As a student who went to a small Catholic school in a town, I had a difficult time loving my name. This might seem like a strange way to introduce an essay that is about goals for the future, but it definitely connects. Going into my story, every single memory with a new substitute teacher would be during roll call. They would perfectly pronounce the names of my peers, but when it came to my name, they would take a deep breath, and take a second to look at it. I would quickly understand that they had crossed upon my name. I have heard of the many different pronunciations of my name. eesh-war-yaaa, i-shi-wer-ye, and many more. All the other students in the classroom would giggle. I really started feeling insecure about my name, and it made me feel bad about myself. This made me want to forget the existence of my actual name, so I started using a nickname, so people wouldn’t think I had a long name or a name that was hard to pronounce. Then, at a point in my life, it was in 9th grade when I was watching a video for my religion class when I realized something. The video talked about how we choose to change ourselves to fit in, and hope that people will like us more, when we should have spent that time loving ourselves. This somehow hit me so much. I didn’t understand why I would want to change myself for others, and assume that the more stereotypical names were the ones that should be proudly said. I was thinking of how that one insecurity of not being able to say my full name had led up to me wanting to change my whole self. It also helps me to shape my future with something that I have achieved, self confidence. Self confidence doesn’t just come from having a perfect life, but it is us understanding that we are worth more than we imagine ourselves to be. I always had thought of my name as something that made me feel left out from my other classmates, but now I see it as something that defines me. This self confidence that I was able to bring into my life has allowed me to bring a sense of feeling that I would be able to achieve the many goals that I have for my future. I have always wanted to be a doctor and go to University of Michigan. I hope to keep my strong work ethic continuing in college. I also hope to run many marathons. I have always hated running, but I really want to keep my body healthy. Not only do I want to achieve these things, but I still want to have fun. I want to enjoy my years and make many memories. These are my main goals for the future.