Assignment 19 - Sarah

I am involved in many activities including archery, dance, and band. While practicing for any of the activities, especially dance, I can often get frustrated with myself. When I’m concentrating I tend to bite my lips, so my teacher Kai often tells me to smile to keep me from biting my lips. Although this sounds too simple the best advice I have received is “Smile.” I have been able to apply this to not only my other activities, but my life in general.

When I think too much I do worse. In archery at the beginning of this year I scored a 287 (it is out of 300) at my first competition. Since then, I have not scored that well. I believe I haven’t been able to reach that level again because at the first competition I put absolutely no pressure on myself. I just did what I could to see what would happen and relaxed about the results. More recently, I have put so much pressure on myself and taken myself and archery so seriously I overthink and make silly mistakes which my scores have shown. In individual rounds if I relax and just smile and have fun with shooting, yet still stay focused, I perform much better.

To me, smiling can fix problems, cover up feelings, show feelings, and make me relax. I would like to think that people consider me to be a happy person and fun to be around, basically always smiling. I know that I do have rough days and sometimes I show that, but my goal is always to be smiling, whether it is to send endorphins to my brain so that it can improve my mood or it is to make someone else’s day a little brighter. Smiling always helps.

Remember to smile.