Believing in Yourself

Going to a place where you have never been before and doing things that are unfamiliar can be quite scary. But besides this feeling, there is also something else that you look forward to and that is excitement. This is how I felt when I first signed up for this May term. I was excited to be able to do something that contributed back to a community, especially one that had a devastating natural disaster. As we’ve talked to numerous people about their own experience during and after hurricane Michael and the things they have done to help the local community, I knew that I wanted to help them be able to go back to their lives by helping build houses. The first day on the work site was one I will never forget. Just in the span of eight hours I learned things that I will be able to use in the future and I will treasure that deeply. I learned how to sand down the floors so that they could be even, I learned how to put up siding on a house as well as learning the best technique on how to paint so no paint marks would be visible. Although it was definitely a challenge, I would have never gotten the opportunity to learn all of this without believing that I could do it. I decided to get out of my comfort zone and learn something new and something that I was not even sure I was going to be able to handle. In the end, I learned how to do all of this and continued to do it the following days. I knew I had believed in myself the most when I volunteered to get on the third level of a scaffolding in order to nail in the border of the roof. I was terribly afraid of heights but I knew that if I had done all of those new things, I was able to do something that I know I could do. I also saw other students getting out of their comfort zones and doing things they were not sure they could do. This is why I think being able to believe in yourself is one of the greatest assets a person can have. Being confident enough to do something can bring a lifetime of skills and knowledge you would have never learned. It is a great first step in order to get out of your comfort zone and do things that feel good and rewarding.

Written by: Rosabel Evangelista Rios