EXCELLENCE IN COMPETITION: MY PASSION
Samantha Myers
“
Bump/ FS 301
There is a sense of fulfillment in being part of a group of people who love the same things you do. They make you feel accepted, whether it’s for ballroom dancing, for a study group, or for cheering on a team. Competition is a passion of mine that comes in all forms. I have an encompassing passion for excellence in competition. Whether it is actually competing, either in sports, grades, an insignificant board game, or encouraging a person to excel at their own interests, I love being able to know that I have contributed to the success of other competitors and myself. Each person has a purpose in life. I believe mine is encouraging others to succeed and to prove my skills and knowledge in competition.
Passion is a self-driven feeling that compels us to dream and excel. It is not a question of having a passion but rather of discovering your unique passion. Life throws so many things at you, and it is so much easier to get through if you have a passion to fall back on. If it were not for enthusiasm, the world would not be the place that it is today. As Georg Wilhelm said in 2003, “Nothing great in the world has been accomplished without passion.”1 It is important for us to realize our passions so that we can change the world in our own ways no matter how small or big. By knowing what drives us individually to succeed can lead to a discovery of our own passions which we can use to make differences. A passion can be anything that makes you feel like you couldn’t be yourself without it. If I didn’t have any goals, I would feel as if I had no purpose.
1. Georg Wilhelm, O Magazine, September 2003. http://www.quotationspage.com/quotes/Georg_Wilhelm/
There are many different components of my life that make up the formula of success which I use to achieve my passion such as teaching swimming lessons, being accepted and supported by my peers, and excelling in every activity. Passion cannot be compromised, and must be found and used to its complete potential. I strive to set goals and allow my passion to lead me towards accomplishing them. I don’t like to lose, and even more, I hate when I don’t reach my full ablility.
In the past I have set small goals like going to practice and improving my skills in swimming, and then diving. These goals were set not only in sports, but also in school working for good grades and having people accept and support me for who I was and am. This passion for setting goals developed into a desire to compete and win. After working for eight years at perfecting myself for diving, I unfortunately had a downfall, where my desire for competition, and everything that went with it, fell too. During various competitions from large qualifying meets like regionals and zones to smaller city wide meets and invitationals I would become enthralled with being and beating the best. I found myself only thinking about how badly I wanted to be on top and not on what I needed to do to get there. Wanting to win consumed me. When I didn’t get it, I would wallow in despair, taking every other person around with me. I was miserable. I felt myself beginning to slip into a losing streak. I found that no matter how hard I tried to win, I couldn’t accomplish that goal. I was so concentrated on one aspect of victory that I couldn’t compete my dives to the best of my ability. I didn’t want to compete any more, and soon I didn’t even want to practice. I lost my passion for excellence, the passion in which I so prided myself in. Then I discovered that winning isn’t everything. Reaching your potential and doing your best are the goals that should be accomplished. With this new attitude, I again began practicing, competing, and then eventually winning.
There was a certain rush I got when I was competing. I became a different person set on succeeding and completing my dives to the best of my ability. New goals were set for Regionals, State, and ultimately State Finals, all of which were within my potential. I was able to reach these goals and ended up thirteenth in the state for one-meter diving my junior year. That was one of the biggest thrills of my life. I felt as if nothing could bring me down from this perch of success.
This is me at the State competition right here at UT.2
My new attitude helped me find who I was and had become at that point in my life. I had competed better than I ever had all throughout that season. The passion that I felt when practicing and competing made me feel as if I had discovered a new sense of self. I was a person who wanted to excel at every activity that I was involved in. I realized that I could participate in everything I was interested in, and it made me feel like
2. Author’s Personal Photo. Taken by Aneliese Veazey. Feb. 2004.
I had done something worth doing. I was involved with many activities, from AP classes, to organizing prom, to keeping up with my duties as class treasurer. At the time, I thought my passions would keep me from experiencing everything life had to offer. Then I found that life is doing what you love; having passions is a reason for living.
Having diving to fall back on to helped me get through a lot of difficulties, and even though it caused a lot of problems, I would never go back and change my decision to follow that passion. Since I had practice everyday after school for two hours, I found my self deficient in a social life; it was difficult to find time to hang out with my friends who were involved with school activities. I couldn’t join very many extra-curricular activities since most of their meetings and service venues interfered with practice or competitions. I sometimes felt like I wasn’t getting everything out of myself or my school experience that I could have. My parents too had a higher standard of performance for me. While I appreciate the way they drove me to succeed, at the time I was angry with the way they pushed me so hard. I wanted to win and succeed to make them proud of the things that I could accomplish. This turned into my own desire to win for myself. I know now that without an intense drive I would not have become the diverse and well-rounded person that I am now.
Diving wasn’t just a sport; it was me. It was something I could go to when I wasn’t feeling my best, emotionally. It was an especially important, familiar place and feeling that I could go to when I lost my mom to cancer. I found myself complete when I was diving. I had no worries, no problems; I was just me, in my natural state. Instead of just quitting, I worked even harder to achieve goals that she would be proud of. Diving taught me that if you work hard and have the right support, your passions can change and mold you into a person who is productive and outstanding.
Diving is now my past. My present competitive passion, UT athletics, allows me to stay involved with all different sports from football, to volleyball, to baseball, and even rowing and golf as I encourage other athletes to reach their goals of excellence while competing. I am a part of an organization of people with a passion for painting up for game day and yelling till their faces are blue and their throats are hoarse the Longhorn Hellraisers. This is a group of leaders who have allowed me to see the “fan” side of sports when I had always been the athlete.
We find different
ways to get athletes mentally prepared for competition against others as well
as themselves. What always helped me get psyched for competing was having my
friends and family be there to shout my name and words of encouragement. Here,
the UT fight song, and chants of “
3.
Daniel Goleman, Primal Leadership:
Realizing the Power of Emotional Leadership. Harvard: 2002. In Explore
We are the “emotionally intelligent leaders [who] build their resonance by tuning into people’s feelings – their own and others’— and guiding them in the right direction,”3
and leaders who allow athletes to express the confidence and momentum that they already possess. My present passion has helped me see past the university as just a place for learning. Now I can see it as a group of people who are looking for opportunity, using their own passions as means for achieving their goals.
The Longhorn Hellraisers continuing their tradition of
tossing a member up and down for each point. Taken By: Ralph Barrera4
I thoroughly enjoy painting my face with the burnt
orange and white of our school. My favorite tradition is running down the hill
above the stadium and screaming my lungs out, letting everyone know that I am
fervent about UT football. Not only does this group cheer on football but also
many other varsity athletic teams. The volleyball team especially benefits from
our loud cheers and encouraging comments. "The Hellraisers are our biggest
student fan base and our players really enjoy having them as part of the
program, they are kind of like our seventh man. They bring a lot to the court
energy-wise and they are starting to get some cheers going on with our bench
and other
fans, which make this environment special. I think the Hellraisers enjoy it and feel like
part of the UT volleyball program."5 I like to think of our group as the student backbone
to the confidence of the team. If you don’t have support behind you, it’s tough to achieve what you want. My passion for competition shows how I enjoy being able to help share my knowledge with others. In the presence of others who enjoy my passion, as the Hellraisers do, I feel as if I am a part of something bigger and more effective than myself alone.
I want to continue
to help others, and spread my knowledge by being the best I can in the field I
hope to pursue, marine biology. With this knowledge, I will be able to strive
for excellence in conserving our marine environment and the life that lives in
it. I am extremely interested in the preservation of the habitat of humpback
whales and the effect that the oil rigs above
Humpback Whale Taken By: Unknown 6
All people have passions that allow them to be themselves. I have now realized
5.
Meredith Gusa, “Hellraisers make Gregory Gym the
‘Horns' House’” TexasSports.com. October 2004, http://www.texassports.com/mainpages/vb_pages/2003_04/005_october/100703_30.html
.
6. Unknown, MarineBio.org, July 24, 2006. http://marinebio.org/
that my passion of excellence in competition has developed me as a person. It has shown me how never to give up and how always to follow what I believe in. My ambitious values for competing and doing well have helped me to achieve acceptance at a division-one school, become a state finalist and have lots of friends that I can lean on for support.
Old Word Count: 1,529
New Word Count: 1,875
Added Words: 375
Deleted Deleted: 62
Website: https://webspace.utexas.edu/smm2682/finalp1B.htm?uniq=-aqivp9
Bibliography:
Barrera, Ralph. American Statesman. http://www.statesman.com/sports/content/sports/stories/longhorns/09/03/rbz06utnt20.html
Goleman, Daniel. Primal Leadership: Realizing the Power of Emotional Leadership. Harvard: 2002. In Explore Texas 1, edited by Jerome Bump, 62. 2006
Gusa, Meredith.
“Hellraisers make Gregory Gym the ‘Horns'
House’” TexasSports.com. October 2004.
http://www.texassports.com/mainpages/vb_pages/2003_04/005_october/100703_30.html
.
Unknown. MarineBio.org. July 24, 2006. http://marinebio.org/
Wilhelm, Georg. O
Magazine, September 2003. http://www.quotationspage.com/quotes/Georg_Wilhelm/
Author’s Personal Photo. Taken by Aneliese Veazey. Feb. 2004.