all retiring officers give a speech to impart something to the members.
Remember when you were five years old and you had big dreams? Some wanted to be astronauts and fly to the moon and some wanted to be firemen and save lives, others wanted to be the fastest on the monkey bars, but I wanted to be the best bike rider ever! For my 5th birthday I got my first bike and I was so excited to ride it, so I geared up, I had on my helmet, knee pads and wrist pads, I was ready to go. So I hopped on my bike and started going with my dad’s help, when I felt confident enough I asked him to let go, so he did and I was going fine for a foot or so and then, CRASH! Instead of getting up and trying again, I sat there and wouldn’t get up I was to scare. I was scared that I would fall again. I let this fear take over my life and I refused to learn to ride my bike, and I gave up my dream of being the best bike rider because of fear.
Every day we are told things like, you’re not good enough, why try you will just fail or you’ll look stupid if you do that, and every day we listen to those statements and begin to let fear get in the way of our dreams and we stay sitting on the ground.
Let me tell you I am tired of seeing amazing people sitting on the ground in fear and not becoming the people they want to be and the people I see in you. I don’t want you to sit any more I want you to stand!
In my life I have discovered some things that helped me overcome my fear and stand up off the ground and I know will help stand too.
In life there will be many obstacles and challenges, mountains and cliffs that will stand in your way of achieving your dreams. You may feel like your small compared to these roadblocks and you may want to sit down and not want to move forward, but if you want to reach your dreams you’re going to have to find a way to overcome each and every obstacle you face. Here is one way to overcome your obstacles, decide what it is that you want most, do you want to be grand champion showman, or the next American idol, or even open your own restaurant , whatever it is decide that this is the goal you want to achieve more than anything, once you’ve done this , it’s time to address those obstacles, by making a battle plan, you need to plan out how you are going to deal and overcome everything thrown at you in the process, ( Expound how)
So now that you’re picking yourself up off the ground, you’re looking for some support, so you look to your friends, family, and other people to help you. As they come to help you find some of them hanging on your arms and legs dragging you back down on the floor and the rest are yanking on you trying to pull you up and there you hover, in between standing up and sitting down and aren’t making any progress whatsoever! So what do you do? You need to pick people so surround you who will pick you up and help you stay standing, they are the people that will help you through thick and thin because they care about you! Take a second to yourself and think, am I a friend who is a good influence and lift others up, or am I dragging people down? The people you choose to be your safety net will directly affect the outcome of your goals and dreams.Alright so now that you’ve got your battle plan and your army you’re ready to start moving but wait, threes one more thing you need before you can achieve your dreams, you need to believe in yourself, at times that can be hard especially when everyone around you tells you that you’re not worth it and can’t reach your dreams, but their wrong believe in yourself, one example of an idividual's self belief comes from last year on Britain’s got talent an unlikely person achieved what others thought was impossible. Before this individual sang in front the judges panel they interviewed this person her name is Susan boyle she 47 year old woman, outwardly she’s not what you would expect to be seeing on TV as the next big thing, she was then unemployed, never married never kissed, and lives alone with her cat named pebbles, but she has one thing, a strong belief in herself. She tells the camera that she will rock the audience, and secretly we all laugh at her because we take one look at her and think oooh here comes a real stinker. So she walks out onto that stage and introduces herself, meanwhile the judges and everyone in the audience are all thinking the same thing, who is this ugly, frizzy haired old woman and why does she think she can sing. And then she says the unthinkable, when asked who do you want to be as famous as and she says Elaine Page or Celine Dion, everyone laughs at her, and then she tells the judges she’s going to sing I dreamed a dream from les miserable and the judges get ready to plug their ears. But instead the music plays and Susan Boyle, opens her mouth and nothing but beautiful music comes out, everyone in that theater sat there with their jaws dropped and eyes wide open in shock and awe. When the time came for the verdict the judges all expressed how they had judged her before hand and how wrong they were. What an amazing woman, not because of her beautiful talent but because of her amazing and unstoppable self belief.
In our lives we face exactly what Susan did, we face an audience of people that tell us that we can’t accomplish our dreams, I was thinking about this and I remembered something I learned from my last trip home from school. I was playing with my little sister, who is 9 and like most 9 year old girls she loves Hannah Montana, and believe it or not I learned a lesson from Hannah Montana, my little sister was singing apart of this song, “who said, who said I can’t be superman I say I say that I know I can” that hit me like a ton of bricks, she’s right who says we can’t reach our dreams? Why do we let other people tell us we can’t? We need to tell ourselves we can! When we believe we can, our lives quickly become better and we are more successful. To start believing in yourself start using self affirmations, something simple that you can say to yourself in the mirror every morning, such as “I am strong, I am smart, I am successful” and there isn’t anything wrong with looking in the mirror and saying “hey good looking” the more you tell yourself these positive statements the more they become your reality.
Now you’ve got everything you need to succeed your battle plan , your army, your belief in yourself, you’re ready to get going , go chase that dream, you start going and that first obstacle pops up in front of you , you start to slow down you’re scared, and start wondering what to do , here’s what you do MOVE! Take a running start fly past that roadblock; keep moving through the mud, and through the crowds holding you back. Dig deep inside yourself and keep that belief going strong, and KEEP MOVING until you reach your dream NEVER SLOW DOWN, the journey may be hard but the outcome is so worth it!
FFA Members I challenge you , to pick yourself up off the ground and chase your dreams, I Challenge you to build others up , I challenge you to BELIEVE IN YOURSELF , I challenge you to Move , I challenge you TO BE Unstoppable !
