Something I’ve noticed with a lot of people these days (including myself) is that they have goals and dreams that they don’t believe they can achieve. Take myself for an example. Since I was either 9 or 10 years old, I’ve wanted to be a figure skater. I saw the movie Blizzard and Ice Princess and fell in love with the sport, but I never really thought I could do it.

My first excuse was that I couldn’t skate. How can I become a figure skater, if I don’t know how to skate? Obviously, I knew I could get learn-to-skate lessons, but I was too lazy to go in the computer to look for places with lessons and then tell my mom about it and I eventually forgot about it. This year after watching the winter Olympics, my wish to become a figure skater rekindled and the same excuse came back, I don’t know how to skate. Well this time, I took some initiative and looked online for places that did skating lessons and surprise, surprise, I found a place that not only did lessons, but they did lessons specifically for teens, so I wouldn’t have to be in a class full of kids. I realized that sometimes, you just have to take some initiative and do what has to be done.

So now that my first excuse was out of the way, I had another one to deal with. Figure skaters are extremely flexible, how am I supposed to be one, if I’m not flexible at all? That one stumped me for a long time. I honestly didn’t know what to do to make myself flexible. Then one day in gym class, I learnt that stretching would make you more flexible. So I tried it a bit, but I realized that it would take me a long time to be able to do anything remotely flexible, so I gave up. I thought, “Forget it. This is taking too long.” But when I watched the figure skaters on the Olympics, I knew that I couldn’t give up that easily. So, I set up a plan to stretch every morning and night so I can be flexible. I told myself that it’s going to be a long process and I may not be able to do the splits tomorrow, but with time I’ll be able to. That’s something that we all seem to miss. Sometimes to get where you want to be, it’s going to be hard or long or tough, but we should remember to never give up and to persevere.

Finally, my last excuse as was hardly an excuse, more like a fear. Just like for dance and cheerleading and synchronized swimming, for figure skating, you have to wear makeup. Clearly, I’m not a fan of makeup and sometimes the mere thought of it makes me queasy. I’m not entirely sure when I started feeling this way, but I know it’s a problem. I honestly have no idea how I’m going to do this, but I plan on getting over it. I know the first time will be hard, but it should get better with time. I realize that sooner or later, everyone has to face their fears and sometimes they try to get between you and your dreams, but you just have to overcome them and get over it.

Realizing you dreams and accomplishing your goals is hard work and the problem is that people realize this and get discouraged and believe they can’t do it, but they can. All you have to do is get off your lazy butt, get some initiative, persevere and face fears. I believe that the problem is not within our dreams, but within us.