My mental health journey has been a long one, to say the least. It's been especially difficult at times- not knowing what's even wrong with me. My extreme lows have held me back, and my extreme highs have always told me, "You know what, everything is going to be okay." Sometimes I don't even know who I am. The past year has been about me knowing what and who I am. Discovering all about myself. Through partially discovering myself, because I know that I have much more to discover, I've had a lot of back-and-forth conversations about my goals. With the highs and lows, motivation and non-motivation, my goals would differ from day to day or week to week. Some days I'd say to myself, "I'm going to get so much done today and do so much with my entire life as a whole." Other days I'd say to myself, "I'm going to be depressed my whole life. My life is a waste- I'll never get anything done." Not even knowing what your true goals are because of the constant switching of moods or personalities, has been a struggle. I've had no goals at times, and then at other times, I'd have one hundred goals. Since becoming more stable with my mind and understanding who I am, I've learned to develop more stable and realistic goals. I want to graduate from Penn State with honors. I want to do aerospace engineering. I want to continue with sports after high school. I want to work at NASA. I want to break records and acquire achievements and medals. All of these wants, but I've never had the right mindset or motivation. All of these wants are now needs. I need to do this stuff. I need to prove the stigma of mental health wrong. I need to prove everyone who thought I was going to end up like my mother wrong. It's not just a want- it's a need. A need to show me that I can do anything I want. Besides my goals, my mental health has affected my relationships with people. My boyfriends, my friends, my family members, everyone. I feel especially bad for my past boyfriends and my dad for having to deal with me. I feel like a burden. I get so depressed and down, and then they feel like they have to bring me up. Or I'll be really happy one moment and something goes wrong, and I switch. It's not their fault. But they think it is. And then they think it's their responsibility to help me. It's not their responsibility. It's my own. Others just didn't want to deal with me. Once they realized that I had "problems", I could notice the slow distancing from me as a friend or lover. They didn't want to deal with someone who was "weird" or "sad" all of the time. Trust me, I don't even want to deal with myself at times either. But many people don't realize that people with mental health issues aren't just "people with mental health issues." They are people. REAL people. People who have a personality, the ability to love, laugh, and live in this world, and who can make conversation with you. And that's been a lot of my experience with relationships. Many think that all I am is someone with mental health issues. And I've proved a lot of those people wrong by showing them who I am. Me. Because of my mental health, my understanding of the world has gotten brighter. I've gotten to be more understanding, more questioning, more interested, and happier about the world we live in. I believe I have a purpose in this world. Whether that's to travel and make an impact in the lives that I meet, help build a rocket for the first people on Mars at NASA or just bless strangers in the area that I live in. Any purpose is some kind of purpose. No purpose is less than others. I believe that we were put on this world for a reason- to fulfill our purpose. Whether we know this purpose or not, it will come to us. Looking forward to what my purpose is has kept me going. I don't know if I necessarily believe in God yet, I'm still so young. But I believe in this world. Most people focus on the bad of this world. But with my increasing positive mindset, I've also increased my positivity toward this world. I love this world. I love me. Yes, we both have problems, this world and I, but not showing love is what makes this world and I bland. Taking moments of my time here on this planet and enjoying the warm air and sun on my skin, the birds chirping around me, and the grass swaying in front of me is what makes me more grateful for this world. I've realized the beauty of the earth and the privilege it is to be born and to be able to experience life. Wanting to experience the life that waits for me, keeps me going and distracted from my mental health. All of these reasons are why I'm still here today.

I'm only eighteen years old, and it feels as if I'm sixty years old. This is because of all of the hardships I've endured and the mindset I had to force myself into to "survive." And, by survive, I literally mean survive. The tribulations I've had to go through due to my family and even friends have caused me to be suicidal almost every day, every hour, and every second. My mental illnesses that developed as a result as well didn't help either. I had to adjust. I had to cooperate with what was happening, and most of all, I just had to deal with it. One thing my therapist told me is that "You can't control others' words and actions; you can only control your own." And I live by that every day. I can say that that has been the most solid and helpful advice when dealing with situations of people hurting you. And I've had many people hurt me, physically and mentally. To start with a quick summary of what happened for me to become the person I am today, my mom was a drug addict. That is where everything started. I suffered domestic abuse from multiple people in my family, and I was bullied in school as well. My mom's addiction eventually took her, and of course, it was on Mother's Day of 2020. To add in some humor, I've always been a Christian. And it felt like a slap in the face from God himself to take my mom on Mother's Day when I've already had enough mom issues from my own mother and my stepmom. When I was younger, I knew there was something wrong with me. I could just physically and mentally feel it. It took years, but I finally am coming closer to the truth of what's mentally wrong with me, and that's in a series of about six mental illnesses (go figure). The medications I've tried haven't worked so well, but I'm currently on a new one that I'm positive will work. My mental illnesses and the devasting events in my life have pushed me backward over, and over, and over again from reaching "peace" and "eternal healing", as I like to call it. On how to describe it, it's honestly just peace in my mind and becoming at peace with my past, present, and future. And to become my best self. But I'm still working towards that goal every day. Furthering my education is very important to me. I don't want to have any regrets about my education as I get older, so I want to accomplish much and become as smart as I can be. Furthering my education is one of the ways to heal myself. I can be so proud of myself for not letting my mind and my past stop me from furthering my education. If I can do that, then I can do anything else. I can develop new skills and become better at thinking quickly. Focusing on my education can help me not focus on the bad thoughts. And lastly, furthering my education can help me realize some pretty big dreams. I have many big dreams in life. I only have one life, and I want to use it to the best of my ability. My future education will allow me to have the life that I want, the mindset that I want, and give me access to a door wide open to my future dreams, that all I have to do is step through.

After high school, I plan to attend a four-year undergraduate university. I'm going as undecided, but I want to do something with outer space. I want to go to graduate school and eventually achieve my doctorate. My dream job is to work at NASA. Ever since I was a kid, I've had a fascination with space and working at NASA, and I want to make my dreams come true. To achieve this, I want to obtain high grades throughout high school and college. I would like to find a job that helps me pay for my education and any other expenses to focus more on school. I need to keep my motivation up and obtain the drive to accomplish my goals. Motivation has been difficult for me in the past but having it and keeping it to make my dreams come true is another one of my goals as well. I'm excited about my future and the known and unknown to come with it. My goals are what fuel my life. I try to live by the mindset of "you only live once." I want to experience life to the fullest. This type of mindset is what keeps me going. I want to prove the people wrong who have doubted me and said that I won't be able to accomplish certain goals, and this add fuels to the "fire" of my life as well.

What confidence means to me is believing in myself and being positive towards myself. Having confidence has been a major struggle in my life due to multiple people always bringing me down. But the one person that gives me confidence no matter what is my dad, and I'm very grateful for him for helping me obtain confidence through everything. Every day I try to work on being more confident. Whether it's small things or big things, I try to be confident while doing it and accomplishing it. By taking these small wins of being confident, it furthers my mindset that I can be confident in anything. Yes, it's still a struggle, but what matters is that I'm trying. I bring myself positivity by sticking to affirmation statements and reassuring myself. There are certain positive statements that I say to myself that trigger confidence and I've learned that over the years. The biggest thing that I never had much confidence in is soccer. Even though I know I am good enough to play on my high school team and multiple travel teams, I still think that I'm terrible and I should stop playing soccer. This has been my biggest defeat. I let those thoughts come over me and I stopped being confident as a whole. But, with the help of my dad and trying to focus on positive thoughts having to do with soccer, I've brought my confidence back. I increase this confidence by practicing more and realizing that I am good. It's been a long process, but I'm still trying every day. I'm proud of myself for coming this far and improving my confidence throughout soccer and my life in general.

After high school, I plan to attend a four-year undergraduate university. I'm going as undecided, but I want to do something with outer space. I want to go to graduate school and eventually achieve my doctorate. My dream job is to work at NASA. Ever since I was a kid, I've had a fascination with space and working at NASA, and I want to make my dreams come true. Besides school, I have an all-around goal of traveling in the country I live in, the United States, and the beautiful world we live in. I always dreamt of traveling, and I'd like to make that come true by working hard and getting the money to afford traveling. One of my biggest goals is to improve myself in the present and the future. I'd like to have a more positive mindset and be a positive and happy influence on those who surround me. I have tons of goals, but those are the three that I aim at and want to accomplish the most. I want to make my dreams as a child up until now come true. I know that in the future, I won't have any regrets about the past because of how hard I'm willing to work.

After high school, I plan to attend a four-year undergraduate university. I'm going as undecided, but I want to do something with outer space. I want to go to graduate school and eventually achieve my doctorate. My dream job is to work at NASA. Ever since I was a kid, I've had a fascination with space and working at NASA, and I want to make my dreams come true. Besides school, I have an all-around goal of traveling in the country I live in, the United States, and the beautiful world we live in. I always dreamt of traveling, and I'd like to make that come true by working hard and getting the money to afford traveling. One of my biggest goals is to improve myself in the present and the future. I'd like to have a more positive mindset and be a positive and happy influence on those who surround me. I have tons of goals, but those are the three that I aim at and want to accomplish the most. I want to make my dreams as a child up until now come true. I know that in the future, I won't have any regrets about the past because of how hard I'm willing to work.

It was around Christmas time in 2021. I was in my Foods 101 class in 8th period, and things were winding down in school. Everyone was excited for Christmas break and just ready to leave. We were making Christmas cookies in Foods class in honor of the "Christmas spirit." Me being me, I like being creative and adventurous. Instead of using a normal cookie cutter in the shape of bells, Santa, or trees, I wanted to make my own Christmas shape. I started shaping a reindeer in the cookie dough. My friends started laughing because I literally cannot draw or do any type of art. I was doing my best though. My deer looked as if 4 year old shaped it into the cookie dough. Everyone was making fun of it, in a nice way. I was so excited for this deer. My teacher took a look at it, smiled, and said, "Nice one, Becca." She put the cookies in the oven, and there my deer went to turn into a non-eatable cooked cookie. There was no way I was going to eat this beautiful piece of artwork. This deer was for the world to see and admire! The cookies went in and they were done for the next day. Now, it was time to decorate the deer. I had so many ideas for it. I got my decorations for it- white icing, brown and white sprinkles, and M&Ms. I asked my friend Holly to help me decorate it. It was like we were about to start an engineering process, there was a lot of "scientific method-ing" going into the build of this deer. I carefully picked up my beautiful creation and started to put the icing on it. A few of my Foods class friends were watching me do it and were sitting around. A little background information, I tend to spaz a lot. It's really random and annoying. I was being very slow and taking my time in case I had a spazzing moment. And of course, during the most perfect time (not really), I spazzed. I literally threw the deer cookie up in the air because my arm had its spaz moment, and my friends and I watched in slow motion as my deer, my beautiful and most amazing creation, fell, hit the floor, and break into pieces. The legs were under the table, the body was by my foot, the head detached and was by the fridge. It was an actual murder scene. I screamed "NOOOOOO!" and I started crying and was like, "MY DEEEEEER!!!!" I was in shock. I watched my deer get murdered. My cookie. My deer cookie. I was traumatized. We tried to put the pieces back together, and we continued to put the icing on it as tears rolled down my face. The deer eventually turned out good, and we made a Christmas tree out of M&Ms and put it on the plate with the deer. It still turned out beautiful, but I'll never forget my once-whole deer cookie. Reindeer Cookie Photo file:///home/chronos/u-fe042933effb2d192b65f427c8f58716e106ecb7/MyFiles/Downloads/Reindeer%20Cookie%20Photo.pdf

After looking back on it, this is a turnaround story from my life that I'm proud of. This was almost a year of severe depression, anxiety, dissociation, OCD, and suicidal acts and thoughts. I've always had these problems, but I reached an all-time low. I hit rock bottom. Honestly, I think I went below rock bottom. My mom died from an overdose on Mother's Day of 2020. My boyfriend at the time became a severe alcoholic and the relationship turned emotionally abusive. It felt like I just kept getting hit by one wave after another. Every time I tried to stand up, I would get hit. In the winter, my friend was drunk and didn't tell me, and he drove me, and we almost got into an accident. This brought back memories of my mom being high and driving me. January, I got sexually assaulted. May of 2020 to April of 2021 was the worst year of my life. As I said, I went below rock bottom. In April, I just woke up one day and felt okay. I felt alright, and I had an entire day of realization. "Everything will be okay. I still have people here for me. I need to focus on the people who love me. I need to make myself happy and continue going no matter what." and more. I spent the day at school thinking about what I could do to make myself better. I started working out, thinking positively and putting more effort into my schoolwork and my friends. It took time, but now I'm here today- happier, surrounded by people and love, 5th in my class, and going to college in the fall. I don't know how I made it, but I did, and that's what matters.

The best way I keep a growth mindset is to have confidence in myself. Confidence is everything to me. It gives me the motivation to put in the dedication and hard work throughout my life or to achieve my goals. Confidence has been something I seriously struggled with; I'm not going to lie. On the outside, it may seem like I have so much confidence, but in reality, it's a mental block. Growing up with a family that would degrade me, tell me I can't do anything right, and destroys my goals, has severely limited my confidence. It takes time. Days, weeks, months, or years, to finally work up to something. And I even know I can do it too. For example, I know I'm capable of being an amazing soccer player, but my confidence was never there. Four years later, in my senior year, I was able to be confident and take the ball wherever and whenever I wanted. But what matters is that I achieved that confidence. Yes, it took four years and four soccer seasons to have this confidence, but I still achieved it. Sports are my major confidence blocker. I'm better at being confident in school, taking a test, or running for president of a club. I developed the confidence to work hard and dedicate my time to studying for that test or preparing a speech for the position of president of a club. Having a growth mindset has taken time, but I'm slowing been growing into it, and I know I'll keep growing even more.

Being patient is important to me because it's good for mental health and it's a form of kindness. Being patient is the opposite of having to constantly rush. Most of the time, I feel like I have to rush with either my life or the task at hand. I feel rushed mentally and physically, and it's draining. One of my recent goals has been to develop patience over time. This will help slow down my mind, and my body as well. I don't want to rush through my life; I want to have patience with it. This will allow me to enjoy and accept the moment, instead of only thinking about the future moments. As I mentioned, patience is a form of kindness. Being patient allows others to share their lives, talk about their feelings, and more. For example, I went to Dunkin' Donuts one time and it was very packed inside. I could tell that the few women working were exhausted from running back and forth. When I placed my order, I told them to take their time and get whatever they needed to get done first before they make my drink. I saw the relief wash over the woman at the register and she realized I wasn't going to be pressuring or obnoxious about the long wait time. Patience goes a very long way, for me and others. It can have an impact on me or someone else. It's important to be patient every day, throughout the day.

The person that has inspired me the most in my athletic pursuits and personal life is my dad. My dad had me playing soccer from the time it was humanely possible to start playing. And I ran with it ever since I was first introduced to it. I loved soccer when I was younger. Being in the moment of the game gave me an escape from the troubles I was going through at the time, and it still does. My dad signed me up with a local personal trainer to help me get better at the game, mentally and physically. My dad always wanted me to be a superstar. He never forcefully pushed me to continue with soccer. I, myself, wanted it to be my main sport and my dad encouraged me to keep going. We've never had much money compared to other kids on my several travel teams, but my dad worked extra hard and saved up everything he could so that he could pay for the expenses that came along with being on a travel soccer team and paying for the personal trainers. As I got older, I still loved soccer. Then, it went downhill. A very close family member ruined my favorite sport for me. This happened within a span of a few months to my four years of varsity soccer. I didn't love the sport anymore. I hated soccer. I was made to feel that I sucked and would never be good enough and that everyone around me was better. But the only person that was still motivating me despite it feeling like everyone was against me, was my dad. Looking back on it now, I was consumed by the negative people instead of focusing on the one person who tried to keep me going with soccer. At the time, I stopped playing travel soccer and I stopped practicing. My skills and knowledge were at a standstill. After every game, my dad always said I did good no matter what and tried to keep positive with me overall. He knew I had those negative people in my life and encouraged me to look towards the light instead of facing the darkness. Since my high school soccer career is over, I've been spending my time healing my mind and listening to my dad's advice about starting soccer again. He says he can't wait to see me play in college, and I want to make him proud by making the team of wherever I plan to attend college. Despite everything, he inspired me to keep going. Besides soccer, my dad has always been an amazing inspiration in my life. He's a "dad"- protective, gives me advice, is by and on my side throughout everything, and so forth. I honestly can't ask for a better dad. My mom was never really a big factor in my life, so he was like my mom and dad at the same time. He was a double parent and still is. My dad has grown to become more patient and understanding with me on why it's hard to even get out of bed some days, due to some of the hardships in my life. He never gets frustrated; he tries his best to motivate me to start my day and get anything done I can. I'm forever grateful for my dad and the huge impact he has had on me, from when I was a kid up until this very moment. And I'm forever grateful for the times and ways he's inspired me throughout life.

After watching Hidden Figures with my mom, I was in awe of the women in the movie. Specifically, Katherine Johnson. In the movie, she continued to amaze me every minute. She was insanely smart and showed up her colleagues multiple times, and she accomplished incredulous things. During this time, the civil rights movement was very popular. Johnson was a black woman and showed that being black didn't make her different. Meaning, her skin color didn't define how intelligent she was, and she was just like any other human there, except smarter and more determined to solve NASA's problem. She didn't let the discrimination she faced in the workplace stop her. She continued to solve the math problems and prove every one she can do it, and I admire her greatly for it. I honestly admire her intelligence as well. The movie depicted her brain as out of this world when solving math problems, and they aren't wrong- her brain truly is out of this world. Katherine Johnson's math helped NASA go to the moon and back. Yes- to the moon and back. Imagine being the reason that humans first landed on the moon, and that's who Katherine Johnson was. Without her math, NASA wouldn't have been able to land the rocket on the moon and then have it come back. The movie inspired me to go into a space-related field, such as aerospace engineering. I want to work as hard as her and let nothing stop me from accomplishing my goals. She will be the most amazing woman I admire in history due to her intelligence, determination, and accomplishments.

I've received multiple pieces of financial advice from my father throughout the years. He doesn't want me to go through the struggles of learning about dealing with money and finances, as he says, so he continues to teach me to prepare me for life outside of home. First, he told me to not get too many credit cards. This can result in multiple bills and too many things to pay off. It can be difficult to keep track of and get confused. Having a few credit cards, to establish your credit score, but not too many to keep track of, is a good balance when paying items off. The second piece of financial advice he gave me was to save up for my retirement decades in advance. This is so you have plenty of money stashed away for your retirement and don't have to worry about paying for bills or items when out of work. He said to make an account for it, invest, or do certain programs that take money every month. The third piece of advice he gave me is to always have cash on you. Don't rely on credit cards- always have cash no matter what. If machines are broken, then you can only use cash. If there are several major cyberattacks on banks over the country, then you still have the cash to pay for things instead of risking anything. And if you need to leave town immediately, you have cash with you to pay for things and don't have to worry about swiping a credit card.

My favorite book is called Atonement. I recently read this book as part of my AP Literature course, and my English teacher didn't prepare me for the heartbreak I experienced in the book. The love story in the book can be described as the girl and the boy are separated by some unbreakable wall, and all you can do is watch them struggle to be with each other, but they never can be together. It truly is heartbreaking, and I can't say it enough. Because of a little sister who knew the difference between right and wrong and still chose wrong, their love was never united like it should've been. The book made me develop sincere hate towards Briony, the little sister, because of her accusation towards one of the lovers, Robbie, who was separated by Cecilia after this event. Yes, I know it's a fictional book, but I get very in touch and passionate with books; I experience the thoughts and feelings of the characters personally. This comes with getting very emotional when things don't go the way I want them to go, like Robbie and Cecilia not being united together. The worst part is, the author wrote the book as if the lovers were alive and doing well. And then on the second to last page, I believe, it was revealed that they both died months apart from each other due to World War II. So, this entire time in the book, I thought they were together, and then to find out they never were, and both died without seeing each other again, that is what seriously broke me. If I'm being honest, I cried about the ending the rest of the night.

I always thought I had to "rush" in life. Do this and that right now, as in the next week or month or so. It feels as if I have to do everything I want to do, all at once. I'm very impatient, and this feeling of having to rush through life doesn't help because then the feeling is doubled. After talking with my father about why I feel like I have to rush with all of my life's events, he gave me a simple sentence that I have now based my life on- take one day at a time. He explained to me that every day is a blessing and "if your feet hit the ground after getting out of bed, then that's something to be proud of"- his exact words. This special moment was about a year ago, and I've been trying to live by his words ever since. I've been taking it one day at a time in my life. I've grown to become more patient with myself and realize that things will come when the time is ready. Time goes by too fast, which is another thing I've learned, and I try to calm my "rush-ness" down by repeating to myself that time goes by fast, and things will be here before I know it. I want to be able to enjoy the moment as well. I want to be able to enjoy the setting I'm in, the people I'm surrounded by, and anything else that makes that minute a special minute and a minute to remember.

I aspire to make a positive impact in the world in multiple ways. The first way is by simply being a kind person. Being kind to others and making them happy or changing their bad day to good, is being a positive impact on that person. It's not hard to be kind to others and bring joy to others for me, because I would rather make other people happy first, rather than myself. I want to be kind to everyone I meet and be some kind of positive impact in their lives, whether by giving them motivation or just simply giving a compliment to a stranger, which can make some sort of impact. For my career, I plan to major in something space-related. One of my favorite majors is aerospace engineering. I've always had a fascination with space, and I want to spend the rest of my life with it. If I go with aerospace engineering, I want to work on rockets and planes to help people and make discoveries to help future generations. I would love to help develop rockets to send to planets or asteroids to discover minerals or see if that planet is livable for humans. I love explorations and discoveries in general, especially with space. With planes, I want to develop better planes for our earth. Meaning, planes that use fewer emissions and that don't harm the environment. People will be able to connect all over the world and travel without destroying our beautiful planet. Because of my passion for the environment, I want to make some sort of positive impact on our planet by joining an organization and donating to help grow a healthy environment. Whether this is through volunteering to help pick up trash, pledging to recycle more, or donating $10 for some sort of project, I would do anything to see our planet thrive and leave future generations with fresh air and water and no pollution. To make another positive impact on the world, I want to volunteer for the local organizations of my community. For example, I've already volunteered at the local produce market and food drive to provide people with free food, so they don't have to worry about paying for food for their families. I plan to continue this wherever I go to help more people with obtaining free food. I want to be able to look at my past and have no regrets on whether I made a positive impact on the world or not. One of my life-long goals is to do so, and I am excited to make all sorts of positive impacts on the world and other people.

After high school, I plan to attend a four-year undergraduate university. I'm going as undecided, but I want to do something with outer space. I want to go to graduate school and eventually achieve my doctorate. My dream job is to work at NASA. Ever since I was a kid, I've had a fascination with space and working at NASA, and I want to make my dreams come true. Besides school, I have an all-around goal of traveling in the country I live in, the United States, and the beautiful world we live in. I always dreamt of traveling, and I'd like to make that come true by working hard and getting the money to afford traveling. One of my biggest goals is to improve myself in the present and the future. I'd like to have a more positive mindset and be a positive and happy influence on those who surround me. I have tons of goals, but those are the three that I aim at and want to accomplish the most. I want to make my dreams as a child up until now come true. I know that in the future, I won't have any regrets about the past because of how hard I'm willing to work.

I try to be mindful of everything that I have all of the time. I've realized that I'm very privileged in my life. I have a bed, a warm home, food, and all of the other necessities. Many people don't have any of that. Many people are suffering in the cold and are worrying about their next meal. I thank God every day for what I have. Every time my family and I say grace before eating dinner, I say, "Thank you for the food we are about to eat, and thank you for everything you've given us." I truly mean what I say in my prayers. Over the years, I've become more mature and understanding of money. We can't afford everything, and if we want something expensive, it takes some saving up to buy it. I got a job to help my family and to help buy the necessities while my parents focus on paying the bills and anything else. I've been grateful for everything when I was a kid but having a job and realizing that things are expensive, I've become more grateful for everything that I own and the activities I'm able to do. I appreciate the clothes that I have. I appreciate the food that I have. I appreciate the makeup and books that I have. As I said before, many people don't have these things. I've taken my free time to volunteer at produce markets to help people get food with no expenses at all. Despite wanting more, for example, a new car, I still appreciate the car I have and anything else I own.

After high school, I plan to attend a four-year undergraduate university. I'm going as undecided, but I want to do something with outer space. I want to go to graduate school and eventually achieve my doctorate. My dream job is to work at NASA. Ever since I was a kid, I've had a fascination with space and working at NASA, and I want to make my dreams come true. To achieve this, I want to obtain high grades throughout high school and college. I would like to find a job that helps me pay for my education and any other expenses to focus more on school. I need to keep my motivation up and obtain the drive to accomplish my goals. Motivation has been difficult for me in the past but having it and keeping it to make my dreams come true is another one of my goals as well. I'm excited about my future and the known and unknown to come with it.

What confidence means to me is believing in myself and being positive towards myself. Having confidence has been a major struggle in my life due to multiple people always bringing me down. But the one person that gives me confidence no matter what is my dad, and I'm very grateful for him for helping me obtain confidence through everything. Every day I try to work on being more confident. Whether it's small things or big things, I try to be confident while doing it and accomplishing it. By taking these small wins of being confident, it furthers my mindset that I can be confident in anything. Yes, it's still a struggle, but what matters is that I'm trying. I bring myself positivity by sticking to affirmation statements and reassuring myself. There are certain positive statements that I say to myself that trigger confidence and I've learned that over the years. The biggest thing that I never had much confidence in is soccer. Even though I know I am good enough to play on my high school team and multiple travel teams, I still think that I'm terrible and I should stop playing soccer. This has been my biggest defeat. I let those thoughts come over me and I stopped being confident as a whole. But, with the help of my dad and trying to focus on positive thoughts having to do with soccer, I've brought my confidence back. I increase this confidence by practicing more and realizing that I am good. It's been a long process, but I'm still trying every day. I'm proud of myself for coming this far and improving my confidence throughout soccer and my life in general.

At the end of my freshman year of high school, I was looking at my transcript and I noticed I was 15th in my class. I wasn't too worried about it at the moment. But, as I started thinking more and more about it, I realized I could do better. My grades weren't bad at all, but they could be better. I'm an excellent student and I wanted to show that. I didn't just want to move up my class rank, I needed to. I needed to prove to myself that I was that excellent student. In both my sophomore and junior years, I tried my hardest on every assignment and studied for every test I had. I was persistent. I kept telling myself that I can do this and to keep trying, even when I felt exhausted. I knew that I would feel much better about myself especially when applying to colleges and scholarships that included my class rank. I kept trying and I kept being persistent. Despite smaller obstacles in the school years, I overcame them by being positive and focusing on the bigger obstacle at hand, which was the class rank that didn't make me feel good enough as a student. When I was sent my transcript that I would give to colleges at the end of my junior year, I was shaking the paper and closing my eyes because I didn't want to look. I finally got the courage and opened my eyes. 5th. I was 5th in my class. My hard work paid off. My persistence paid off. I was so, so proud of myself. With it being my senior year now, my goal is to try to move up another rank and work hard to accomplish that.

My imaginative mind and my willingness to keep going are what give me hope that the future will get better. And it won't just get better, it will be better. I promised myself that I will do everything in my power to have a good future for myself and the ones around me. My imaginative mind allows me to dream about the future, and maybe a little too much. Sometimes I need to focus on the present that will help me have a better future as well. To keep my mind off of negative thoughts, I dream about the future. I dream of traveling the world and discovering the beautiful planet we live on. I want to be able to meet people of different cultures and countries around the world and have an impact on their lives by being a happy and positive person, even if it's only for a few days. I dream of getting my dream job at NASA. I dream of being surrounded by planes, rockets, and anything else to do with outer space. I dream of starting a family and being a happy and positive influence on my children and continue to be that kind of influence on the people I meet throughout my life as well. But my dreams can't entirely come true if I don't have the willingness to do so. Motivation and having the will to do something have always been hard for me. Some days are better than others, and some days are terrible. My dad has been a huge influence in my life in giving me that motivation and will, and I want to be able to do the same thing to others. His words have given me the motivation to get out of bed at times and influenced me to try and accomplish something that day when I felt at my lowest. It has taken years for my motivation and willingness to develop, and I've found ways throughout the years that increase my drive to do things and make accomplishments. I am in no way perfect, and I will never be perfect. But what matters is that I try to obtain that drive and work hard. Because of my willingness to work hard, to keep going with life, and to make my dreams come true, I know that my future will be better. I know that nothing will get in my way if I can keep going. I don't want to have any regrets. I'm excited for the future and the known and unknown that is to come.

An adversity that I've endured is my obsession-compulsive disorder. From when I was younger, I knew there was something wrong when I kept double and triple-checking and when I'd count excessively. My head was filled with these repetitive thoughts that I didn't want at all. Every day was a struggle, physically and mentally, and sometimes it still is. Physically, I'm worn out by all of the "rituals" I have to do to make sure my family doesn't die. Mentally, my mind runs at a thousand miles per hour and can be constantly filled with thoughts that ruin me, and I can't get them out of my head. As I got older, more mature, and realized there was something wrong, I did some research and OCD was the result every time. After starting therapy, I told my therapist about all of the symptoms that I was having. When she gave me the test and I answered "yes" to all of the questions besides two, I thought to myself- there's no way that I don't have OCD. During my next session, she told me that I had severe OCD. I said, "Well, it's bad that I have OCD in the first place, but it's severe?! That is just so great." I tried to be sarcastic to be funny because that's my way of making light of bad situations. Ever since I was told that I had OCD, I became more aware of my symptoms. It's been almost a year since I started therapy for multiple family and mental issues, including my OCD, and I have honestly made some progress that I never thought I would make. Because I become more aware of my symptoms, I have started to recognize things that I do that lessen the symptoms. For example, I constantly reassure myself that just because I didn't check the locked door five times, my parents aren't going to get killed by an intruder- the door is seriously locked. That's just one way to help the checking. Sometimes the checking comes naturally without even me thinking, especially if I have something else on my mind and I'm not paying attention to what I'm doing. The hardest process has been my thoughts. It has honestly been really hard to control my own thoughts. During my therapy session, I would tell her some of the thoughts I would have, and she would say some magical therapist words to help me. These words would trigger my mind and I would train myself to think what she told me to think. I recently got an app called "GG OCD" and this app has helped with my progress of calming down my mind as well. It gives you examples of positive and negative thoughts, and you can only "accept" the positive thoughts. The app doesn't allow you to "accept", or swipe to the positive area, the negative thoughts. Therefore, it's training me to only accept the positive thoughts and the positive things in general in my life. My journey is still progressing every day. Every day isn't a big change from the next, but if I did something that lessens the OCD, like a positive thought or not checking the door, then I take that as a win. This will help me in the future because I will always take accomplishments, whether small or big, as wins, instead of always aiming for the biggest accomplishment. I'm excited for that time in the future when I can look back and see how much I've progressed.

The person that has influenced me the most in my athletic pursuits and personal life is my dad. My dad had me playing soccer from the time it was humanely possible to start playing. And I ran with it ever since I was first introduced to it. I loved soccer when I was younger. Being in the moment of the game gave me an escape from the troubles I was going through at the time, and it still does. My dad signed me up with a local personal trainer to help me get better at the game, mentally and physically. My dad always wanted me to be a superstar. He never forcefully pushed me to continue with soccer. I, myself, wanted it to be my main sport and my dad encouraged me to keep going. We've never had much money compared to other kids on my several travel teams, but my dad worked extra hard and saved up everything he could so that he could pay for the expenses that came along with being on a travel soccer team and paying for the personal trainers. As I got older, I still loved soccer. Then, it went downhill. A very close family member ruined my favorite sport for me. This happened within a span of a few months to my four years of varsity soccer. I didn't love the sport anymore. I hated soccer. I was made to feel that I sucked and would never be good enough and that everyone around me was better. But, the only person that was still motivating me despite it feeling like everyone was against me, was my dad. Looking back on it now, I was consumed by the negative people instead of focusing on the one person who tried to keep me going with soccer. At the time, I stopped playing travel soccer and I stopped practicing. My skills and knowledge were at a standstill. After every game, my dad always said I did good no matter what and tried to keep positive with me overall. He knew I had those negative people in my life and encouraged me to look towards the light instead of facing the darkness. Since my high school soccer career is over, I've been spending my time healing my mind and listening to my dad's advice about starting soccer again. He says he can't wait to see me play in college, and I want to make him proud by making the team of wherever I plan to attend college. Besides soccer, my dad has always been an amazing influence in my life. He's a "dad"- protective, gives me advice, is by and on my side throughout everything, and so forth. I honestly can't ask for a better dad. My mom was never really a big factor in my life, so he was like my mom and dad at the same time. He was a double parent and still is. Because of a few mental illnesses that I unfortunately have, my dad has grown to become more patient and understanding with me on why it's hard to even get out of bed some days. He never gets frustrated; he tries his best to motivate me to start my day and get anything done I can. I'm forever grateful for my dad and the huge impact he has had on me, from when I was a kid up until this very moment.

For me, I always put one hundred percent into my relationships with my friends and families. I want to make sure that everyone feels loved all of the time because they could be having a bad day and struggling internally and externally. Even if someone is having a good day, I still want to make them happier. With both family and friends who I don't see almost every day, I text or call them once a week or more and see how they are doing. I ask about their lives and see if there's anything new. For family and friends that I do see almost every day, I ask them in person how they are and get any "life updates," as to how I ask. When asking people how they are doing, I start by reassuring them that if they don't feel up to talking about anything, then I completely understand and that I am there when or if they are ready. I do all of this because if they feel like they don't have anyone that makes them feel loved, I want to be that person in their life that does make them feel loved. I like when people check up on me because I feel the same way, so I want to treat people similarly. I also offer people to hang out even if it is just to grab some coffee or walk around the mall to make them feel that someone wants to hang out with them. It gives me happiness when I make others feel loved.

What joy means to me is finding inner peace within myself. Yes, there will be times where I'm happy, but I know I won't experience "a true joy," until I find that inner peace. One of my goals in life is to find that peace. To me, finding that peace is not letting the little things bother me, moving on from the past, fully forgiving others if they did anything wrong, and realizing that everyone makes mistakes including myself. Joy means keeping things and life overall simple. Due to a few mental illnesses, my mind is already going at a rapid pace, I'm severely paranoid, and I can't control my emotions, as well as others, could. When I accomplish something, I do feel happy. But, then I start to think about how I could've done better and other thoughts like that. I want to work on myself to only focus on the positives and to feel "true joy" about my accomplishments and myself. It is honestly hard to change a mindset I can't necessarily handle or control, but what matters is that I'm trying to change and find that true joy within myself: finding that inner peace. As I grow older and become more mature and aware of myself, then I will find more ways that are successful. To find that joy, I take one day at a time and try to improve myself little by little. I know that I won't find joy by tomorrow, but if I can find it in a few months or a few years, then that's what I need to focus on. I honestly cannot wait to find that joy and I will do everything I can to seek out more hobbies and reassuring mindsets that help find joy.