“Zaimahhhhh,” there she goes again. If there’s an award for the most called-out name by our coach, no doubt, I will win. It is not a pleasant feeling of course. Sometimes it makes me wonder. What makes it so hard to improve?
To think of the bright side, yes I guess I improved even if it is for the tiniest bit. I recall of the times when she made me hit the net of a netball goal post for an hour or even more without breaks. How she made me practise my stroke, pretending to hit an imaginary shuttle for hours. How she made me hit a shuttle hanging by a rope for hundreds of times.
Tears threatened to fall by the corner of my eyes but I bit my lip and kept pushing. Truth is, as plain as every one of my fellow team mates can see, it is very difficult for me. Starting at the bottom without any experience or knowledge at all is definitely a challenge.
Few nights ago was perhaps one of the lowest times. I was sitting in one of the chair, heavily plunging into it. Half my weight goes to my right side, my head tilted as I watch some of them being punished for losing their match.
“Soon is my turn,” I thought. The punishment didn’t demotivate me though but the hard-to-improve bit, yes.
Our coach sat by the floor as she watched them lift the weights she asked them to. Next to me, my team mates were chatting on how they can improve.
She turned her head my way and looked at me intently. “Kenapa? Pucat sudah usul mua mu (Why? You look pale,)”, she said to me. I had no words left. All the energy drained out of me. So I just smiled weakly. Like a broken cassette, it’s film going out of the reel, that’s how my mind were as I kept asking myself this question, “Why is it so hard to get better at this?”
I realised that you have got to push yourself. Improving takes time, of course. But you have got to keep doing it until a time when what was once difficult becomes second nature to you now. Sometimes you think that’s your last step for the day but little did you know that you could go running for another mile. Sometimes you think that you could barely pass an exam but little did you know that you could excel with flying colours if you just pushed yourself. Break the walls that you are limiting yourself to. No, actually stop building those walls, those boundaries that you create for yourself. Because there isn’t any, bi idznillah.
Also, unrelated to sports but really something that makes me reflect, sometimes you think you can’t recite qur’an much in a day. Or even a week, a month. But you will never know if you hadn’t tried. So first thing you need to do is try. Then next is, to keep trying.
A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Yes, one single step. You wouldn’t be where you are right now if you stopped trying to crawl and make that single when you were a baby. It’s in you. The will to never give up has always been there inside of you.
Writing Hearts 