I used to be a "yes" and a "it's fine, let's do it" kind of person - and for a long time. I just couldn't say no. The habit of saying yes when I wanted to say no got me in places and situations I wished I didn't get myself into.

LESS STRESS AND ANXIETY
I have learnt during my "yes" days that I had so much stress and anxiety trying to keep up with promises and yeses I made. I wished I could change the plans but I had already agreed. This caused so much conflict for me, left me with less time for myself and the things I wanted to do - relaxing and being alone. I am now mindful to what I say yes to. It helps me stress less about letting people down.

I am not saying you should always say no, I don't say no all the time either, but a yes should be a mindful one. Show up for your friends and loved ones as you'd loved for them to show up for you but create a balance. Have you had a problem saying no to the people around you? How did you/are still fixing that?

Anyone who knows me knows that I love sports! And if we just met online, do stick around - I would like to share this story about myself with you. My relationships with sports is an exciting one. I participated in sports from the first grade until grade 12.

I own gold, silver and bronze medals for positions 1, 2 and 3, a countless number of certificates (I really have no idea how many they are) and 1 trophy which the school kept. Competitive running was my favourite sport. I remember in primary school when I would decide to skip practice, one of the teachers would come to get me from the dorm. They would wait for me and get me to the school ground, and now that I think about it, they were helping me. When I got to grade 7, I ran and played netball - I was happy in sports!

As I grew older and got to high school, I needed to balance high school workload and sports as I didn't want to slack on either of them. The second year of high school I stopped playing netball and joined the girls soccer team which was form that very same year and I continued doing the 100 meters run. I never stopped running all my school life. It took some persistence but this is how I balanced high school as a sport person:

STUDYING

To balance high school and sports, I did my homework right after school because we had study time for an hour after school (dorm rules). If I needed to study, I studied in the evening as there was another study time for 2 hours every evening during the week and on Sundays. If I couldn't do my homework during study time, I did my homework the next morning at school before classes started. It was honestly mostly a bad idea but I still did it other days and it still worked.

FRIENDSHIPS

Looking back, I realise that I never really made many friends in high school. I had people who I hung around at that time, the people I laughed and played with but that's about where it ended. I went to two different high schools and in each one I made just one friend. We still hang out and have fun. I really believe not having many friends helped me focus on what was important, and I think that was one of the best things I did (having little friends).

FOOD

There weren't many options when it came to food. The dorm provided food and lucky for me, the food wasn't all bad, so I ate what came.  I couldn't miss meal time because if I did I'd be so hungry until the next meal ( we ate three times a day). I was just happy there was some starch, and I remember I drank a glass milk every single morning, and all these helped me keep healthy for school and sports.

WEEKENDS

When it came to weekends, I did some laundry, relax and play. Yup, I did my own laundry in boarding school. I did not do anything sports related on weekends unless I had a game on that day. Weekends were for me and I made sure of it.

I have no regrets when it comes to how much I've put in sports. Competitive running was my favourite, especially when it was time for relay! I'm so grateful to God for the gift of speed. I had so much fun with it and in the end, on time, I finished high school. Did you play sports in high school? Tell me about your how you keep or kept your balance in high school between your studies and extramural activities or sports?