reach your potential

In today’s high-pressure world, many teens are afraid of failing and even afraid of succeeding. They do not want to stand out, neither for better nor for worse. They want to be accepted and just ‘fit in’. This type of mindset will get you nowhere but down the path of mediocrity, and that is nothing to be proud of or satisfied with. As Douglas Malloch so aptly wrote:

If you can’t be a road, then just be a trail,

If you can’t be the sun, be a star;

It is not by the size that you win or fail.

Be the best of what you are!

Each of us has different talents and different abilities, so don’t get me wrong, it’s not about being the best, it’s about being the best YOU can personally be. Hockey great Wayne Gretzky has said, “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t make.” Think about it. If you don’t try, you have a 0% chance of success! But if you put your whole heart into something and work hard, you can and will succeed at anything you want. And if it turns out that your best thing wasn’t good enough, then at least you tried and you won’t regret it or be surprised at ‘what could have been’. The only way to discover the limits of the possible is to go beyond them, towards the impossible.

With that in mind, let me share with you what basketball legend Michael Jordan had to say:

“I’ve missed over 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost nearly 300 games. I’ve been tasked with taking the game-winning shot 26 times…and I’ve missed. And I’ve missed over and over and over again in my life. that… I achieved it”.

So, from one teen to another: I encourage you to do today what others won’t, to have tomorrow what others will never have… And never be afraid to fail!