With the school year in full swing, high school students all over the country are quickly being bombarded with tons of extracurricular activities–the most common one being sports. We here at The Lance are no strangers to the stress of sports since many of us are athletes. To help give some insight on how to handle this stress, staff writers (and football players) Omar and Sam are here to provide valuable advice.
SAM: Going into high school, Omar and I both struggled with balancing academics and sports. No matter how hard we tried to balance our work-life balance, it seemed like we could never get it right. If we were scoring touchdowns, we were scoring poorly on assignments. If we were doing well on assignments, we were mentally drained before games even began. It seemed almost impossible for us to find a balance and it took a lot of thought and effort to help get it right.
OMAR: My first piece of advice is don’t miss the moment you are in because you are concerned for the next moment down the road. Ask for help when you need it, and take a break when you need it. Take advantage of every resource NVOT has to offer: the Wellness Center, extra help hours with teachers, nightly Zoom tutoring, etc.
SAM: Use your class time wisely. We have to go to our coaches room during lunch daily, which means we lose time during lunch to calm down and study for upcoming assessments. But we soon realized that the more advantage we took of in-class opportunities, prepping on the weekend for even just 30 minutes, or simply just getting to school 15 minutes early everyday made all the difference on the workload for the week.
SAM It’s not about sacrificing your passions, it’s about adjusting to fit what you love doing, and that’s why our second piece of advice is to learn to truly find the proper balance between doing what you love and doing what is necessary. Of course, getting necessary stuff done is of the utmost importance, but it’s equally important to do what you love. Embracing this balance will not only enhance your personal fulfillment but also pave the way for sustainable success in both your passions and responsibilities.
OMAR: But ultimately, it’s important to learn that stress is a good thing. We got our third piece of advice from our coach. Coach Brian Dunn said, “stress-inducing situations we experience in high school should be treated as learning experiences that develop grit and mental toughness that we need all throughout life.” How else will we all learn to be strong, unless we are shown times where strength is needed?
SAM: We all must realize that stress is a natural experience. We also must realize that stress, whether you like it or not, may be unavoidable. In order to grow, evolve and succeed, we all must learn how to navigate through difficult situations, but as we get older, we are seeing that our parents can’t save us from every difficult situation, and the more we learn to save ourselves, the stronger and more resilient we all soon will become.