The way I look at it, staying positive makes life a little easier. When staying positive you have the confidence to do things, and conquer goals that you may have never thought were possible.

Back in 8th grade I was the tall, skinny, uncoordinated kid that never really accomplished much. This is when I first started the sport that would change my life. Track and Field.

When I first started running track I was terrible. The coaches didn’t even know what race to put me in because none of the events really fit me. I was too slow for the sprint races and I wasn’t strong enough to run the long events. Sometimes the girls would run faster than me at practice. After about two weeks of switching events, the coaches suggested I try the hurdles. This event was an even worse fit for me but I stuck with it.

Starting freshmen year my parents sat me down and told me that they weren’t paying for my college education and that I need to be able to excel in something to earn a scholarship for college. I knew college was a very important part of life so that was when I decided that Track would be my ticket to a brighter future.

The track season of my freshmen year was a struggle. I was still a scrub. The hurdles were raised to a new height that I wasn’t used to, the runners ran way faster than I could keep up with, and everything was much different and way harder. This didn’t make me give up though because I knew that someday I would become a real track star and earn my scholarship. I knew I had to stay positive and work hard to achieve my goals.

During my sophomore track season is when I really started to work hard. I started setting personal goals for myself to accomplish so that I could become the best hurdler that I could be. At the end of the season I was still only an average hurdler but between freshmen and sophomore year I saw drastic changes in myself. I knew average isn’t where I wanted to be so I kept working.

After lots of believing, hard work, setting and completing a whole lot of goals, the results progressively got better and better. Now in my junior year of high school I am All State in the hurdles and All American in a 4 x 200 relay and I can finally consider myself a good a runner.
Staying positive and sticking to my goals has worked tremendously on and off of the track. My grades went from being low 2.0’s in middle school to me now being on the honor roll. If I continue to work hard and have confidence in myself there is no telling how far or great I can become.