When I was a kid I use to play volleyball. Looking back I think I only did volleyball because my sister did it before me. I wanted to be great at it just like my big sis, but no matter how hard I tried I struggled. I practiced the drills at home everyday. I spent a lot of my free time practicing serving in my backyard. My sister even worked with me on occasion.  No matter how hard I worked I was terrible. One day my coach gave me some advice that I still try to apply to life. My coach gave me two tips that make since when you apply it to other fascists in life.

1) you’re too scared: 

   She said the reason why I can’t hit the ball when it comes my way is because I get scared when I see it. I aromaticaly convince myself that I will fail before the ball even reached me. This resulted in me tensing up and ducking for cover. 

   Sometimes in life we have dreams that we can see come true, but they scare us. We convince ourselves that we are not worthy. That we will fail, but that’s not true you can’t tell the future. So if you’re not clairvoyant you’ll never know the outcome till you try.  

2) You need to look ahead:

    My grammar school coach told me I needed to envision myself hitting the ball, and see it going over the net. I needed to train my mind to see a positive outcome instead of expecting a negative one. 

   Sometimes we convince ourselves that our plans will always fall through. I tend to think like this sometimes after a lot of let downs in life. In order to get myself out of a depressing funk I imagine better days. I look forward to new dreams, and triumphs. 

   Now after all the training, work, and practice was over I was doing better on the volleyball court. I didn’t realize just how good I had gotten till high school. Something happened to me and I used what I learned in grammar school when it really counted. 

    The summer before my freshman year was to start I did volleyball camp at my new high school. If you were picked that summer you got to be on the team during the school year.  On the first day one of the coaches informed me that she doesn’t like me because I’m a teachers kid and a Christian. She knew all of this because my mom worked at the school with her. She let me know early that she was going to do everything in her power to ruin all my chances till I graduated. 

   I was determined to win her over. I trained hard that whole summer. My sister even came in from college to help the coaches out. On the last day the two coaches walked up to my mom’s car and told me not to even bother getting out cause they was never going to let me on the team cause they didn’t like her.  

   I wasted my entire summer working hard for nothing. My sister was so mad she used some choice words at them. They demanded an apology but she refused. She told them you owe my sister an apology. 
   Fast forward to senior year. All the gym classes was playing a volleyball tournament against each other the last team standings played the schools volleyball team. Guess who’s class made it to the finals. When I came up against the schools team I decided to make a point. I wasn’t scared anymore, and I envisioned myself beating that team so bad. I wanted the coach to realize how stupid she was for missing out on my talents. My team beat her team. 

   After the game someone said in front of the coaches “why aren’t you on the team you’re really good.” I look at them and said “they cut me freshman year because of politics. Bad move I guess” and walked away. ✌🏿️