Full Schedules
Leila Rendon (8)
Every athlete is good at their sport, but not every athlete can withstand the struggle of being athletic and being smart.The best athletes can keep the balance of sports and school. I wonder why?
Most people with athletic ability know that keeping the stress of school and clubs outside of school, while playing a sport/sports you love is insanely hard. Others think it’s easy. The biggest person in your life that decides just how hard that job is, you. You decide just how hard it is to balance your school, and sports struggles. The most challenging part is trying to juggle everything while maintaining grades, chores and overall just being a kid. If you can juggle all of that and some, you’re a machine. It’s already a struggle keeping up with school but imagine sports, extracurriculars, grades, AND all of the other responsibilities our families expect from us.
Staying strong is the key in balancing whatever your goal is, because if you’re not strong enough to mentally hold all of the stress, it won’t end very well. Mental toughness is the key in the sense that for example your failing one class and eligibility is due the same week, you need mental toughness to figure out how to fix your scenario.
Maybe you could go tutoring and study for the next assignment,get extra credit, or even re-take an important test. It’s all about figuring out how to keep your balance beam stable because if one thing goes wrong the whole beam gets messed up. Always make sure your out of school life and in school life are balanced.
Some ways to maintain your sports and extracurriculars are get a school planner and plan out important dates and times such as practices, meetings, games, and projects. Another way is to put reminders in your phones or computer to make sure you remember your important schedule. There are many more ways to keep track of your schedule. You just find out what works for your personal preference. A big factor of the word “balance” is habits, if your habits don’t benefit your goal you need to work towards changing those habits.
Say you want to start practicing a specific skill in your sport, if you want to practice every day but you’re always used to only doing team practices and get too lazy to practice and stay consistent. That’s a bad habit that won’t help you in your goal you want to reach. Mental toughness also helps to change any bad habits that bring you farther from your target.
Overall balance is tough but maintaining your balance is tougher. Always keep your head in the game and have a winning mindset. Wanting to succeed is what keeps you pushing, without the want to succeed you won’t have the want to keep going or stay strong. Always remember if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Failure should always be your motivation to continue stronger. Stay strong!