I am mad at myself!!!!

I am an entrepreneur. I believe that I will be successful at business, I am a wedding planner, I have an invitation business and I am currently working on a favor business. It has been a dream of mine for over 10 years. Four years ago I left my job after moving to a suburb of NY from the city. The commute, the price of the commute, what I would spend on childcare and the total destruction of my family life made it an easy decision. I decided to take my talents and build a business....this is not a hobby!!

I love the time that I have to dedicate to my children and the time I have to dedicate to my business. However over and over again I get the question when are you going back to work, maybe you should go into teaching , why don't you go back and get another degree. Funny thing is I believe I am working, building a dream business, building on my passion.

But as usual I drown out my dreams and succumb to the direction of others. All my life I spent pushing my dreams to the background. I started thinking and thought I should go back for my Masters in Education, yeah I would make a good teacher (right?), its taking a while for business to pick up anyway.

What am I thinking? I am going to be 40 next year anyone who makes a career change at this stage of their lives makes it to their dream career...helloooo. While I love the idea of imparting knowledge and working with kids (anytime before 4th grade)...this is not my passion. As my friend put it it would be a job, not a dream career. I would be deferring my dream , because others feel that a traditional route would be better.

I am MAD because I don't have the guts to tell these people that this is my dream and it is not just a hobby. I can't verbalize to them how hard I am working to make my dreams happen, How deeply rooted this passion is. The fact that as I am writing down my thoughts I have tears in my eyes because I know how much I want this to work. I am mad because time and time again I stifle my dreams because I the words of others have me second guessing myself. The hard part is that the others aren't people I just met on the street, I don't really care about their opinions ( hope that doesn't sound mean) but it is the voices of those closest to me that are the hardest to ignore.

I try to teach my girls boldness , how to stand up for what they believe; Lessons that they have grabbed on to so tightly that it amazes me. I am mad because I am not taking my own advice.

It would be crazy to spend two years of my life building on someone Else's dream for me....wouldn't it.
I am mad at myself for allowing my conviction be swayed by others.

So what do I do with this anger? Anger is supposed to propel you to do something? A really good friend told me I must not be angry enough, because if I was really angry I would do something about it.