Non-Academic Success Speech

To my thirteen year old self,

You are about to enter the best five years of your life. High school is just around the corner, so it is time for you to finally stop being that awkward little boy whose mom still packs his lunch and begin your journey as a young adult. No one has prepared you for what you are about to be thrown into. I know you are nervous and scared, I was there too. Do not sweat, I am here to walk you through everything you need to know to survive these treacherous years. Before I begin, I want you to rid your mind of all the stereotypes and fears you may have of high school. Just to be clear, you are too big to fit into the half sized lockers, it is highly unlikely that you will get trampled in the hallways by a sea

There is no better time than high school to hone the valuable skills that you will need throughout the rest of your life. Some of the skills you will need to master are: social skills, becoming more independent, surrounding yourself with the right people, and balancing your academic life with your non-academic life. The ability to comfortably talk to others is going to be something you use every day for the rest of your life. I know for a fact that you are very far from the social type and talking to strangers and new people is something outside your comfort zone. You feel uneasy just talking to your aunts and uncles that you see once every other month! Very rarely do you ever raise your hand and participate in class because you are too scared of saying the wrong answer or because you do not feel comfortable talking in front of the class. Developing good communication skills will help you become a better student and succeed in class. Ask questions when you are unsure of what the teacher is explaining and you need clarification because there is a good chance others are in the same

Some days you may not have any homework at all and other days it will seem like all your teachers have plotted together and assigned you unreasonable amounts of homework due on the same day. Now try to imagine balancing all of this homework with family, friends, and hockey four to five days a week. It is just as important to maintain a healthy social life as it is to maintaining good grades and academic standing. There were countless times where I wanted to quit school just because it got too stressful and I had no idea how to deal with it. Slowly I was able to adapt and I thought of ways to do two or more things at once, while still getting my homework done. A few of my friends and I would come over to the house and get an hour or two of homework done and then play street hockey as soon as everyone was finished. Doing my homework in the car on the way to games also became a common occurrence. If trying to balance all of these things at once becomes too stressful and you cannot find a way out of it, go to the people who care the most about you. There are healthy and unhealthy ways of dealing with stress and I found this to be the best source for dealing with it. Do not let the stress get the best of you as it can change you as a person and make you develop bad habits like smoking, drinking, and other drugs. In high school we had a designated area for people to smoke