power lifting

This is school year I joined the power lifting team here at school. I was really nervous that I wouldn’t be able to lift that much. This would be the first school sport I would be playing, and for some reason that made me really nervous. But now as I’m sitting in a gym surrounded by hundreds of kids who have all fallen in love with the same sport, I could not be happier with my decision. Going into my first practice at the end of November with only 2 weeks to prepare for my first meet I was extremely nervous that I would not be good enough, or wouldn’t be able to get the right form to lift enough weight. Fast forward two weeks, the morning of my first meet I was so scared. I couldn’t stop moving, my stomach hurt so bad and i was nervous wreck. My first event was dead lift. Like I said, at the beginning of all of this i was so nervous i wouldn’t be able to lift enough. My first lift was 220 pounds. I got it, my nerves calmed a little. My second lift, 240 pounds. I got it. My coach decided to tell the judge my next weight without me knowing so i wouldn’t overthink it and doubt myself. That made me nervous because that means he sent me over my max. My third lift was 260 pounds. I got it up. My next event was bench, my highest weight lifted was 80 pounds. This gave me a total of 340 pounds. I wasn’t expecting to place because there were so many girls. When they got to varsity 185+ weight class, I wasn’t expecting my name to be called, but it was. I had gotten 3rd place at my first meet and couldn’t be more proud of myself. Since this is my first year I had no clue that there were school records for power lifting. On Monday at practice my coach came up to me and tells me that i broke a record from 2011 for a dead lift of 235 pounds on Sunday with my dead lift of 260 pounds. I instantly was in shock. Since then I’ve broken or reset the record 3 more times including today. Like i said i’m writing this well sitting in a hot gym surrounded by hundreds of people that have fallen in love with the same sport that i have, I didn’t mention that I’m in Michigan. Today I set a PR and reset or re broke the school record with 275 pounds.
This sport has given me so much more confidence. I have learned that you can beat your goals as long as you push yourself to work hard enough. I have learned that most things in life that scare us or stop us from doing things is mostly mental, that it’s your way of thinking that helps you be successful. You have to believe you can, to do it.