⛔️Warning ⛔️ ugly cry face!!!!!
Don’t worry!! No one died & everything is fine & I don’t care if you judge my double chin zit cry face either. 😆 I just wanted to find something beautiful in this ugly cry & I think it’s this:
I went to Doug Bruno basketball camp when I was a kid. I remember Doug standing up on the bleachers yelling down at us players. It was an all girls camp, and the days were long, spent scrimmaging and breaking down drills. Eating 5 grilled cheese & downing 10 glasses of chocolate milk at lunch. Watching MTV in the dorms on breaks in the afternoon. Enjoying the freedom of being a teenage girl surrounded by friends, doing something I loved. Being an athlete.
The message I took home from camp that summer was, “Even when you’re tired, show up 100% because you’ll still be tired afterwards if you half ass it.” I learned what it meant to really show up and put in the work. And that what it meant to shine as an athlete was to give it my all. To jump higher. To run faster. To perfect the layup more than the girl next to me. To focus and practice and push. And that free throws can make or break the game.
At that time, I thought grit as an athlete was pushing through when you were tired. Showing up when you didn’t really feel like it.
But now I think of grit differently.
Grit is swallowing the feeling of disappointment & carving out a path forward. It’s peeling yourself up when you’re down & showing yourself the love and compassion that a human being with human emotions deserves.
Grit is allowance. Allowance to fail. Allowance to make mistakes. Checks and balances. Fine tuning. Being ok with a new plan.
Because today, had a clenched down, grit my teeth and just.did.it. I would have ignored that voice that I’ve been working so hard, for so many years to trust. The one that said, “Not today, Erika.”
The same voice that usually says, “Go. Push.”
And that’s what really takes Grit.