STEP OUT- but be intentional

“There are certain times in your life where you will need to go against the grain.” As I sit and ruminate on that quote from Swarthmore’s president, I can’t help but think about how everything around me has re-emphasised the need to push myself out of my comfort zone. Something that I started doing my sophomore semester was creating themes that summarized how I wanted my summers and semesters at Swarthmore to be like. My themes had ranged from “bold and colorful” to “leadership pivot” to “focus” to “work,werk”. This semester, my theme was “Step out — but be intentional!” lol pretty vague but what that theme meant to me was to get out of my comfort zone and purposefully seek things that I was uncomfortable doing. Answering questions in front of an audience? Yh..always made me queasy and uncomfortable. So I did it. Start a business? Join the club soccer team? These were some things that were on my list.

Getting out of my comfort zone came in different forms. I took my first Penn class this semester, “African women’s lives: past and present” and even though that may seem like a small deal, it did require me to leave the confines of the Swat bubble I had grown accustomed to. I was in a different class environment and atmosphere. Thankfully, I ended up loving the material for that class and the commute from Swat to Penn was always relaxing and de-stressing.

Another thing that was in line with my theme for this semester was joining the soccer team. haha. So… the story with that. I had never really played soccer except for when it was my older brother coercing me to play FIFA with him. I lowkey always admired football as a sport though and in Ghana it’s such a huge sport that it’s hard not to get involved discussing the sport. Anyways, I never really played because I felt like I would be terrible but then it hit me that I honestly had never really TRIED before. A lot of successes and “failures” in my life have come as a result of trying. However, by not even trying, there was going to be no result. I debated for a bit and then talked to a few people on the club soccer team and finally joined!

Something I really love about Swat, that I’ve always loved and will continue to love is how supportive people are honestly. Remember how I felt like I would be terrible in soccer? LOL well yh.. My first few games I was. I played defense because that’s where I felt like I best fit. However, being my first time, my player statistics went something like this : Ball control- zero. Communication- zero. Receiving ball- negative 1. haha but something that I valued was that the members of the team would always focus on the positive things I did and then give re-constructive criticism. I became relatively better in my next games and I really enjoyed playing and letting go of how self-conscious I initially felt.

This was also the semester I decided to implement a business idea through a business competition at my school called SwatTank. It was a major shift from the comfort I had of always thinking and telling people about my ideas to actually implementing them. Stepping out of my comfort zone this semester was not easy. The self doubt, exhaustion, constant prayers and solitude are definitely not as visible as the results but they were definitely present.

One of my final goals for the semester was writing a reflective piece and for the first time not letting it hide in my journal and computer. So booyah, here it is, world. STEP OUT.