keep Tripping over your hurdles

When I was in high school, I felt invincible.

I was Jasmine freakin’ Williams. I thought college would be a breeze.

But what has been dubbed, ‘the best four years of your life,’ included some of the worst days of mine. 

And for a while, I blamed everyone. It was everyone’s fault that bad things were happening to me. It was everyone’s fault that life wasn’t going my way. It was everyone’s fault that I was hurting, even if they didn’t know. Even if they asked and I lied and said I was fine. 

It took me years to realize there was actually a reason that I’ve been through some of my worst days.

Someone is watching. 

On the days where you feel like you just can’t go on? Remember that. Someone is watching how you handle this. And they’re subconsciously taking notes.

They’re watching you trip over hurdle after hurdle. They’re watching you make progress and then have setbacks and then hit rock bottom. 

While it may not mean anything to them right now, someday it will. Because if you’re tripping over hurdle after hurdle that means you got up and tried again.

Imitation is the highest form of flattery, isn’t it? 

And when someone is going through the worst days of their life, I want them to remember how they watched me overcome mine. That I made progress and then had setbacks and then hit rock bottom. 

That good, bad, or ugly, I kept getting up and trying again.

So I will keep tripping over my hurdles. I will keep landing on my face and then get up and do it all over again tomorrow. 

I don’t care because I’m not doing it for me anymore, I’m doing it for you. 

Related Posts

Five Tips to Improve Your Speaking Skills

As a speaker and a speaking coach, not only have I improved my own speaking skills, I’ve helped others improve as well! Check out some of the tips I share the most with my speaking coaching clients. 1. Never let ’em see you sweat One of the questions I ask my clients is “what’s the worst […]

I Didn’t Want to Be a Speaker

By the time I was 18 years old, I had gone through a few phases of mistaken “dream jobs.” At one point I had even imagined myself as a librarian… But when I started college, I was confident that my future was in political journalism. I loved watching the news and I desperately wanted to […]

My Four Favorite Causes to Support This Giving Tuesday

Does the last quarter of the year fly by for everyone or is it just me? It’s like I’m enjoying summer and next thing I know it’s my birthday, Halloween, Thanksgiving and then Christmas. Talk about the most wonderful time of the year! There are so many special things about the end of the year – […]