Reflect on a time when you questioned or challenged a belief or idea - The Common App Essay

Please help me revise my essay. Thank you.

The Common App essay - Topic 3 - Reflect on a time when you questioned or challenged a belief or idea. What prompted your thinking? What was the outcome?

A Not Very Outstanding Story

You know how stories of the others, the outstanding ones, ones that overcame their difficulties and made their way to successes supposed to be our motivations. I spent most of my life admiring other people's arts and their accomplishments but it seemed to just stop right there. I let myself to think that I would never be able to build such stories, to build my own achievements. I like to cook, to sing, I love drawing but never had I thought that I'm good at anything. And that's wrong. No one should ever have a thought of not having anything special about themselves.

Throughout my early years of existence, I did accomplish a couple of achievements. During my years of Scouting, I had led the girl guides team to become champion twice. I managed to stay it the top 5 of my 49-student-class for 4 secondary years. I know how to draw and I love crafting. My works did get a considerate amount of compliments from either my family, friends or my art teachers. But I didn't think that those things matter. Every now and then I compare myself to others, those who I considered superb and I would see myself having no chance against them and there would be no place for me to continue pursuing what I thought I was a little bit good at. Yes, even now I still think that I would never be as good as those outstanding individuals but that's completely fine. Why comparing ourselves with others? The most important person you need to defeat is the yesterday you.

At the very end of my high school years, my friend received an admission letter from Lasalle, a college she'd applied for. As a close friend I said, "I hate you. Why are you so good?" and laugh. What she said really wake me up at the time, "What about you? When are you going to apply for at least one school? You have everything but what are you waiting for?" Nothing. I wasn't waiting for anything. I were always talking about wanting to study abroad, wanting to get scholarships but I didn't do anything. There was always a voice lying around "It's not going happen, you don't have what it takes." It wasn't my friends' or my teachers', it wasn't anyone's. It was my voice. I came to realize, it's okay if I get rejected, it's okay if I don't have what it takes. What really matters is I've tried. In the end, whatever happened have its own reason, whether to prove that the voice is wrong or to show me what I'm lack of, to show me how I can defeat my yesterday's selves.

Every one of us was born special. We, as different individuals all have something we're good at and love. That something is just right there, waiting for us to dig it up. We might not be the best at it but as long as we make the best of our own selves, that's enough.

Begin by examining the question: what is the purpose of the question, what specific skill is
the question trying to address? Then, pick an experience that you could describe to address
the question at hand. In your mind, recollect specifics of your experience. Structure your
answer and narrate your experience using the four steps in the 'STAR' technique.

1. 'S' for Situation : Commence your answer with the background to your experience.
Detail the circumstances of your involvement. Provide sufficient detail to develop a
context to the rest of your narration.
2. 'T' for Task: Describe the challenge at hand: what needed to be done, what should
have been done. Detail the outcome that was expected, constraints or conditions that
needed to be satisfied.
3. 'A' for Action: Elaborate your specific action in response to the challenge. Specify
analytical work, team effort or project coordination. Use 'I' and 'we' statements as
appropriate [more details here.]
4. 'R' for Results: Explain the results of your efforts: what did you accomplish, what
did you learn, how did your managers and team respond, how did your organization
recognize you. Wherever possible, quantify your achievements and improvements -
e. g., "20% improvement in ..." or "reduced manufacturing costs by 1.5 million dollars
per year ... ."

Min, your story is nowhere near responding properly to the prompt you were given. You are offering an insight that belongs more as a personal statement story than a time when you challenged a belief or idea. This story is not suited as a prompt because you only tell bits and pieces of stories that neither have a challenge nor a belief in any idea. This story is more suited towards prompt number 5 that states:

Discuss an accomplishment, event, or realization that sparked a period of personal growth and a new understanding of yourself or others.

You can revise this essay to better respond to the realization that sparked new understanding of yourself. That way, you don't have to write a totally new essay. You just need to adjust the content of this current version in order to make it more relevant towards the specific requirements of the prompt. I would focus more on the story of you envying your friend for getting into a good school when you had no plans for your future. That is right up the alley of the aforementioned prompt requirement.