Growing up, you learn new things, you experience obstacles that can set you back, but then you realize that everyone has a fear. I have a fear, the fear of failure. Many people have a fear on the more extreme side of things, but mine has caused me to disappoint myself and lose faith in myself. Being a high school athlete, you are constantly being told to have a positive mindset, block out the negativity, and focus on not only yourself but others. Which is hard to do, because in the moment, you want to succeed but you don’t want to disappoint anyone else. I have learned from many of my coaches that I am the one screwing it up and it is just a mental game. My one empowering experience is from a cross country workout that I had. 

Cross country is hard, it kind of sucks sometimes. But the amount of accomplishment that you feel after a race, or a workout, it really pays off. Athletes have bad days, in fact I have had a bad week. I keep on telling myself that it is all physical and I can’t do it but it really is all mental and it took me a while to realize it. My coaches are always telling me that you either have to be all in or there is no point to try if all you are going to do is hold yourself back. This specific run was the most challenging menatlly and physically. We had to do a 7 mile progression run, in the heat after a long day of school. I have been preparing myself for this all week and I was scared to go all in, but I was prepared to do so. As the workout started, it was going pretty well. I was with my pace group and we were all going strong as each one of us pushed each other to strive farther. But all of a sudden, on the next segment, I just fell back. At first it was only a little gap but as we continued it soon turned into 100 meters away from the group. Which is so hard to recover from, because you know that you are not doing what you r4e capable of. As I got ready for segment 3, my coach told me to sit out half a mile and catch up with them when they passed again. So as I stood there waiting for my group to come back, one of my coaches came over and started to tell me that it was all mental if I am dropping off the group after the first couple of feet. At first I really didn’t believe him and I still believed that physically I couldn't do it. And as soon as I joined in, I fell back another 100 meters. This workout really beat me down, I was afraid of failure and now I have failed. But the one thing that my coach said to me that really stuck was “ I know it is hard but be grateful for the tough times. When you get through them and you are better for it, it will make you stronger”. So instead of being afraid to fail, just push through those tough times in order to succeed.