One of my biggest personal achievements in life would be when I was able to receive a view

dance challenge invitation to a Greece intensive. This was an award only 10 dancers per
competition received and were handpicked from the judges on the competition's panel. This had
been an award I was working towards for nearly 7 years and never was able to get. On the night,
of March 27th, 2022, I was awarded this invitation. The solo that caught the judge's attention was
my contemporary solo titled “I lost a friend”. While learning this solo, I developed a serious deep
connection and poured my heart and soul onto the stage. I made quite a few people cry and I later
found out I had even impacted my judges, teammates, and teachers. I scored the highest mark I
had ever scored which was 95.77 which made me the first overall teen soloist. At the end of the
night, when I went home it all sank in. I had finally accomplished a goal I had been working
towards almost my entire dance career and showed every person that tore me down, that they
were wrong. This restored a lot of my confidence that had previously been lost and helped me
rediscover my positive mindset. I was now finally going to be able to travel to Greece as well as
meet my extended family there too. This experience made me want to push hard and far,
however, to get there, I needed to start becoming aware of the things that came with this
opportunity. First and foremost, I needed to start saving and watching the money I was currently
spending. Greece is nowhere near cheap, and I only had until the end of July to be completely
ready. I also needed to start learning how to become even more independent. Although my
parents would be flying with me to Greece, they would be staying in a completely different city
from what I was in, and I wouldn’t always have any parental figure by my side. This
accomplishment will help me in the future through the shift in my mindset. If I work hard
enough, I can do whatever it is that I am striving for, and I do not need anyone else's approval or
validation to succeed.