What I Learned In Courage To Grow Up And Become Who You Really Are

E. E. Cummings said, “It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.” He is completely right. From my freshman year to my senior year, I’ve grown up, but not just by becoming more mature. I have learned from mistakes, become more responsible, stopped trying to be someone I’m not, and, best of all, embraced who I am. Throughout my three years in high school, I learned that confidence in yourself is very important. They say “confidence is key”, but it’s not just key, it’s essential. I realized this in many different aspects of life, like sports, social events, and academics. Learning to become my own person is one of the best things that has happened to me, and I have the awkward phases, social statuses, and pressures of high school …show more content…
Insecurity and self doubt used to consume me, to the point where I couldn’t stand looking at myself in the mirror. Voices in my head, produced from the image the world told me was perfect, would tell me I wasn’t pretty enough, wasn’t athletic enough, wasn’t smart enough, or wasn’t cool enough to be accepted. This is pretty much how I would describe my first two years of high school, and everything leading up to it. Don’t get me wrong, my experiences during that time weren’t horrible. I’m sure compared to some people, I’ve had a great high school experience. Well, on the outside. It was the internal struggle that I constantly wrestled with. I didn’t win the fight until I finally confronted my biggest enemy: myself. I wouldn’t be where I am or who I am today without the people I surround myself with, the experiences I’ve had, and the choices I’ve made throughout these last three …show more content…
I especially found this out in sports. I am a cheerleader and I run track. But more specifically, I am a tumbler and pole vaulter. I struggled with confidence in both, but also have seen results due to a boost in confidence in both. My sophomore season of basketball cheer, I fell on my knees doing a running back handspring tuck during our halftime performance. Not only was it extremely embarrassing, it also produced a mental block for doing tucks. That fall, I returned to tumbling classes to try to get rid of my mental block. It was so hard because it wasn’t that I couldn’t physically do a tuck, I couldn’t mentally do it. I constantly played mind games. I would tell myself things like, “you don’t know how to do a tuck” or “you’re going to fall again”. Tumbling used to be something I loved, but during this time I felt like something I used to love was slowly being stripped from me. I quit taking classes because the stress this one hour class a week caused me was too much. I returned to classes in February, with an entire new mindset. I decided that the negative thoughts I had in my head were going to stay in the car. This simple change of mindset changed my entire experience going to tumble class. I still struggled occasionally, but I had more of a positive experience and could actually work on technique instead of just trying to get myself to do it. I had a similar experience in pole vault. My sophomore