This was the entry I submitted for a contest at my school. I had 500 words to express why I felt I embodied the word ‘achiever’. 

I began this journey as a Computer Animation student at Full Sail University. In August of 2011 I graduated as the Advanced Achiever for my class; an honor I was shocked and humbled to receive.

In January of 2012 I was hired as a Lab Specialist for the Computer Animation degree. In 2014 I received the Props Award for “exemplifying the guiding principles of Full Sail University with unwavering commitment to excellence.”

In August of 2014 I became a Digital Arts and Design student, while continuing to work full time as a Lab Specialist through Full Sail’s Faculty Scholarship Program. Each month I receive comments from my instructors about the quality of my work and the effort I put into my assignments.

I have been given so many honors, awards, and recognitions throughout my life aside from the ones listed above, and to this day I do not feel I deserved or did anything worthy of earning them.

I believe in the work I do. I feel like my effort and time are worth investing into my projects. I want to see the things I have inside my head become reality, and I refuse to stop trying until it happens. I refuse to accept defeat as an option.

The definition I apply to the word achieve is, “to get or attain by effort”.

Every project I have worked on, every goal I have reached, every dream I have obtained, has been filled with failures, mistakes, and regrets. Nothing I have ever done has been perfect or gone exactly according to plan. Most of the time it took a lot of effort, dedication, and a healthy dose of stubbornness.

What makes me an achiever is not that I am successful, or that my projects work out to a specific end. What makes me an achiever is that I do not give up when the work gets hard. I don’t look at the challenge, the mountain, in front of me, and become intimidated. I do not falter in my resolve even as its shadow casts me into darkness.

I look at my challenge and I say, “I will win”.

I have the persistence, the craziness, to refuse anything other than success. It is simply a matter of time before I reach my goal. I may not get there by the path I originally thought, and I may have trials and tribulations along the way. But I will get there.

Quitters never win, and winners never quit. That is why I am an achiever. Because no matter what, I will never quit.