One Step at a Time by Brian

One Step at a Time by Brian - August 2026 Scholarship Essay

It was early into the outdoor track season. We were just starting to recover fitness from a week off of running. One of the best pieces of advice that I received wasn't targeted towards just me, but instead to the entire distance team. We were told that we couldn't rush being great at running. It involved slowly building up and working hard each and every day. That feedback stuck with me, since it could be applied not only to track, but to almost any point in life.

The way I interpreted the advice was to take everything one step at a time. Being a great runner, or being great at anything, doesn't happen in one day. You can't become the best at something, even if you practice it for 24 hours on a single day. In almost every case, consistency is the key to improvement. A runner could only improve if they worked at themselves every day, attending practice and running hard day in and day out. Even if somebody stayed on the track overnight and ran until they dropped, they wouldn't improve nearly as much as someone who stayed consistent and trained.

The advice helped me not only in running, but in many other parts of life as well. It reminded me that studying for an hour each day for a week was going to be much more beneficial than cramming for a test in a day. Playing a piano piece required daily consistency, rather than a single burst of practice. Almost every single thing that I wanted to improve on could be tied back to feedback me and my team got on the track.

Learning to take things one step at a time helped me become a better runner. It also helped me become more disciplined in general and helped me grow much faster as a person.