My biggest piece of advice is to start good habits early. The little thngs you do now that you may not enjoy will pay off big by the time your a senior. Once your a senior, there is very little you can do to change course; your future is already limited to what you did as an sophmore and junior. As I enter my next path in life, I can look back and see all the little decision that lead me to where I am. I’m happy where I’m at, but if I had just done a few more things during those years, I could have gone so much further.

 

Taking a Honors class over a standard class, doing the extra credit assignment to get the A, going to a class to improve your ACT, volunteeringa few extra hours of community service; decisions made from the second you step into the school can be the difference between thousands of dollars in academic scholarships or getting into the college of your dreams

Same goes for sports. 

Getting that one last rep in on squats, choosing a banana and peanut butter over chips, getting that extra hour of sleep everynight, analyzing film for just 5 minutes everyday; all are actions that can make the difference between being all-region or a benchwarmer. 

 

If you feel that something is your weakness and is holding you back, take that five minutes out of your day to work on it, even if it feels insignificant. Some months or years down the road, you will have a srong foundation that you can continue to build on rather than dealing with constant setbacks.

 

Finally, you will go through days where you feel overwhelmed, exhausted, frustrated, and helpless. You will want to quit and go breakdown it bed. Don’t. The difficult times of your life and how you respond is what shapes who you are. If you quit now while only in high school, then what are you gonna do when you’re hit with prolems in the real world. 

 

I find that the greatest times in my life were when I had to fight tooth and nail to suceed becuase those were the days I was the best version of myself, those were the days I grew the most. You will find many people around you give up once they make it to the high school level, no care in the world about how it will affect their future. I beg of you to go down a different path, fight through those trials with the end in mind becuase it will give you more oppertunities than you could ever have imagined before.

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If there is one thing you take from me, let it be this:

What you do, or don't do, now will always have an impact on your future in one way or another.