series – The April Diaries

How To Activate Your Goddess Potential Part 3: Knowing What You Want And What You Should Do To Get It

Published on August 4, 2022 by The April DiariesLeave a comment

I was scrolling through photos from late 2020 (I accumulate a lot of photos on my phone overtime) and I found this one photo in particular that said:

Three rules for life:

1.) If you don’t go after what you want, you’ll never have it.

2.) If you don’t ask, the answer will always be no.

3.) If you don’t move forward, you will always be in the same place.

Yesterday, I invested half of my remaining paycheck from my time as a pharmacy technician to my friend, Katarina’s program on how to accelerate my business. This inspired me not only to rebrand Brownies For Breakfast, Co., but to simply move forward.

It’s hard to believe it’s already August — yikes! Where did the summer go? But that isn’t to say it wasn’t filled with self-discoveries and self improvement. For example, I joined a gym, I started walking 10,000 steps a day (though recently I’ve been slacking with that), and I dedicated my weekends to rest days. But as seasons change, (how am I already thinking about fall?) your goals for the future start to change, as well, especially as you mature like leaves falling from the trees.

On the topic of moving forward, I have chosen to immerse into my studies in dietetics after all. As of recently, I had an interview to get clinical experience at a hospital. Though my hope began to dwindle at around 6:00 p.m. tonight, I asked myself, “why don’t I feel any more grateful?” I know, I preach gratitude all the time, but even the best fall down sometimes. (I forget who sang that.)

Moreover, my mindset shifted immediately, and I knew I had to show up for myself and give myself the encouragement that I need. You must have faith in yourself to move forward in life.

I move forward by knowing what I want and not stopping at any rest stop to get [insert goal here].

My therapist gave me an analogy one time before I “graduated,” and it was “you see a light at the end of the tunnel? Are you going to stop? Or are you going to hit the gas pedal?” I replied with the latter.

Healing is a journey. Getting a degree is a journey. But it’s not so much about the destination as it is about the way you’re going to get there. I know people from Vogue who’ve said, “I still don’t feel like I’ve ‘made it’ yet.”

When I felt I didn’t have any proper qualifications to be a personal lifestyle and health coach, I added a CME from Stanford University School of Medicine to my repertoire. I had a goal to complete it, and I did it in less than a week. (Thank you, EdX!)

During your journey, you’re going to get more “no’s” than “yes’s” and that’s okay. It’s whomever’s loss. There will be people who don’t 100% understand what you’re trying to do, and as Selena Gomez once sang, “it doesn’t help when you say it won’t be easy.”

Whomever you are who’s been following this series, I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Thank you and if you want to hear more about the goddess potential method, book a 1:1 with me!

xoxo,

April 💕

How To Activate Your Goddess Potential Part 2: Believing You Are Worthy

Published on July 28, 2022 by The April DiariesLeave a comment

When I was a junior in high school and going through bouts of depression, my mom had sent me a quote by someone whom I cannot remember now. But the quote itself said, “My favorite Disney character? Daisy Duck. Because she goes after what she wants and deserves.”

I was on a call two days ago with a woman who was trying to recruit me for a coaching program. As she was asking me questions, she asked me what it is I wanted to do with these degrees I planned on getting in the future (masters and eventually doctorate). I told her straight up, “to get credibility in what I do.” That is actually the first time I was stopped to think that maybe I was going for them for the wrong reason — to have myself go into debt that was not smart, to have control over basically no outcome and to just work for someone else for the rest of my life. I knew I did not want that. Some people pursue an advanced degree because they want accelerate in their career, which is the right reason. The “science” behind the fact that I wanted to pursue something “science-y” just to prove to my freshman-year-of-college self that she CAN “do” science — not a good reason. Also, I convinced myself that my writing career was going nowhere — not true. I wouldn’t be continuing this blog and this series if I still believed it [my writing career] was going nowhere.

Yesterday I made the mistake of putting my size-8-foot in my mouth by announcing I was, in fact, going to [insert ivy league school here] to rekindle my master’s degree. That can’t happen for another year, unfortunately because I then realized, “there’s no way I can afford it right now.” However, if I didn’t believe that I was worthy of a possible degree at [insert ivy league school here] or any of them for that matter, would I have gone for it? I talked to a good friend of mine (hi Katarina!) and she told me that setbacks are good for redirection. Slowly but surely, I am reprogramming my mind to thinking that I am in fact worthy of any degree, even if I choose to go back to Emerson to pursue an MFA instead of finishing the MA. Katarina then asked me, “what are you hoping to gain?” And I told her, I gained this particular mindset.

So, my point is, if you’ve always wanted to do something but never believed you were worthy of it (e.g., a law degree, a PhD, or any advanced degree, anything at all!) Another fact is, you don’t necessarily need one degree on top of another just to feel worthy or credible. This woman who I spoke to two days ago made me realize that, and it almost brought me to tears because it took me God knows how long to realize that I am in fact, credible as is, as a coach, as a writer, as anything at all. I am worthy, and so are you, my dear, regardless of how you identify.

If you missed the previous blog post, read it here. And keep a lookout for a brand new podcast episode every Tuesday and Thursday!

xoxo,

April 💕

How To Activate Your Goddess Potential Part 1: Strategy and Mindset

Published on July 26, 2022 by The April Diaries1 Comment

The key to being the person who you were meant to be is 80% mindset and 20% strategy. I was talking to my therapist yesterday, and we came up with a plan for our next appointment to talk about what the next steps were for my own personal success. I basically chose to do a manifestation session with my therapist, who, unlike me, has taken psychology courses.

In yesterday’s blog post I touched briefly upon my good friend Brooke Ritchie who I look up to SO MUCH. I asked her essentially how she got to where she is today. She told me that she did a lot of inner work as well as therapy. (I think this is your sign to go to therapy, whomever is reading this!) I couldn’t help but also read her bio, and is a pure example of how she got from point A to point Z. For more on the story, you can listen to my podcast. (I plan to post every Tuesday and Thursday going forward — FYI.)

Nonetheless, Brooke also introduced me to Byron Katie’s teachings. I was listening to the first episode of “End of Suffering” and although I could only listen to 10 minutes of it, I picked up pretty quickly on her strategy of “Think, Feel, Act, Have.”

So I wrote down the following:

I think of having it all.

I think of having the best life

I think of having the life that Brooke has.

I think of having approval.

I feel approval for myself.

I act by doing things that please me.

I have approval of myself.

And this is just the thing: you can have all of the strategies in the world, look up “how to dress like Jennifer Lopez,” or whatever, but it’s the mindset behind all of it that will back up your true Goddess Potential. Just the fact that I had the chutzpah to even record a podcast episode that will (hopefully) inspire many listeners is baffling to me, as someone who had no motivation over the weekend because she (I) felt like I was constantly being under attack. But once you activate that Goddess Potential, there is NO going back!

xoxo,

April 💕

I Am April Federico. Part One.

Published on April 11, 2020April 11, 2020 by The April DiariesLeave a comment

I returned home in my khaki Bermuda shorts and my Cat in the Hat T-shirt, and I sat down to read a Cheetah Girls book — one that I’ve been meaning to read since 2nd grade. I vaguely recall a group of four of the ostensible “popular” boys and girls walking behind my mom’s black Jeep, that she still owns to this day. She’s had that car since I was in first grade. Keep in mind, that I am a fifth year in college. She got that car when I was 7.5, and I am on the verge of turning 24.

I remember because English, Science, and Geography were my favorite subjects. I hated math with all my being. I feel half my heart burning, at this moment in writing this, the Screwdriver I had, makes me stop and think, “you are not that girl, anymore.” I am not that girl anymore because I’ve grown to have respect for myself when I felt like no one liked me. That’s the most powerful form of love — self-love.

Though my hair may not be washed at this present moment, and I am settling for movies that don’t even satisfy me, like “Jumanji,” I’m sorry but that movie doesn’t inspire me. I turn to a movie on E! called “She’s All That,” where Laney tells the pathetic class president that their little moment on the corner of two streets is “surreal,” meaning their meeting could never happen in real life. It makes me angry, times like these movies were made. Even when “Hairspray,” the 2008 version was made, I hated that time. It was more or less ahead of that time because John Travolta played a woman — fat suit and all. Laney, on the other hand, is a beautiful young woman who is forced to become the most popular girl in school. The fact of the matter is, she’s already beautiful. The only thing that “doesn’t,” is that she “runs like a girl,” she wears glasses, and she is smart. What’s wrong with those? By the way, she is a girl.

Even when my 32-year-old brother was a high schooler, it made me angry, the dynamic that he grew up with. I didn’t know what that pinging was in my chest at the time, but I know now, that was anger. I was dumbfounded when I found out that his best friend was killed by a drunk driver in 2004. My hairdresser by the time I turned 15, was his classmate, prior to her moving to another school. I found out that my hairdresser was bullied because “she didn’t dress ‘rich.'” But my brother liked her because she was funny. To me, he was the coolest guy in Medfield, Massachusetts. Yes, that’s where I grew up and moved out of, thankfully. I even remember when his friend said, “she’s so shy, she can’t even say hi,” at their “prom party.”

I remember, in 2009, when I went to my first two middle school dances, I wore a red dress. Those two dresses were different, of course. I remember a lot of guys staring at me, the night of December 2nd, 2009. That was when, as Carrie Bradshaw would say, “I got the knack for labels early,” as that dress was from Arden B. Even though I had developed a “passion for fashion,” I felt like I had been gifted the “Ghosts of April’s past.” I don’t know who would have visited/haunted me, but they surely came at later dates.

I found that one scene in “She’s All That” when the supposed popular girl said, “you’re a waste of yearbook space. You’re not gonna cry are you?” And I recall in just 3rd grade when a girl said, “your pilgrim’s house is weird. And you’re weird too. April, are you sad?” all in consecutive order, no pause in-between. To which I say, now, even though that person just may have changed:

Read Mia (Anne Hathaway’s) quote real carefully, “someday I just might grow out of that, but you, you will never stop being a jerk.”

What I could say to middle-schoolers, in this moment in time, it does get better. Some people move on to other schools, some people are luckier than that. I have people tell me, “you’re lucky you were strong enough to get out.” They’re right, I was. But that has NOT diminished my self-worth.

And don’t worry about my mom’s car. Its longevity does not make me ostensibly “rude” just for sticking up for myself.