Competition and Confidence

I grew up playing soccer all my life, and it became my life. I expressed my creativity on the field and was always trying to find creative ways to improve. My competitive drive pushed me to find all ways possible to improve and this led to me pushing myself out of my comfort zone and silencing my VOJ in order to come up with creative ideas. I realized that there were a lot of restrictions that people and society put on themselves and I decided to break that barrier. One example of this is I would dribble my ball everywhere I went- in school, at grocery stores, and around the house. While at first this felt very uncomfortable and I was concerned about judgment, I soon realized that no one actually cared. This inspired me to continue to take creative risks and it improved my mentality on the field as I was more confident to take risks and embrace failure. 

This all changed during the summer before my senior year. By this time I was playing at a very high level and was at a college showcase event. I was playing the best I ever had but someone stomped on the back of my calf and it tore. After the extent of this injury and the timing of it I knew my chances of playing D1 like I had always dreamed were slim. I made the hard decision to no longer pursue that dream and focus on my school career instead. Since I was known by everyone solely as a soccer player, it really crushed my confidence. This also directly affected my creativity. Since I had no confidence I just went along with the flow and did as I was told and this made my life bland and boring. I have now recognized this and I am working on using my competitive nature to inspire my creativity instead of living in my failure.

Failure is only bad until you learn from it.

By: Liam McAllister

Year: Freshman

Major: Finance/ Entrepreneurship

Hometown: Wadsworth, OH

Fun Fact: My parents are Miami Mergers