Prompt: Tell us about a time when you changed your mind about something that mattered to you. What led to that change?
The ringing in my ear combined with a dazed state of mind had me faltering all over the place. What was that throbbing pain on the side of my head? Taking time to recover, I attempted to gather my thoughts and make of what just happened. Bam! Another hit to the face! This second blow to the head put me in an even more disoriented state than the first. Seeing that I was struggling to recover, my boxing coach decided to refrain from raining any more hits upon my exhausted body. With a tournament in the near future, the intensity of my training had become harder than ever before. Accepting the fact that success cannot come without sacrifice, I persisted to try to push my mind and body past their limits.
Boxing became my life. I woke up every morning between the hours of 3:30 and 4 am to prepare myself for the battle to succeed. Who was my enemy? My enemy was not the other person in the boxing ring. My enemy was the constant temptation to give up. Starting at 3:30 in the morning, I began my rigorous training schedule that totaled to about seven and a half hours every day.
With only two weeks until the tournament, I felt like I was already prepared. While my zeal was greater than ever, my academic performance had drifted to the other end of the spectrum. I was dedicating so much time to boxing that I didn't make time for school. Regardless of my gifted mental abilities, my grades just didn't reflect my potential. I discovered that the boxing tournament fell into the same week of my finals for school. This created a new problem: I either had to risk my academic career by continuing to train for the tournament, or put all of my hard work towards boxing to waste and quit. I sought advice from my boxing coach and he informed me that if I was to drop out of this tournament, I would never be allowed back to train with this team that I've grown to cherish as a family.
After many hours of deep contemplation, I concluded that I needed to put my training to a halt in order to improve my academic performance. Thinking back to my training, I remembered that I had accepted the fact that success cannot come without sacrifice. My love for boxing was a sacrifice that I needed to make in order to succeed in school to build a strong foundation for my future career, which was not in boxing. Not only did I stop boxing, but I momentarily stopped all extracurricular activities in order to get back on the right path for school. I spent every day of the week, including weekends, religiously studying for my upcoming exams. After getting the results back for my exams, I believed that sacrificing my love for boxing was worth the exceptional results I got out of my rigorous studies.
The ringing in my ear combined with a dazed state of mind had me faltering all over the place. What was that throbbing pain on the side of my head? Taking time to recover, I attempted to gather my thoughts and make of what just happened. Bam! Another hit to the face! This second blow to the head put me in an even more disoriented state than the first. Seeing that I was struggling to recover, my boxing coach decided to refrain from raining any more hits upon my exhausted body. With a tournament in the near future, the intensity of my training had become harder than ever before. Accepting the fact that success cannot come without sacrifice, I persisted to try to push my mind and body past their limits.
Boxing became my life. I woke up every morning between the hours of 3:30 and 4 am to prepare myself for the battle to succeed. Who was my enemy? My enemy was not the other person in the boxing ring. My enemy was the constant temptation to give up. Starting at 3:30 in the morning, I began my rigorous training schedule that totaled to about seven and a half hours every day.
With only two weeks until the tournament, I felt like I was already prepared. While my zeal was greater than ever, my academic performance had drifted to the other end of the spectrum. I was dedicating so much time to boxing that I didn't make time for school. Regardless of my gifted mental abilities, my grades just didn't reflect my potential. I discovered that the boxing tournament fell into the same week of my finals for school. This created a new problem: I either had to risk my academic career by continuing to train for the tournament, or put all of my hard work towards boxing to waste and quit. I sought advice from my boxing coach and he informed me that if I was to drop out of this tournament, I would never be allowed back to train with this team that I've grown to cherish as a family.
After many hours of deep contemplation, I concluded that I needed to put my training to a halt in order to improve my academic performance. Thinking back to my training, I remembered that I had accepted the fact that success cannot come without sacrifice. My love for boxing was a sacrifice that I needed to make in order to succeed in school to build a strong foundation for my future career, which was not in boxing. Not only did I stop boxing, but I momentarily stopped all extracurricular activities in order to get back on the right path for school. I spent every day of the week, including weekends, religiously studying for my upcoming exams. After getting the results back for my exams, I believed that sacrificing my love for boxing was worth the exceptional results I got out of my rigorous studies.
