When I first joined my rugby club in 2016, I knew it was always destined for me to be brought down by the people who simply did not care for my sport, and who didn't deem me to be fit for rugby, but that never stopped me from trying to prove them wrong.
One day, I had a training session with my school to try and improve for an upcoming event we had scheduled. Whilst waiting for the coach, I had a boy come up to me and ask, 'is this the girl who thinks she is good at rugby?'. Honestly, that mentally broke me for a while until I learnt to accept that in life some people are going to be jealous of what you have, and the talent you hold.
What did I take from this encounter, you may ask. Well, I trained hard, worked on my weaknesses and improved my strengths to become the best version of myself that I could set my mind to at the time. I used this as an opportunity to not only prove the boy wrong, but to prove myself wrong too.
I took his words and used them as a positive for a learning experience, and I worked hard enough to earn my place on the county team for the 2019/20 season, and was highly recognised during those tournaments due to my hard work and dedication.
From that moment on I learnt to take his words as a motivation, because yes, I do actually think I'm okay at rugby. If I wasn't then how come I played for county? How come I still play for my club and school?
I know he won't read this, and he probably won't remember that he even said it, but I still remember and will continue to for a while. However, if he ever did read this in some way, I thank him for motivating me to change.
Moral of the story here is to take the negative comments and turn them into something useful that will help you to become a better person.
Never give up,
Ashleigh ❤
wow! This is so inspirational I’ll remeber your words of wisdom xx