Hello everyone! Welcome to my first #FuelYourFire blog post and thanks for reading. I started playing soccer when I was seven years old, and when I turned nine years old, I wrote in my journal, in big block letters: "I WILL BE A PROFESSIONAL SOCCER PLAYER WHEN I GROW UP."
I just now finished my seventh professional season for FC Kansas City. My soccer career has been quite the journey and in this blog I will share thoughts, moments, and stories that all continue to fuel my fire to continue to strive for excellence on and off the field. Enjoy!
I'm always excited by the potential that beginnings hold. Throughout my career there have been many beginnings--the beginning of my journey striving for excellence, the beginning of too many seasons to now keep track of, my college career, professional career, my time playing abroad. Each has been a blank slate and I am constantly excited by the opportunity to reinvent myself as a person, player and teammate. I often feel giddy when I start a new experience, but at the same time nervous to see how it will unfold because I know that I have invested my heart and soul in this game I love.
#FuelYourFire is about gathering. Like you gather firewood to ignite a fire, you gather all the pieces of who you are and the experiences that have gotten you to this point and shaped your journey until now. Some of the fuel has been created by winning and success and some of it is born from the disappointment and constant need to improve. Everyone's fuel is different and is constantly changing and evolving. I have been fueled by the hours of work I put in when it's just me and the ball. Sometimes I feel inspired to master certain skills and other times I've kicked angrily against the schoolyard wall with tears streaming down my face, determined to prove someone who didn't believe in me wrong.
I dreamed of playing college soccer ever since I was young. Fast forward many years and I remember going into my senior season of college. It was sentimental for me to begin one last season with the team I loved so much, and my fuel was immense. It was comprised of the dreams I had as a young player of one day being a Tar Heel and the Carolina Blue pillow case I slept on that said "The Dream Starts Here." I was really proud that I had made my dream come true but also felt a lot of pressure to make sure I left the on best note possible.
Add to that countless hours with the ball in my backyard, basement, and racquetball courts in the winter; the ridiculous awkwardness of being the only girl on a boys' team as an 11 to 14-year-old; putting myself in the best and most challenging training environments, which often meant guest playing for teams full of players I had never met (I could have thrown up on the drives to those tournaments I was so nervous!). My determination only expanded when my coach told me I was probably too slow to pass 120s (a fitness test where we had to repetitively sprint the length of the field and back within certain times). I was insulted and so angry that I made sure I would prove him very wrong. Add to all of this a Championship in 2006 and a very disappointing 2007 season. So 2008 brought me one last chance to leave my college career as a Champion and the hope of playing professionally following that season. Talk about fuel.
I think that we all have a unique fire burning within us. Each individual is motivated differently, plays this game for different reasons, and finds different value in triumph and different lessons in defeat. In college, I learned to love the game in a different way than I had as a youth player. My youth career was spent jumping around from team to team, always trying to find my next challenge to develop. In college, I took pride in representing my school and felt more connected to my teammates than ever before. I loved and respected the women I took the field with and trusted them, often even over myself, to get the job done. My fire started to be fueled by being part of something that I wanted so deeply to influence positively.
Throughout the 2008 season I would go to training every day early to practice free kicks. One of my teammates often called to ask me to pick her up to head to training early, too, which I slightly resented at the time because it was out of my way. As I meticulously practiced free kicks from certain spots, she would mess around and shoot from wherever she wanted, whenever she wanted. But we developed a little free kick competition where we would try to hit the little red tags that hung in the upper corners of the goal. This "red flag" as we called it was probably about 2x3", so as you can imagine, we rarely hit it.
Fast forward some months and we were in the Championship, my last game as a college player. We were down 1-0 and I had started to lose hope that we could come back. We got a free kick and it was in one of the spots that my teammate had been so nonchalantly shooting from a lot of days before training so I gladly relinquished the opportunity to her. As I saw the ball soar directly to the "red flag" area, I completely lost it. I was screaming, crying, and falling to the ground; I'd never experienced such emotion. We went on to win the game 2-1, and after I lay on the field and didn't want to ever leave. My college career was finished, I was a National Champion, and I've never in my life been more happy or more proud of a goal that I wasn't even remotely involved in on the field.
A couple months later I got a note in the mail from my teammate and enclosed was the red flag she had clipped from the goal at our training field. I still have the flag on my bulletin board at home and for me it represents a fuel I learned during my college career. I am always fueled by being the best me, dominating on the field, and striving for constant improvement. But during that season I learned the value of fueling my fire with the connection I shared with a group of really special people.
As you being your season, I urge you to consider all the things that fuel your fire. Feel gratitude for the work you have put in and all the twists and turns that have gotten you to where you are now. Feel motivation from any setbacks you have encountered. Feel empowered by your ability to rise above and continue to better yourself. And feel connection to the people with whom you are embarking on this journey. You are unique and your fuel is one of a kind. Gather it and allow it to ignite.
I'd love for you to comment below and let me know what will #FuelYourFire...
Also, who's for the first ever Fuel Your Fire Skill Challenge?! How many juggles can you do in 1 minute? I will be in Phoenix waiting to find out - we'll see if anyone can beat my score!
Peace, love, futbol
Yael
Connect with me:
Twitter: @Yael_Averbuch
Instagram: @yaelaverbuch
YouTube: YFutbol
I just now finished my seventh professional season for FC Kansas City. My soccer career has been quite the journey and in this blog I will share thoughts, moments, and stories that all continue to fuel my fire to continue to strive for excellence on and off the field. Enjoy!
I'm always excited by the potential that beginnings hold. Throughout my career there have been many beginnings--the beginning of my journey striving for excellence, the beginning of too many seasons to now keep track of, my college career, professional career, my time playing abroad. Each has been a blank slate and I am constantly excited by the opportunity to reinvent myself as a person, player and teammate. I often feel giddy when I start a new experience, but at the same time nervous to see how it will unfold because I know that I have invested my heart and soul in this game I love.
#FuelYourFire is about gathering. Like you gather firewood to ignite a fire, you gather all the pieces of who you are and the experiences that have gotten you to this point and shaped your journey until now. Some of the fuel has been created by winning and success and some of it is born from the disappointment and constant need to improve. Everyone's fuel is different and is constantly changing and evolving. I have been fueled by the hours of work I put in when it's just me and the ball. Sometimes I feel inspired to master certain skills and other times I've kicked angrily against the schoolyard wall with tears streaming down my face, determined to prove someone who didn't believe in me wrong.
I dreamed of playing college soccer ever since I was young. Fast forward many years and I remember going into my senior season of college. It was sentimental for me to begin one last season with the team I loved so much, and my fuel was immense. It was comprised of the dreams I had as a young player of one day being a Tar Heel and the Carolina Blue pillow case I slept on that said "The Dream Starts Here." I was really proud that I had made my dream come true but also felt a lot of pressure to make sure I left the on best note possible.
Add to that countless hours with the ball in my backyard, basement, and racquetball courts in the winter; the ridiculous awkwardness of being the only girl on a boys' team as an 11 to 14-year-old; putting myself in the best and most challenging training environments, which often meant guest playing for teams full of players I had never met (I could have thrown up on the drives to those tournaments I was so nervous!). My determination only expanded when my coach told me I was probably too slow to pass 120s (a fitness test where we had to repetitively sprint the length of the field and back within certain times). I was insulted and so angry that I made sure I would prove him very wrong. Add to all of this a Championship in 2006 and a very disappointing 2007 season. So 2008 brought me one last chance to leave my college career as a Champion and the hope of playing professionally following that season. Talk about fuel.
I think that we all have a unique fire burning within us. Each individual is motivated differently, plays this game for different reasons, and finds different value in triumph and different lessons in defeat. In college, I learned to love the game in a different way than I had as a youth player. My youth career was spent jumping around from team to team, always trying to find my next challenge to develop. In college, I took pride in representing my school and felt more connected to my teammates than ever before. I loved and respected the women I took the field with and trusted them, often even over myself, to get the job done. My fire started to be fueled by being part of something that I wanted so deeply to influence positively.
Throughout the 2008 season I would go to training every day early to practice free kicks. One of my teammates often called to ask me to pick her up to head to training early, too, which I slightly resented at the time because it was out of my way. As I meticulously practiced free kicks from certain spots, she would mess around and shoot from wherever she wanted, whenever she wanted. But we developed a little free kick competition where we would try to hit the little red tags that hung in the upper corners of the goal. This "red flag" as we called it was probably about 2x3", so as you can imagine, we rarely hit it.
Fast forward some months and we were in the Championship, my last game as a college player. We were down 1-0 and I had started to lose hope that we could come back. We got a free kick and it was in one of the spots that my teammate had been so nonchalantly shooting from a lot of days before training so I gladly relinquished the opportunity to her. As I saw the ball soar directly to the "red flag" area, I completely lost it. I was screaming, crying, and falling to the ground; I'd never experienced such emotion. We went on to win the game 2-1, and after I lay on the field and didn't want to ever leave. My college career was finished, I was a National Champion, and I've never in my life been more happy or more proud of a goal that I wasn't even remotely involved in on the field.
A couple months later I got a note in the mail from my teammate and enclosed was the red flag she had clipped from the goal at our training field. I still have the flag on my bulletin board at home and for me it represents a fuel I learned during my college career. I am always fueled by being the best me, dominating on the field, and striving for constant improvement. But during that season I learned the value of fueling my fire with the connection I shared with a group of really special people.
As you being your season, I urge you to consider all the things that fuel your fire. Feel gratitude for the work you have put in and all the twists and turns that have gotten you to where you are now. Feel motivation from any setbacks you have encountered. Feel empowered by your ability to rise above and continue to better yourself. And feel connection to the people with whom you are embarking on this journey. You are unique and your fuel is one of a kind. Gather it and allow it to ignite.
I'd love for you to comment below and let me know what will #FuelYourFire...
Also, who's for the first ever Fuel Your Fire Skill Challenge?! How many juggles can you do in 1 minute? I will be in Phoenix waiting to find out - we'll see if anyone can beat my score!
Peace, love, futbol
Yael
Connect with me:
Twitter: @Yael_Averbuch
Instagram: @yaelaverbuch
YouTube: YFutbol
No comments:
Post a Comment