Overcoming Shyness - Significant Challenge

Prompt: Explain how you responded to a significant challenge that you have encountered and what you learned in the process?
(max.200 words)

The night before the first day of high school, I lay awake in my bed wondering how I would make new friends, how I would talk to people, what if the teacher asks me to read out loud in front of the class. The mere thought of talking in front of a group of people made me sick to my stomach. My shyness was a sickness.

It was that night that I decided to make a change. I told myself that I would do one thing everyday that would help me overcome my shyness. It started with smiling at a stranger while walking to school. Then, I started joining clubs that interested me. Soon I found myself interacting with people I didn't know on a daily basis. My shyness didn't define me anymore, I was no longer 'the quiet one'.

Shyness may seem like an effortless hurdle to overcome but for me it was a learning process. It wasn't something that could be accomplished in a day; in fact it took years. This journey helped me realize that nothing in life can be accomplished with a snap of fingers; one must work step-by-step towards their goals. It takes hard work, courage, and determination to accomplish goals.

It's 206 words, and I can't submit until its 200. What can I cut out?
Critique away! Thanks!!

I like the topic of your essay, and you're a very eloquent writer, but you kind of glossed over the "challenging-ness" of your challenge through the second paragraph. For example, you could take out the worrying the night before and skip to the first time you smiled at the stranger as you walked into school. You could spend more time describing your nervousness and frustration with always being shy. Emphasize that even though you face the same shyness every time, THAT was the time when your determination was greater than your fear.

Also, the lessons you learned from your experience are true but also cliched. Talk about why it was so important to you to overcome your shyness and why it's so important to keep confronting your fears.

Some small grammar things, depending on what you want to keep:






Good luck!

Dear lalala
I think the general thoughts behind your essay is very good. College likes to see how you overcome yourself, and become more confident.
But I think you should have an anecdote so that it can make the essay more vivid. Right now, you essay tells too much, and makes it seem kind of boring.

Remember when you writing essays, you should show more than merely tell the story. Anecdotes are very important
Like have an incident, like when the teacher pick you up to read an essay or something, and your reaction. and what triggers you to change. ----you shifts too fast.

Best regards
Good luck
L.

It would be better if you talk about an anecdote instead of the whole process of overcoming your fear , in that way you can add more details into the essay instead of making short general descriptions .