Middle School Winners!

Miranda Millington

 SEE IT AND BELIEVE IT 

By: Miranda Millington 

I can still hear my dad saying to me “Visualize getting a home run hit!” as I was on deck during our second game of the softball tournament this season. As I stood there taking a few practice swings, I closed my eyes and visualized getting a solid hit into the outfield, hearing the smack of the ball against the bat, and my coach telling me to” go home” as I touched third base! I looked up and it was time for me to bat. I went up to the plate and waited for the pitch. I could hear my teammates cheering me on in the background. First pitch, low but was called a strike. Second pitch, swing and a miss. Third pitch, SMACK, I got a solid hit right in-between first and second! It landed in the outfield and rolled all the way to the fence! As I touched third my coach told me to “go home” and I ran as fast as I could to home plate! THUMP! I had touched home plate and had gotten my second home run of the whole season! I don’t think I could have gotten that hit if I hadn’t visualized it before I was up to bat! The power of visualization is so amazing! 

Have you ever imagined yourself doing something you’ve always wanted to do? Have you ever played through a whole event in which you do something great and amazing and it’s exactly how you want to do it in real life? Then when you go to do it, it happens exactly how you imagined it! That’s the power of visualization! 

To me, visualization is not only picturing something how you want it to be, but also including all of the senses. For example, in the above situation I heard my teammates cheering me on in the background, I saw the ball soaring in the air to the outfield, I smelled the dust in the air as I was running the bases, I could taste the ice cream awaiting my victory, and I could feel the solid hit when the bat connected with the ball. 

Learning about visualization has made a huge difference not just in my softball games, but for future experiences when I want to accomplish something! It showed me that if you visualize something over and over that you really want to do, you can do it! I’m lucky to have had this experience with visualization because as I get older there will be more times when I will use this technique and will accomplish what I want to do. I hope after reading this you realize visualizing something you want to do isn’t silly. It could make the difference on whether you achieve or not. I know that I’ve learned the power of visualization is truly AMAZING! 

Anna Smith

Edge Series

The Edge Series is a wonderful and powerful series of CD’s. Each and every CD has helped me, but three specific stories out of all stories have made the biggest impact on my life.

The first story was told by Orrin Woodward and it was about him taking all of the rejection he took from his neighbors when he was selling candy bars. Everyone said that they had no money so he solved that problem and went to the bank where people had money. His sister was constantly saying she was going to sell the most candy bars. That gave Orrin energy to try his best to sell more candy bars than his sister. 

This story actually helped me during a test in school.  There are two people who always get an A+ on all of their tests so that made me study hard for the test.  This story constantly helped me study for this test every day for hours.  The day of the test I took the longest to take the test.  After each question I looked over it, and when the teacher passed back the test, all of the studying paid off that day.  I could not stop smiling, I felt so good because I got an A++ on that test.

The second story is told also by Orrin Woodward, this story is about him running a lap-a-thon, and each person he told, he was going to run 30 laps in an hour said he couldn’t do it.  The first time I listened to this story, I was surprised he didn’t let anyone change what he thought he was capable of.  Anyway each lap he ran he dedicated to a person who thought he couldn’t do it which gave him energy and a reason to run all of those laps.  At the end he felt so good collecting that money because he proved to every person that he could run those 30 laps.

This story helped me during a soccer game when it was the last quarter of the fame and my team was down by two goals.  Everyone on the sidelines through we were going to lose this game there was only 12 minutes left of the quarter and everyone who said we couldn’t win that game gave me more and more energy at the end of that game my team won by two points.  All of that rejection gave me more energy and it did not make me rethink about how the game would end, the entire game I thought my team would win and we did.

The third story was told by of course Orrin Woodward, it is about Ice Adidas and how Orrin gave ice Adidas confidence and a positive attitude which made him play better.  This story taught me that if you believe it you can achieve it.  He gave Ice Adidas a good self talk.  During this story I thought that even if they lost that game they probably would have won on the inside because they did their personal best.

This story is actually helping me right now when my mom said that there was going to be a contest coming up and asked me if I wanted to do it I said no way.  Before I started I was already thinking in my head “I’m going to lose I’m not doing that.”  Then I thought of Ice Adidas, and now I know that if I have a positive self talk I could win this.  Even if I don’t win I will still be a winner on the inside because I did my personal best writing this.

Anna Smith – 5^th grade going into 6^th grade (11 years old)