Undergraduate / Yes...... I won another medal; UNC Common App Essay - failure [7]

Recount an incident or time when you experienced failure. How did it affect you, and what lessons did you learn? This essay is for my common app. It is currently 634 words out of the 650 word limit

"Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising up every time we fail." -Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Yes! I won another medal," I thought to myself as I finished my 100 meter race. I had come in first, this was beginning to be all too easy. Ten wins in a row, zero losses; my personal record kept getting faster; I was untouchable. This was my first year running track at the high school level and was already receiving varsity letters, medals, etc. The track was my home away from home and every time I was there my mind was at ease. Winning was second nature and nothing could stop me nor get in my way from becoming the fastest. By then end of sophomore year, I was used to being a star athlete and it felt pretty good.

Even though track had become my life, I still had school work to worry about. By junior year, I began to fully realize the difficulty of maintaining a balance between academics and extracurricular activities. As I challenged myself in the classroom by taking more AP courses; I was slowly losing sleep, and missing practices for extra help in multiple classes. Things were not going as smoothly as before. I was one week away from the biggest meet of the season, yet I wasn't physically or mentally prepared and my confident mentality was slowly becoming questionable.

The day had come and I was lined up with my opponents on the starting line. The official fired the gun, signaling the start of the race and in a blink of an eye I realized the race was finished. "Jacobs coming in third, Wallace, coming in second, and in first Edwards," the announcer stated as he read the people who had qualified for medals. Not hearing my name announced broke my heart. I immediately started crying at the reality of not winning or qualifying for my event. After that race, I was devastated and depressed. I stopped attending practices because the loss left me feeling like a complete failure, or that I could not succeed in anything else. I went to my siblings, who were my usual sources of comfort and motivation. However, this time; even though I felt better, it was only temporary.

In all my sadness, I ultimately realized that I lost my self-confidence. I made the decision to start looking within myself, find my inner strength, and move on from my failure. I could not dwell on the past any longer; instead I used that experience to better myself for the future. I had renewed confidence in my abilities and remembered that God always has plan. After I stopped running track, my grades improved drastically, I felt less stressed, and I had more time for myself. My teachers noticed an exceptional improvement in my class work and motivation. Even though I thought the end of track was the worst thing ever, things were certainly improving.

I turned my failure into success by tapping into other strengths and abilities I didn't realize I had. During my junior year, my friends and I started a color guard program and I was elected captain. In my senior year I started my school's dance team, and became student body president. I was able to participate in all these extracurricular activities, maintain A's and B's, and become a stronger leader amongst my peers.

Interestingly, when track first ended my outlook on life first seemed bleak but I pushed through my feeling of despair and was able to succeed. Because of all my wins in track, I was conceited and felt on top. My ego was at an all time high but I realized you can't succeed in everything. Sometimes you have to fail to appreciate what you're really good at.