Sometimes you have to be like a Timex- take a licking but keep on ticking. In life you face many disappointments and failures. You get cut from your high school team or you lose in a championship game. In life you’re not perfect, nobody is, but you can be the best you can be. I believe that if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.
“He shoots, he scores, and Michael Jordan has done it again.” Michael Jordan or MJ is known to many people as the best basketball player to ever play the game. You probably think that he was a basketball prodigy from birth, but you’re wrong. Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team as a sophomore. He didn’t give up; he just continued to work on his game and spent countless hours in the gym. That individual hard work paid off because now he is an icon for basketball and a hero to little kids and athletes around the world.
Abby Wambach is another example of this belief. She is known as the “face of women’s soccer”. Abby met with many setbacks in trying to attain her goals. She didn’t make the New York Olympic Development Team several times during her teen years. What if she had given up? What if she hung her head and never tried out the next year? If she had not persevered she would have never made the National Team or won an Olympic gold medal.
I have a similar example of this belief, but this one involves myself. I have represented my state ODP team and started for 3 years. I have been disappointed over the years because I have not made the regional pool or the regional team. This program brings together girls from 14 states to compete for spots on an 18 player roster. There are many great opportunities associated with making this team, such as meeting new people, traveling overseas and representing my age group at the National Team camp. I haven’t given up which is why I’m doing it again this year. I am in the process of trying out for state team with hopes of going to regional camp in July and showing them I have what it takes to compete with top players across the nation. I have decided in the upcoming year I am going to have a new attitude and a different mindset.
I’m sure a lot of people’s ideas and hopes have been shattered at one time or another. We have all had some sort of disappointment in our lives, some more than others. If you haven’t had disappointments then you’re not human. But how we handle setbacks and failures speaks volumes about our character. Dwayne Wade, for example, is one of the best players in the NBA, but he wasn’t highly recruited out of high school. He got like 2 small school offers and an offer from Marquette and that was it. Disappointed, he decided to make the most of his college career and look where he is today, a millionaire, role model and on the cover of a lot of magazines.
I used to believe that luck played a huge part in what people accomplished but over time I have decided that luck will only get you so far in life. It might get your foot in the door but in the end you must be able to perform the duties and skills asked of you. Now I believe that hard work, training, and a mental edge are all ingredients to success. None of these athletes gave up and neither will I.
“If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.” This belief will impact my future because it will build character, help me develop a strong work ethic, and help me to persevere in order to accomplish my goals. A popular song says it best, “If at first you don’t succeed, dust yourself off and try again”. This is a life lesson for all of us.