High School vs. College

There were a lot of factors that changed my motivation from when I jumped in high school to jumping in college now. In high school, track and field was just a side sport for me, since then, I have made it into a career as I’m entering my sixth year of jumping.

In high school I had no expectations for my success as a jumper. My motivation for track was soccer season and being prepared for the Fall season. There was no pressure to be the best since this was a brand new sport for me. When I realized I had a knack for jumping, winning quickly became a motivation. I realized that I had the potential to win my conference in high jump. Just as I had been successful in all my previous athletic endeavors I wanted excel in track now. I think jumping was easy for me because there were no expectations. Anything I did at a meet was great as long as I put my best effort into it and I think this is why I fell in love with track. No one in my family had ever ran track and I had no one to compare myself to, I could pave my own way to success and that’s what I did and why I wanted to continue track and field in college.

For once I was competing in a sport that my family had no knowledge of. I loved teaching my parents that a relay race can be called a 4×200, not a 2×4 like my mom commonly refers to it as (I have  to remind her track and field has no relation to the Home Depot). College was a place where I could enjoy competing and have the hopes of improving upon the skills I gained in high school.

Once I was a college athlete, my motivation to improve was my previous success in high school. I thought that with all the new coaching advice and training programs things could only go up from here. Boy was I WRONG. My freshman year of college I couldn’t get back to my personal bests in high school, it was brutal. You feel like a failure but I trusted in my coaches training program and used my older teammates’ success as an indicator that if I was patient and trusted in the program I too would see positive results. That motivator worked for me as I peaked my athletic performance at the end of my sophomore year. You think the story only gets better from here but I decided to transfer and now my track career is on a whole new route, read about it here.

Motivation Off the Field

I’ve spent a lot of time in my previous blogs going over the basics of track and field but I wanted to get back to the conversation of motivation. The way I conduct myself when I’m training and jumping is reflected in my life as a student as well.

Now you may be thinking back to my first post when I admitted that I was the laziest athlete ever…I’m a lazy student as well too but somehow I pull off great grades every semester and have been rewarded for my academic achievements. I only do the necessary work I need to get the best grade possible. Here are some examples of how I make it by:

1. I show up to class and rarely skip. As much as I may want to skip class, class participation and attendance points toward my final grade can really boost your grade.

2. Take good notes. It’s amazing how much good note taking skills can improve your grade, and when it comes time for a test, good notes make studying so much easier because you have a plenitude of information in front of you. Not to mention, when you try to take good notes and write down important information from class, it makes the class time pass much faster.

3. Only read what you need to. Especially in college, lengthy articles can be assigned for all of your classes and most of the time it’s impossible to get it all done. Therefore, you need to prioritize your reading. Skim the reading and if there’s certain information you need from it, find it and know it well. Also, understand your professor’s expectations for the readings. If you know you’ll have a pop quiz on the reading, you have to read it, but if the reading is just additional help for the class, you need to know when you do and don’t necessarily have to complete the reading in order to do well in class.

Try reading some of this blog all about note-taking, the author has some really great ideas that can be beneficial to us all! http://takingnotenow.blogspot.com/search/label/Note-taking