It’s a nice sunny Tuesday, and I’m terribly stressed. We’re driving to the meet and I’ve never been more stressed. I can’t stop thinking about how I'm going to do. “What if I don’t even make opening height”, “What do I do to prepare.” I kept doubting myself and wondering how I could take control and make myself do good. We make it to the meet and there are so many good jumpers, almost 20 better than me. I don’t feel warmed up, and I can’t make myself feel warmed up. I just feel sluggish.

We start jumping and I don’t start at 4’10, I wait to jump until 5’. My teammates are not doing well, which makes me even more nervous because I can’t help but think I will follow suit. My first jump comes up, and I clear 5’ effortlessly, not surprisingly though because my personal record at the time was 5’6. Once 5’2 comes around I get insanely stressed because this is where I usually fail and I can’t get out of my head. The first jump comes along, I miss it. Then the second, I miss again. This is the last attempt I have at 5’2, so I just wing it. The bar seems scarily high for 5’2 but as I go up, something feels different. I cleared the bar by about 6 inches easily. I'm confused because I was so scared and was doing so badly before. I thought about this and still think about this now. But then I realized, on my last jump, there was so little pressure on me because I thought I wasn’t going to make it, that I completely forgot about the stress that was mounding in my head. 

While I waited for everyone to clear 5’2, I sat with my friend, not thinking about the upcoming jumps at all. I was so pressure-free on the jump for 5’4 that I cleared it again so easily that my teammates were shocked at how much higher I was than usual. I couldn’t believe it but I didn’t let it get to my head, if I jumped 5’6, I would be the highest freshman jumper at the meet. So I wanted to make it bad because it would make me feel so good. I sat with my friend again waiting for 5’6 and not thinking about it. 5’6 comes up, and I clear it first try without even touching the bar. It was insane. The rush of adrenaline and happiness I felt when I cleared that bar at 5’6 was something I’d never felt before. 5’8 comes around, I clear it first try. I’m in a flow state where I'm so relaxed that I’m not even thinking about the next jump, only the last. 5’10 comes up, 4 inches over my PR. There are only 10 jumpers left, so I start to get stressed. I think to myself, “Will this flow state continue?” This question runs through my mind as I hear my name called up for jumping. First jump, I hit it with my shoulder, not a good sign. Second jump, same thing. At this point, I’ve accepted that 5’8 is probably all I will make and the stress goes away. They call me up for my third attempt. I clear it. I clear it with so much margin for error it seems impossible. Coming down though, I cut myself on my spikes while getting off the pit. I have to wrap it up and the stress builds once again. While I’m taking my warmup jumps, I get in my head because my knee isn’t free enough to jump and I’m not jumping as high as I was. They call my name for 6’. I take my three jumps on 6 feet and I don’t make it, not even close on any of the jumps. But I'm not sad, oddly enough because I would usually have been mad at myself for cutting myself before the jumps. Something was different that day though, I wasn’t mad at anything because I completely forgot about anything negative while I was so ecstatic at making 5’10, and I think that’s why I did so well that day.

As I'm sitting there, victorious, I think about the jumps. “Why did I do so good?”, I think to myself. Then it hit me, every time the stress died down, I did something unimaginable. When the stress built up, I failed. I realized that while I was sitting down talking to my friend, I wasn't thinking about jumping, I wasn’t thinking about failing, and on those last jumps, I wasn’t expecting to make it, so I let my body take over and since I wasn’t overthinking it, I made it. I realized in that moment that I need to be less stressed and stop overthinking things so much. This has applied to almost every aspect of my life since that sunny Tuesday. My life has improved vastly since I stopped overthinking everything because I’m just always more laid back and I’m doing better than ever. Stress took over my life when I allowed it, but when I figured out that I had nothing to be stressed about. Stress clouded my vision, and having stress out of my life has made my life more enjoyable, and easier in general.