Personal Achievement Reflection

For my reflection, I want to discuss and look at my personal achievements. The personal
achievement I chose to examine and reflect on is beginning to play ball hockey again and
making new friends to play with. At the beginning of the year, I started to play ball hockey with
my friends since we all wanted to get out and do things together. After a few weeks, my friends
started to get busy and I started to go out less and less however I met new strangers who I
befriended and started to play with instead.

For me, this was a personal achievement because I was able to create new friendships with
strangers which is something I had not done in a very long time since I have had an established
group of friends for a number of years. This experience also allowed me to start participating in
ball hockey with a group whose skill level was vastly higher than my regular friends and mine. I
got to play against players who were much faster and shot much harder and accurately,
because of this, I believe I was able to get much better at goaltending much faster and truly be
challenged while doing it. Overall this entire experience was incredibly important and worthwhile
because It allowed me to create new friendships with others while also allowing me to get
involved in and enjoy playing hockey. I was also able to begin getting better at hockey because
of the challenge of playing with better players and wanting to improve and get better myself.

The skills I improved, utilized, and practiced with this experience can definitely help me in my
future education or careers. The ability to create and foster new relationships in different areas
and situations can allow me to adapt to new environments like a new job or school much faster
and easier. Beginning to play hockey is something that can help me in the future as well. I
haven’t played many sports or physical activities in recent years however I have always wanted
to play and participate in different team sports like hockey or soccer. Now that I have broken
through my comfort zone I am much more comfortable with seeking new experiences and being
much more likely to try to participate in a recreational league like the adult safe hockey league
even if my friends don’t. A skill like this can allow me to be physically active in my future and
lead a healthier life even after school.

During this experience, I also learned that I like being focused and attentive to the game instead
of being talkative. I also wait for others to approach me instead of being the first to interact with
strangers because I don’t want to bother others. In this aspect, I would like to improve and get
better at being the first to talk with strangers and initiate conversations. This can help me create
more friendships and relationships in the future. Lastly, during this experience, I learned that I
like to try to prove myself to others that I am capable of playing well and excelling at a certain
skill or field, in this case, goaltending. I like to play as hard as I can and if I feel like I could have
done better I like to reflect on my performance and try to improve on it for the next time by
practicing and reviewing what I did before. For example in the beginning I let in a lot of between
the leg or five-hole goals because I wasn’t properly covering the spot. After getting feedback
from friends and trying to get better at covering this spot I am now much better at protecting
against five-hole shots than before.
This experience is very important to me because It allows me to engage in a sport I love a lot
and make new friends along the way. It also allowed me to practice skills I can utilize in my
future and allowed me to reflect and learn new things about myself as well.