Emotions are things that all humans have and aren’t always able to control. So if the emotion is negative it can turn us into monsters who would destroy everything in its way. Some emotions that are hard for me to control are competitiveness and anger. This can be very difficult for me at times because I love playing sports, especially volleyball.

My journey through volleyball has been hard, frustrating, confusing, and disappointing, but mostly it was emotional. I started playing volleyball for my school in 7th grade. At that time, all the players on my team were just starting too, so our team was not very good. We did end up improving and even winning a few games, but for seventh graders we still weren’t considered good. After the school season ended, club season started. I was so excited to be able to continue playing volleyball on a team and, hopefully, a considerably better one. So I went to tryouts and got on one of the worst teams for my age group. Which made sense because I was still pretty new to volleyball. That season ended up being the most disappointing sports season that I had ever played in. There were so many things that were wrong with it, but the worst thing was our coach. My team was full of players who had barely ever touched a volleyball before, so having a coach who occasionally didn’t come to practices, who didn't teach us the basic skills of volleyball, and didn’t care about us, was a recipe for disaster. After the first few tournaments our coach singled me out as the best player because I was the one who cared about doing well and winning games. This meant that she put all the pressure to win on me, and that was what destroyed me. I tried so hard to get better but it was never enough and my team kept losing and it was all on me. As the season went on the stress of winning for my team only got worse and it got so bad that I stopped having fun at games and would even cry if we were losing. I didn’t cry because I’m a sore loser but because I felt like I let everyone down. When the season was over I was so grateful but all the things my coach had said really left a lasting impact on me. 

Over the next summer I was so excited to have a fresh start at a new volleyball team that I tried to practice a lot. I did multiple open gyms and even beach volleyball, which is very different from indoor volleyball. But nothing I did felt like it was enough. I just couldn't figure out how to be as good as I had set my expectations for. When the school year started I didn’t end up doing the school team. It turned out that almost all the girls in my grade wanted to participate in it. There were about twenty girls, and the coach wasn’t the best coach. I mean he was nice but he just didn’t really understand how to teach volleyball. Because of these things, I didn't think I would improve it all. So instead, I went to different practices with my friend Mia and her mom.

During these practices I would be really hard on myself and would get really mad if I didn’t do everything perfectly right. And since I'm still a beginner at volleyball I did almost nothing perfectly right. Sometimes I would get so mad that I would become rude, snarky, and annoying to be around. After I took a break to calm down I could get my emotions back under control. And this was good but I would also feel horrible and sick at myself for being such a horrible person. It felt like turning into a monster with no way to not stop it. The anger that I felt toward myself for not being better at volleyball overcame me and took control. This happened almost every time I played volleyball and eventually it got to the point where my mom had to say, “If you keep acting like this you can’t do volleyball anymore.” My immediate reaction was that that was not fair but deep down I knew that it was. 

“I don’t want to act like this, why am I so mean mom?” I would say to my mom while apologizing for the way I had acted while playing volleyball, but apologizing wasn’t enough. Even though I felt like becoming this monster of rage was impossible for me to stop, I had to figure out some way to control it or I would soon destroy my one shot at playing volleyball, and maybe some friendships too. 

Over the next few weeks I would try to be nicer but my personality isn’t really the kind that is glass half full and smiles all the time so it felt like I was playing someone else's part. As tryouts for NorthWest Elite got closer I became more and more stressed about if I would make a high team or not. My friends, Elise and Addy, and I did an open gym about a week before tryouts for a newer club that only had one team per age group. This means that you have to be really good to make a team. The funny thing is that we all thought we did not play that well that day but it turned out that both Addy and Elise got offered a spot on the one team for the fourteens age group that that club had. But I did not. This shouldn't have discouraged me because I wasn't planning on doing that club anyway but getting cut is hard and that's what that felt like. I think part of why I didn’t get offered a spot was because I didn't play as well as I normally do but also because I don't smile a lot and look like I'm having fun. This makes me look like I’m not coachable, therefore a bad player to have on a team. So Addy ended up doing that club but Elise and I were going to stick with NWE, the coaches knew me there so it was a safer bet. I was not able to take the risk of not getting on the team this year. For tryouts, I knew that I would have to be coachable so I tried practicing that whenever I did volleyball practice before tryouts. And I really did try, but it’s hard for me. Sometimes trying to control emotions just makes them build up like a storm inside of you until it becomes so full you have to let it out and that could be a total train wreck. What has helped me control it is taking deep breaths. I know this sounds cliche and like it won't actually work but it has helped me, a lot in fact. It's mostly just a way to slow down so that the anger or any emotion you have will not overcome you in the moment. By slowing down you allow yourself to take in your surroundings and how your actions would affect the people around you, which was the most important thing that I had to remember. 

A coach once told me that how good I am at volleyball does not measure my value as a player and that if I tried hard I would get better, but it takes time. This has really stuck with me because in my head I thought that even though I was trying hard I was not good enough and that made me feel so frustrated. I figured out that you don't have to be perfect after trying for one week, it takes time and the real question is if you're willing to keep trying hard for a long time because that shows your true strength.  

So throughout my experience in volleyball I learned that my own doubt and anger can overcome me but I can't let it control me. This was one of the hardest but most important lessons I've ever had to learn. I've been trying hard and it's not that that's not enough but it's just that I'll keep working hard and I'll keep striving to be perfect at volleyball but the real answer is I won’t be perfect. It'll take time and practice to be as good as I have set my standards for but I finally learned how to have the patience for it so that the monster of rage and doubt won't overcome me ever again.