learn languages. After moving about Europe to learn French and Italian I decided to come to the United States to learn English. I arrived here at the age of 23 with only a suitcase and $500 in my pocket. A nanny job was waiting for me here and I learned English by watching Oprah every day. I had started to live my dream life, literally. And I was way ahead of schedule by already speaking four languages by the age of 23, I was really proud of myself.

At the same time I was planning my next destination so I could learn Spanish. Antigua was my choice, I had already picked the family I would stay with as well as the school. I was creating and living my life goals. I loved my dream life.

But then the unthinkable happened. I fell in love, again. Oh no!

“Do I really want to put my life goals on a detour?” I remember asking myself.

My New Life In the U.S.

After careful consideration and much soul searching I agreed to marry him but under one condition: If we ever had children we would not raise them here in the U.S. but give them an opportunity to get educated in Europe where they could learn other languages easier. After visiting Europe he agreed!

I was in heaven!

Side note one: Love that is based on conditions, no matter how good the intention, is not love at all. I learned this the hard way.

Side note two: If you (or him) give up your dream life and change all of your life goals just to be with each other then it probably is not love but some karmic agreement. It’s okay to amend or postpone some plans, but you should never have to give up all of your life goals, and you should never have to permanently give up your entire dream life (especially if he doesn’t seem to be giving up much at all).

Our daughter was born two years later and a few years later when it was time to move to Europe he changed his mind about moving to Europe after all. I felt utterly betrayed.

I could have stuck to my life goals and left but I didn’t have it in me to take his child away from him and I didn’t want her to grow up without her dad (the picture above is my daughter's visit to Europe).

Here I found myself in the U.S., a country that I always considered a temporary stay-over for me and I slowly grew bitter inside because I felt stuck and betrayed by my husband, but more so by life itself. My dream life to be a mother while travelling the world learning new cultures and languages was fading away right before my eyes. I felt like we were depriving our daughter from amazing opportunities and my life goals to learn languages and becoming a translator suddenly seemed to go up in smoke.

Suddenly I found myself having pity parties, feeling sorry for myself. What happened to my lofty dream life? What about all my life goals? How could I possibly show my daughter that learning another language and moving to another country was fun and exciting and would only add to her life experiences? Hadn’t I already given up my first love so I could follow my own dream life? What was the lesson in all this?

Being a Dedicated Mom

I decided to stay and learn to love my new life. I decided to learn English really well and to start a blog about love and its true meaning. For years now I have been an authority writer on true love, the twin soul concept and the spiritual lessons we learn in love.

Remember the side note I eluted to when saying that true love never makes ultimatums? For fifteen years my husband became part of my dream life and our marriage and raising a socially responsible young adult became my single most important life goal. Although our marriage didn’t make it past the fifteen year mark, we thankfully and gracefully separated and divorced as best friends.

After the Divorce

Fast forward a few more years to today – now our daughter has graduated high school and is getting ready to leave for college and I am proudly acknowledging that she was the dream of my life over these past 18 years and now she is leaving to create her own dream life and her own life goals.

As for me, I could sit here and wait around for grandchildren or design my new dream life one again. I realized that now that she is embarking on her own life journey while creating her own life goals, it is time for me to design my own dream life once again by creating new life goals. 22 years have past since I have set foot onto American soil and while my life goals may have changed, my dream life continues.

I realize that we get many chances and opportunities in life to create our dream life. We can forsake our old dreams and life goals, we can pick up where we left off or we can amend old dreams and make newer and better ones. When it’s all said and done, this is not a dress rehearsal, this is your life after all; you might as well make it your dream life.

Today, although becoming a translator is no longer one of my life goals, I am up to something even more fulfilling: traveling the world while teaching English as a foreign language and maintaining my metaphysical love blog!

I have spent 22 years embracing a new culture, I wrote two books and my love blog has gotten me several radio interviews. I have been truly blessed.

With all this knowledge I decided to get my Teaching English as a Foreign Language certificate and to travel the world teaching English while learning new languages. The best part, as a blogger I can work from anywhere in the world!

The most brilliant part is that if I hadn’t stayed in the U.S. for 22 years I probably wouldn’t have the know-how to teach English to foreigners. This is what many would call redemption! Don’t you just love it?

My life may not have been easy at times, I admit that it’s my dream life and I’m in charge of creating my own life goals. I decided to pack up my belongings into a suitcase once again and move to another country. I did it before and it was the best time of my life. I’m doing it again, but this time with a lot more wisdom and gratitude and even more amazing life goals ahead of me.

As I am typing this I am making preparations to leave the United States to go live in either Paris, France or Geneva, Switzerland, for a year while teaching English (contract is still up in the air). After Paris or Geneva comes Venice or Florence, Italy for a year and after Italy I’ll be leaving for India for two years (god willing). I find Hindi to be one of the most beautiful languages to listen to (besides, I think that Bollywood movies are the best and I want to watch them without subtitles).

I would love to encourage my readers to follow me along on my journey. I am posting my progress and updates on my blog here.

My heart-felt advice to all mothers out there is to never stop dreaming about what you want for your life. You can design your own dream life while enjoying and dedicating yourself as an unconditionally loving mother (and wife). Design your own life goals! Having given all that I could to raise a socially responsible and courageous young adult woman has been, and will always be, the greatest enjoyment of my life. My daughter thinks I’m super courageous to just pack up and leave to another country and she’s eager to come visit. One day perhaps my actions will encourage her to add living in another country to her own life goals as well…

There comes a time when our children are old enough to live their own dream life and manifest their own life goals. When that day comes, what will you do? Will you pick up your original life goals and fulfill them one by one or will you wait for grandchildren to come around?

From one mother to another I encourage and inspire you:

• Be courageous (your children are watching)!
• Be bold (so your children can become bold too)!
• Be YOU (so your children can be themselves too)!
• Go live your dream life (and in doing so you give your children permission to live their dream lives too)!
• Go forth with amazing life goals (so your children will learn what it means to set and achieve amazing life goals for themselves)!

And by all means remember that this is not a dress rehearsal, this is your dream life!

I understand the cultural differences. I wrote the above in February and my life is somewhat on hold as well (but not really) because of my father now being ill. So instead of moving to India or France, I decided to move and be close to my Dad.

Raising children and ailing parents often dictate much of our own lives, doesn't it!?

Still, I'd like to encourage you to go after your dream by continuing to dream about it, write about it, talk about it, so that when your time is right, you can fulfill your own dreams too.

c'est magnifique, Nilanjana!

Mujhey Hindi bhaashaa acchee lagtee hai. One day I will know how to talk....meanwhile SRK is helping me understand!

I so feel for you, Mary! I remember the moment very well when my husband said we weren't moving (after he had promised). My daughter was 4 and I just felt so trapped between living where I didn't like it and wanting to offer my daughter the education she deserved. Had I moved back then (without her dad), she would be tri-lingual today. But she also would have grown up without her dad. And that I could not bare. It would have been hugely selfish of me to ask that of her or him.

I remember very clearly the thought processes I went through and I had heard of other European women who just packed up their children and moved back to Europe and the pain this caused to these men who were forced to be absentee fathers. I just couldn't be that selfish, even if she would have had a much better education. In the end I decided that she could always decide for herself where she wanted to live and learning another language or two is in anyone's reach. I made sure she had her Swiss passport and she does, and it's her ticket to working anywhere in Europe when her time is ready.

So I remembered making the decision that I would start to LOVE where I lived, and love everything about it. And I did. That I would learn everything I could learn and give it my best and even if it meant that I would stay there until the day I died, I would be okay because I would have learned to love it by then.

Now that I have indeed left and my daughter is indeed an adult, I miss a lot of things about California. But you know the greatest thing is that it's not going to fall off the earth anytime soon (or is it?) and I can always visit. And so will you! And the truth is, when she decides to have children I may decide to move back to where she is so I can help with my grandchildren. But until then...this is my time to live my dream and give back to the world from this part of the globe.

You can do the same, Mary. Build something NOW that is going to last you until the day you are ready to move. Your son may or may not join you later.