Blog

posted on March 3, 2022

Change has always been a part of my life. I spent a lot of my younger life jumping from town to town because of my dad being in the military. We traveled all over Venezuela so being new in a lot of places is something that I was used to. Even though I moved a lot with my family, it did not prepare me for moving to the US. When we moved around Venezuela we knew we were going to come back to our hometown but not this time.

When I moved to the US I experienced a lot of discomfort. I didn’t know anyone- didn’t speak the language, didn’t know any places- I was lost. I had to force myself out of my comfort zone to do anything. At first I was terrified. I remember lunch being very quiet and lonely. I would see all these kids talking to their friends and laughing, and I wanted that. I decided that I would embrace that discomfort and reach a new goal I had set for myself- “be able to hold a full conversation in English and make friends”. It worked. I did everything I could to achieve that goal and it made setting new goals for myself easier as I graduated high school, and moved onto college. Watching myself be able to change in a way I never thought I would be able to, only furthered my drive to want more for myself after I graduated from college.

There was one more recent venture that gave me that same feeling of discomfort, and it was moving to Pittsburgh. When I moved to Pittsburgh the first couple of days were great but after 2 weeks, I didn’t know what to do with myself. I again had no friends, no job, no money but what I did have was experience with this discomfort so I started setting new goals for myself to be able to achieve all of those things. I wasn’t having any luck finding jobs, money or friends until I went into this little gym named Union Fitness (maybe you’ve heard of it) and I talked to this guy named Todd Hamer (weird guy, don’t talk to him), and he offered for me to come work a powerlifting meet. I was faced with that same feeling of discomfort but I knew that if I went to this meet, I would be opening new opportunities for myself. I met a lot of wonderful people and I got this great job!

We all have those feelings of being uncomfortable in new situations but we can’t let those feelings dictate how we live. Understand and acknowledge those feelings, but don’t let them hold you back from great, new opportunities.