Realigning Ambition With God’s Heart

What if the problem isn’t your effort, but your alignment? Kicking off the year, we trade hype for a heart check shaped by Philippians. Paul writes from prison with no platform, no metrics, and no visible success—yet his words radiate joy and peace. That servant-first posture exposes where modern ambition quietly crowds out trust, and how a “productive” year can still be spiritually off-course.

I share a candid look at building a healing curriculum for women—testing groups, investing in coaches and ads, creating content—and watching the numbers fall flat. Through weekly check-ins with two amigas, prayer brought a hard but freeing truth to the surface: I had started operating as if the mission was mine to carry, not God’s to lead. We unpack the moment when calling turns into pressure, why stalled results can be God’s mercy, and how servanthood realigns motives without shaming your hustle.

You’ll hear practical shifts that change everything: pray before you post, ask before you invest, serve before you strive, and measure stories over stats. We offer reflection prompts to help you discern who you’re serving from and who you’re serving for, plus a grounding prayer to reset expectations and timelines in God’s hands. If your job, business, or ministry feels heavy, this conversation invites you back to a posture that produces durable peace and clearer purpose.

Subscribe, share with a friend who needs a gentle reset, and leave a review with your biggest takeaway—what’s one place you’ll swap performance for surrender this week?

 Reflection Questions: Servanthood, Alignment & the Heart Check 

1. Are there areas in my life right now that have slowly become more about me than we? What shifted? 

2. Has my job, calling, or role become more about surviving, proving, or producing than serving? 

3. Am I so overwhelmed by responsibilities—bills, children, expectations—that servanthood feels impossible? 

4. If I am serving, am I doing it from a place of joy or frustration? 

5. Where might I be operating in my own strength instead of inviting God into the process? 

6. Have I been measuring success by outcomes instead of obedience? 

7. What is one area of my life God may be gently inviting me to realign—not fix, not quit, but realign? 

Take time to journal, pray, and invite God into what He is revealing to you 

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome & Heart For The New Year
• 2:05 Philippians, Prison, And Joy
• 4:26 Paul’s Story And Servant Identity
• 6:02 A Year That Produced But Didn’t Prosper
• 8:20 Programs Built, Clients Missing
• 10:10 Accountability And Praying Over Business
• 12:08 The Aha: From Mine To God’s
• 14:15 Calling Versus Pressure And Motives
• 16:12 Reflection Questions For Realignment
• 18:20 Community, Accountability, And Prayer
• 19:50 Closing Blessing And Next Steps

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Hey amigas, welcome back to Mommy on a mission podcast. I'm your host, Mariana. And listen, y'all, y'all know how it is when life be life. And who do we call? We call on Jesus. So, you know, as I was reflecting back on 2025, I realized something that stopped me in my tracks. Sometimes it's not that things aren't working, it's that God is trying to realign the heart behind the work. So in today's episode, I'm sharing a personal lesson God walked me through about servanthood, performance, and trust. So, amiga, I hope you join me. Grab your cafecito and let's talk. Welcome to the Mami Animation Podcast, where when life be life and amiga, we call on Jesus. I'm your host, Mariana, certified biblical life coach, author, and your purpose-driven amiga here to remind you that you don't have to walk through life on anything. Here we talk healing, identity, confidence, purpose, and those real life moments nobody wants to admit they're going through. But you know we all are. So grab your confusito, settle in, and let's dive into the conversations that help you grow, breathe, and align your life with the woman God created you to be. Once again, happy new year, amigas, and I am so glad that y'all are joining me today. I just wanted to take some time and, you know, really just reflect. Reflect because I think a lot of times what happens is we we think of a new year and we listen, we hear those words, you know, new year, new me. And I don't know, that's that's not where my heart was this year. It's not so much that there's a new me, but maybe new actions, new ways of handling certain situations, right? So if you're listening to this and we step into a new year, I just want to say I'm grateful you're here. New Year's, like I said, tends to invite reflection. And that's what we're all about today. And so we start looking back at what worked, what didn't, what we hoped would happen, and what never quite came together. And today's episode is one of those honest reflections. This isn't hype you up, new year, new you kind of episode, like I mentioned. This is more of a heart check episode, one that God gently walked me through. And I believe he may be inviting you into it too. So as I was sitting with my reading in Philippians over the winter break, I was struck by something so simple yet so powerful. So Paul writes this letter while he's imprisoned. He has no freedom, no platform, no visible success. There's no social media, there's no IG, no TikTok, no Facebook, none of that, right? And yet the letter overflows with joy, clarity, and peace. Now, I don't know about you, and some of you know my story, but sitting in jail is no fun, right? But to be imprisoned, and I think about those that are incarcerated, you know, it it brought me back to like my ex-husband, you know, he's in prison serving a 35-year sentence. And I think about that there is no freedom. I mean, like, you can go to the restroom in private, there's no way to really communicate other than with people there. Yes, they do have emails, but that can be taken away. Like, no questions asked. The phone calls can be seized, they can go all on lockdown, and they have to resort sometimes to letter writing, and even that is not private anymore, right? And so to imagine all of that and then being joyful and all of a sudden have moments of clarity and peace, like in prison. I know of people who just want to be with their families, but yet here is Paul writing letters of joy, clarity, and peace. And the very first thing he does is he introduces himself not by title, but by posture. Paul calls himself a servant. And if you're not familiar with who Paul is, let me just say this. First and foremost, his name originally was Saul. And Saul was someone who was of Roman stature, very high stature, and he was persecuting Christians left and right, stoning them, beating them, killing them, whatever, imprisoning them, whatever it was. This is who he was. He was those that were after followers and believers of Christ, and yet he has a come to Jesus moment, literally, and he becomes blind, and he ends up becoming one of Jesus' faithful servants, and so because of this new creation in him, he's baptized and he has now a new name, Paul. And so, once again, he doesn't go by what he used to be, he goes by what he he is, what he became, and that was a servant. And that word servant sat with me for a little bit, and it opened the door to some deep reflections about my own year in 2025. So, again, as I reflected on that year, especially as I reflected on last year, especially in my decision making as it relates to mommy on a mission, the business, I realized something important. You see, on the surface, it looked like a productive year. And it was, I'm not going to take any of those efforts away. It was a very, very productive year. And in my mind, I thought that because it was a productive year, it was also going to be a good financial year. So I created a curriculum that I was truly, truly proud of, one designed to help women look inward. And the work required learning how to heal, forgive, identify who they are in Christ, build relationship with him, and discern their calling so they could step into their next assignment. The content, y'all, it was solid. The intention was sincere, but the results didn't reflect the effort. I led two groups last year. One was my beta testing group, and the other one I ended up rolling out and introducing it over to Adria Women's Health Center, and that was my second group. And in both groups, both groups started out with, I want to say six women. And in each group, only two women completed the program. And the hardest part to admit is this that there were no paying clients. I mean, I invested time, I hired coaches, I invested money, I did all of the things that I was told to do that I saw other coaches doing, and they were, you know, they were doing very well. You know, they were starting to get clients and you know, they were starting to get paid. And and like I said, I I got none of that. I you know, I invested in the ads, I would spend time creating content, going to social media, sending out the emails, and just developing all of this stuff, and yet nothing seemed to move. And that disappointment hit me hard. But then came my aha moment, and quite honestly, it came last month in December. So, two of my amigas who are also coaches and podcasters, you know, we were we meet, we try to meet every Friday. We kind of check in with each other, see how our businesses are going, how are we, you know, how are we feeling? How are we doing? And we try to, we for the most part, take everything that we talk about and we bring it before God. And we started doing that more so in November, because we had done it at the beginning of the year and then we fell off, and then we picked it back up again in November, and it reminded us how important that was for us because you know, like the word says, when two or more are gathered, there he is in the midst of it all, right? And we needed that, we needed that accountability for each other, but we also needed the support for one another. And so we talk about those things, we talk about our struggles, you know, our successes, next moves, you know, what suggestions do they have, right? So we we share all of those things with one another. And so one of the one of the girls actually shared with me her story, how she struggled in a season where nothing was growing. Like she had, she has a coaching uh fitness box, boxing, fitness coaching. Oh, I can't even think of the word. So she teaches boxing, but she's more about uh fitness, not just so much in the the outward, but it's more inward than outward. But she uses boxing to help women get back in shape and incorporate spirituality and all of it, right? And so she was telling me how she had created all of these things and how she was pouring herself into it and how time-consuming everything started to become. And she would invest all of this time, all of this effort, all of this money, and nothing. And then she felt this tug at her heart for YouTube, and she was like, No, I don't want to do that. That was something that she did not want to do, and that was something that God had spoken to her before, like a year or so before. And she kept saying no, and so she started doing things again the way she thought it was supposed to be, and so when she said something that stopped, then she said something that stopped me in my tracks. She said that she realized that she had been offering her service and operating her business as hers, rather than operating with God. Now, if you are not a believer in Christ, and you may be listening to this, and you may be hearing, well, isn't that her business? Isn't that what she did? You know, she was developing her business for herself and her family. And yes, you would be right, but at the same time, as followers of Christ, it's different in this aspect. Our business is not led by us, our business is led by God. And what I mean by that is that every decision making we make, purchases, uh, content, ads, investments, whatever it is we do, we have to we first go to God rather than our own self. We go to God and say, Lord, if this is what you need me to do, then provide the resources and things. And so she wasn't doing that, she was doing it on her own accord. And y'all, that resonated with me because that's exactly what I was doing. Every time I did something, I invested out of my own pocket. And yes, and I would get frustrated because I would get no ROI, no return on the ink, you know, on the investment. I would pour and pour and pour money, and I would either break even or I would make no profit out of it whatsoever. Right. And and so that was becoming frustrated, but I I realized instantly when we were talking, I felt the Holy Spirit check my heart. Because what I realized was this that no matter how good the curriculum was, no matter how well intentioned I was, somewhere along the way, my focus had shifted, not intentionally and not selfishly, but subtly. I had become more focused on the business and financial side than on the women I was called to serve, and that's when Philippians came alive for me, because Paul wasn't performing for results, he wasn't chasing numbers or recognition, he was surrendered. Paul reminds us that he who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it, not you, not your effort, not your performance, but God. When calling turns into pressure, alignment is lost. And sometimes God allows things to stall not to punish us, but to purify our motives. So most people would say, Well, God, that must have been a failing year for you. Well, 2025 didn't fail me, but it did refine me. And it put me in a position where I had to think about who and why I was doing this for. Was I doing this for me or was I doing this because this is what God is calling me to do? And my assignment is to serve the women that He puts before me. So, Amiga, before we move on, I want to pause here because this isn't just my story, right? Let me ask you something. Are there areas in your life that have quietly become more about you than we? Has your job shifted from purpose to pressure? Has it become more about surviving, proving, or producing than serving? Maybe you're juggling so much right now, bills, children, responsibility, expectations that servanthood isn't even on your radar. Not because you don't care, but girl, because you're exhausted. Or maybe you are serving. You volunteer, you show up, you help. But if you're honest with yourself, you're frustrated, burned out, unseen, and maybe even resentful. I mean, that doesn't make you a bad woman, it makes you human. But sometimes God gently asks us the same questions He asked me. Who are you serving from? And who are you serving for? In other words, am I serving from my point of view, or am I serving from God's? Am I serving women for them for me, or am I serving them for God? Because even good things can drift out of alignment, even service can become self-focused when it's done from depletion instead of devotion. And if any part of this stirred something in you, pause for a moment because that may very well be your aha moment. So I will be uh I read to you three reflection questions here on this episode, but I've also included all of them in a downloadable PDF linked in the show notes for a deeper dive. It's gonna have a list, I believe it's 10 questions to ask yourself to see. And when you do look at it, I want you to take time with it this week. You know, journal, pray, reflect, and invite God into what He's revealing to you. And if this episode resonated with you, share it with someone else who may need this reminder. You don't have to walk this season alone. Trust me. I'm not walking it alone, and I can't walk alone because if I walk it alone and by myself, once again, we're gonna have some chaos. And I don't need no more chaos in my life. I need to just, you know, rally up, and that's why community is so important. We need community, but not just with anyone. We need women that we can trust that we know will help hold us accountable, but not through judgment, but with you know, a good heart, right? And and to realize that not to tell us that we're doing something wrong, but to say, okay, then what step can we take to make it different? So before we close, I'm gonna go ahead and you know pray for us a little bit. And I want to invite you to join me in on this. Father God, as we step into this new year, we surrender our plans, our expectations, and our need to perform. Forgive us for the moments when we've chased results more than obedience, when we focused on outcomes instead of people, and when we've tried to build something in our own strength instead of walking in yours. Lord, realign our hearts. Teach us to serve before we strive and to be faithful before we seek fruit. Remind us that our identity is not found in titles, numbers, or success, but in being your servants. We trust that you who began a good work in us will be faithful to complete it. We give you this mission, we give you this year, and we give you our yes in Jesus' mighty name. Amen. So, amiga, I want to say thank you so much for spending some time with me. And tune in next Saturday for another episode of Mommy on a Mission Podcast, where when life be life in, we call on Jesus. And remember, Amiga, you are loved, you are chosen, and you are a mommy on a mission. Amiga, thank you for tuning in to the Mommy on a Mission podcast. If this episode blessed you, encouraged you, or gave you that little push you needed, please share it with another woman who needs it. That's how we build this community in Mujette's walking boldly and purpose. Make sure you're subscribed so you never miss an episode. And if you're ready to go deeper, you can connect with me on Instagram or you can join the Mommy on a Mission podcast community on Facebook where women are healing, growing, and turning their God-given purpose into bold action. Until next time, remember this. You are strong, you are chosen, you are on a mission.