What does empowerment really means to you?
Well, really to me empowerment just means building up your spirit I guess, you know, your faith, your hope.
I guess it's just something that helps you improve yourself to do better. What empowers me is wanting to be happy and to be successful in life. I've had a lot of unhappy moments, and sometimes I get scared I won't make it in the world we live in today, even though I really want to, and that’s my drive. So no matter how scared I may get, I refuse to fail!
I run track and my pretty good at it. The feeling you get when your name is announced on the loud speaker as the first place winner of an event you've been training year round for, that all the pain, the tears, the frustration of not knowing if you’re good enough goes away and all you can do is shed tears of joy. Although deep inside you knew, you had the feeling all along that it was going to be you, it had to be you, your coach prepared you for this for this moment and no one else could take it from you, because no one else has trained harder than you. And at that very moment of knowing you did it, you feel empowered to do better than what you just did, because as long as you have that drive and people supporting you, you should know that there is nothing you can't do!
I’m going to tell you a story about how I started out as a Triple Jumper up to now. First, I got the basics of the motions on getting into the sand pit, but I wasn’t at the level of the girls who made it in the “top 10 in D.C.” so I practiced. Everyday I would work on getting my legs stronger, my speed up for going down the runway. When I started to get better my coach would tell me “okay Mikhala, so when you get out there I’m expecting you to place or at less P.R” and every time it wouldn’t happen, and every time I would get so made at myself, I hated not doing the best I know I can do. This every time, tell close to championship I finally P.R-ed and it was the best feeling in the world, and when championship came, I refused to go home empty handed. And I didn’t. I feel that track was the best thing that ever happened to me because it pushes me so that I can do my every best and never give up no matter what! Track opened my eyes to place’s I’ve never been before and I am so very grateful for that. For me, track would be nothing with out my coach and my team, together were just not Coolidge Lady Colts, were a family and without their love, support, guidance, and care, without my family I’d be nothing.