Don't be average

When life brings you to your knees, you've just got to take it. There's nothing you can do until you have caught your breath. But eventually, you have to get back up! You can't let life keep you down forever.
These past few years, I've been able to not only get by but to thrive in some areas, I've been successful, so I know what it feels like to win. But these last few months, all I can do is survive, there is no room to be better than good, and there is no way to get out until I have caught my breath. When you're running, and you keep running, and you get to the point where you believe that you are going to pass out, do you quit and still get stronger? NO! You have to keep pushing!! And guess what happens after you push through it? You get stronger, and you are able to withstand the pain even longer next time. But in the moment, when you're running, and your coach and teammates are there telling you that you've got more to do and that you can't afford to quit, you can't afford to give up, it feels like life as we know it today, is over. But as soon as you keep pushing, as soon as you find your second wind, you then realize that you can handle it, and you will be able to keep running. And if you fall, you have got to get back up, because once you're down, the longer you stay there, the harder it is to get back up. It's alright to go down, to fall, and to fail, but if you don't get back up, then you're beat.

That's how life works. If you are struggling in life, just know that you've got to keep pushing on. The harder you push, the sooner you can find that second wind. When you have that second wind, you can see that what you were going through was hard, but you are able to come out of it, and come out on top! If/when life does get you down on the ground, you can't stay there. You've got to get back up. Whether that is crawling, or getting back to your feet doesn't matter, it just matters that you never give up. And yeah, it may never get easier, but I can tell you this, today, if you keep pushing and you keep working, you will get stronger, and then it doesn't have to be easier.

I'm writing this today, to tell you that I'm tired of not succeeding. These past few weeks I've just barely been getting by. I've got C's in some of my classes, and I've never been the student to get average grades. I have been a JV player in volleyball, and I'm a competitor, I'm an athlete, and I'm not playing on the varsity because I'm performing just average. I'm tired of being average! Today, I'm going to jump up. I'm not going to crawl to my feet, I'm not going to get up slowly. I will jump up, and claim the title that is mine, and I will become successful, I will no longer be average and you don't have to be either. It's your choice.

Good Morning World

"Good morning world!" I said as I took my cup almost overflowing with coffee out onto the front porch and listened to the birds chirp and watch the fog slowly lift and smell the moisture in the air.

This paints a very pretty picture doesn't it? It almost makes you feel like you are standing there, with your coffee in hand, ready to take on the world. This is something that I haven't done near often enough. As I'm sure all of you have noticed, I haven't posed anything since Christmas, and before that I hadn't posted anything in over a month.
 Let me back up and give you all a little insight into my world. I started playing organized sports for the first time this fall. I started out behind everyone else, and it was a huge struggle for me to catch up. I played Volleyball for the season, and that was a struggle for me, so naturally I spend an immense amount of time working to get better, so I could potentially be noticed by the coach. Hours after hours I spent in the gym, and even just at home trying to copy the skills that we had worked on in practice. However, half way through the season, I realized that it was just a sport, and it wasn't worth killing myself, or depriving myself of time spent on homework and extra time away from my family. Now, when basketball season came, it was a whole different ball game (pun intended). My goal is to end up playing basketball at a D1 college, and D1colleges don't recruit people from small town Hugo Colorado unless the are completely outstanding. Knowing this, and also knowing that I was behind everyone else, it would be a struggle, and I couldn't think of basketball as "just a game" I wasn't able to be relaxed, and even writing about it makes me queezy. I poured my heart into that game, every day and every night. I was always stressing about it, and never allowed myself to sit back and think of what an amazing world I live in. It wasn't until the season ended that I was truly able to appreciate the lifestyle that I have.
Don't be so worried about anything that you can't take time to relax, even if it is just for a few minutes, to appreciate what is around you. 

The Extra Mile

"At 211 degrees water is hot, but at 212 degrees, water boils, and that makes steam. With steam, a train can be powered!"
It is very easy to give up. Things aren't working out the way you think they should be, and you feel like everything is falling apart, so what do you do? Do say "that's it" and give up? Or do you go the extra mile, and strive to become a better person? When I was very little, my parents trained me to always go the extra mile. This concept seemed like a wast of time to me, but I did it anyway because if I didn't, I would get in trouble! Eventually I got passed the stage of only doing extra work because I was told to, and started doing just out of habit. I learned that many good things happened when I worked harder than I wanted to originally.
The concept of "running the extra mile" has always been in my head, but this fall, I realized that it had been pushed to the back burner, as some might say. I noticed myself slacking off more, and not even doing everything that was required, or expected of me. I was putting my time and energy into trying to fit in, and be a "cool kid in high school" rather than focusing on improving my athletic ability to play sports, and focusing on my school work. Running the extra mile isn't to stop working on something so you can work harder on something else. Going the extra mile is continually working on improving yourself and helping others, but never slowing down on something important to you. This is something that I resized when I got my report card at our first quarter meetings. At that point I knew that I hadn't been going the extra mile in every thing that I was doing. The whole point of going the extra mile, is not to be selective in what you work hard in. A wise man once said "How you do one thing, is how you do everything" Therefore you can't only work hard in one field. If you think you're working hard in one aspect, but are lacking work in another, you aren't really working to your full potential.

I challenge each of you to reflect on yourself, and see in what aspects of your life, are you lacking something. When you find that, act on it!

Transform

I recently got back from the 89th National FFA convention held in Indianapolis Indiana. This year's theme for the convention was Transform. When you hear the word "transform" what do you think of? I think of something changing dramatically! In fact, the definition of transform is to: make a thorough or dramatic change in the form, appearance, or character of. This is huge. What do you think needs to be transformed not only in your life, but in the world today? The way we treat people, the way we talk to and about those around us, does that need to be transformed and made better? Absolutely. 
It may sound easy to say, I'm going to transform my actions, and do the right thing the first time all the time! But that is hard to do, it is even hard for some of you to say. Transforming is never easy, but it is necessary. For the world to come a better place, we, the younger generation will have to start, by transforming our actions. We will have to stop will the negative thoughts and words to and about other people, we will have to do the hard things, and do what is needed so that world can become a better place. It's time to face it, America is falling apart! Everyone will have to come together, to transform this nation, and make it a better place to live, to grow up, and to grow old. 
Without people who are willing to do the hard work to transform this nation, it will never happen. Are you going to watch as America falls apart in front of you, or are you going to see a need, and meet it, no matter how great, or how small? 
I am going to help transform this nation! Are you? 

Start somewhere

The biggest thing that keeps us from fulfilling our dreams, and doing what we want to do, is the fear of failure. When we're younger, we don't notice how other people are looking at us, and we don't really care if they like us or not. But when we get older, we start to worry about how other people view us. An example of being afraid of failure is my violin playing. When I was about 10 I started taking violin lessons. It was so much fun, and I enjoyed every part of it. But when I was about 12, my whole world fell apart, and I stopped doing almost everything that I loved. I shut music out of my life, and I didn't want to be a part of anything. When the pieces of my life started to come back together, and I was able to cop with life again, I didn't start back playing the violin, I was afraid that all the time I didn't play it, I was getting worse, and if I went to play a note, it'd sound like it did when I was first taking lessons. So my violin just sat in my closet for three years. My band teacher asked if I ever played it, and I told her that I haven't played it in three years, and I probably would sound like a brand new player if I picked it up right then and there. I didn't realize until then, that I was afraid of failing. I wanted to be the best at everything, and I was afraid that if I wasn't the best violin player, but I still played I would be viewed as a failure. I learned that if I ever wanted to play again, I'd need to get over my fear, and start somewhere. Because if you never start, how do expect to finish? This is a big thing for me, that I need reminded of daily. Whenever I don't want to do something, I ask myself if I don't want to do it because I'm scared of failing. If the answer is yes, I strive to get over that, and realize that everyone fails. We are all human. People won't judge us for failing, and if they do, that is their problem, we don't have to be effected by it.
My point is that if you never start, you will never get better. If you don't work at something, you will never be the best at that thing. If you don't want to do something because you don't want to fail, you're not alone, but you have the ability to get over that, and do it even if you might fail, because you are strong enough to get up even if you do fail!
Have a wonderful weekend!!

Smile-it makes things better

This last week has been a struggle for me, I've had a hard time in many different areas, and when I would look in the mirror I would see all the flaws in myself that could possibly be there. I was so upset with how the week had gone, and then I was upset with how I appeared to myself, and it took me all weekend to figure out why I was so frustrated with myself. Before I tell you why I was frustrated with myself, I'm going to tell you a short story. This was our homecoming week, and I am in charge of organizations who help put on most of homecoming, and very active in others. So I had tons to do to get ready, and when I would look in the mirror, I would be stressed out about getting everything done, and worried that not everyone would do their job to make the week run smoothly.  Homecoming wasn't the only stressful thing going on this week though, but we can get into that later. The point is that I was letting the activities that I'm involved in stress me out, which made it hard to see the good that could or was happening. Now, the reason I was so upset with my appearance was that I didn't smile at myself. I was stressed and upset looking into the mirror, and then when I saw myself stressed, and not seeing the good in others, I didn't see the good in myself. This made me think, if I have that big of an impact on myself, if I influence how I look at myself, and everything around me by smiling or not, what dose that do to everyone else? No doubt that how I express myself will have an influence on how they look at the event, or their day etc. When homecoming week got over, and I was no longer responsible for making sure stuff gets done, I started relaxing, and smiling, when I looked in the mirror and smiled at myself, it made me happy, I didn't focus on what was wrong with my appearance, I just smiled, and I didn't even know why. The main thing that I would like you to take away from this post is that if you take a few minutes, look in the mirror, and smile, it will make you happy, and your day will go by more smoothly. It can be hard sometimes. You'll have those days when it feels like nothing can go right, but if you take a few minutes to just smile at yourself, I can't guarantee that things will get better, but the way you handle them will!
Have a wonderful week!!

Focus

Good morning everyone!
I know that I'm behind on my blogging. For any Junior Highers reading this post, please understand that you have it pretty easy (as far as school goes), when you get to high school, everything is very different, so enjoy middle school while you're in it!

My topic today is Focus: everyone has heard that if you don't focus on your goal, you will never achieve it.Or something like that. But how many of us really focus on our goal? Do you really have one thing that you can focus on? I know I don't focus near as much as I should, but that is going to change! In school, if you don't focus on learning the information that your teachers are trying to teach you, you won't get the full value out of the information that you should be getting. In your job, if you don't focus on getting your work done correctly, you will not get the job done correctly, which will potentially cause trouble. And in sports, if you don't focus on what you're doing, and why you are in that sport, you will not play to your full potential. If you're evolved in a sport because you have to be, you can still make the best of it, and work your hardest to be the best that you can be, even if you aren't enjoying what you're doing. But if you focus on your school work, or your other work, and especially in sports, you will become better, and you will rise towards the top of your peers.
One of the biggest parts of being focused though, is work ethic. If you are focused, and don't work hard, you aren't really focused, so you will need to work like crazy, and stay focused on your goal for that situation, and then you will become better.

I hope ya'll have a wonderful weekend!