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Having Faith In Yourself

"If you do what you've always done, you'll get what you've always gotten." This quote has always seemed to describe me perfectly. All throughout my high school career I have always been the person to play it safe. I would sometimes venture out of my comfort zone by trying something new, but would easily become discouraged when things didn't work out the way I had thought they would.

It is now my senior year, and it is quickly coming to an end. I was always very passionate about music and I am proud to be a member of our band. However, I almost quit last year because of my fear of playing solos. I decided however that I loved band way to much to give it up that easy, and I would deal with the consequences that came with my decision to stick with it.

Two months ago my director informed me that he wanted me to be the featured soloist in a piece of music. Of course I was terrified, but he assured me that everything would be okay, and that he had faith in me and knew that I could do it. Up until four days ago, I could not make it through the solo. I would always seem to get discouraged before I played it, and pretty much woke up every morning thinking 'I wonder how I can mess things up today?' I decided to ask my director for help thinking that he would tell me that I didn't have to do it and that he was still proud of me. Instead, all he said was “You just have to have faith in yourself.” I thought what he said was cliché so I didn't really think about it. But, I figured trying his advice wouldn't hurt, so I started the next morning different. Instead of me wondering how I could mess up, I imagined myself playing through my solo with confidence and I kept on telling myself that I could do it.

The weird thing was...it worked! Every single day after that I played the solo without any flaws. Tomorrow is my big concert, and I'm a little nervous, but, I know that I can do this. I don't know what's going to happen tomorrow, but I realize that after all this time the only person that was holding me back from being my best, was myself. So, I am once again out of my comfort zone, but now that I have faith in myself, I think things will go a little differently than they have in the past. And, hopefully after tomorrow the quote "If you do what you've always done, you'll get what you've always gotten." won't describe me anymore.

Moral of the story, always do the thing that you fear the most, and don't get discouraged if you fail, just keep on trying harder.

Story was submitted anonymously