Last week at soccer I was running after the ball. I was playing defence, and there was a striker on the other team running to get to the ball too. It was a race to see who would get there first.
For a second I thought about giving up. I don’t think I’m very fast. Actually I know I’m not fast. I told myself that she would get there before I would. What’s the point of wasting the energy of running hard when I know she’ll beat me to the ball?
But then I thought, what if I give it my all and see what happens? Yeah, I might not be fast, but I’d like to think that I give everything my best effort. If I give up before I’ve even tried then I’m not trying my best.
We ended up getting to the ball at the same time, and after a few tries I managed to pass it to a teammate. I felt pretty good about it. It wasn’t a game changing play. We didn’t score. But I was so proud of myself for not giving up.
It made me realize how many times I put limits on myself. I give myself permission to give up cause I don’t think I’ll be able to accomplish something. So what if it’s hard? So what if I’ve never been able to do it before? If I don’t give it 100% then of course I’m going to fail. But if I give it everything I have I could do something amazing.
Even if I don’t end up doing it, it’s still not the end of the world. I’m guaranteed to fail at things in life – but that doesn’t mean that I still shouldn’t give it 100% of my effort.