Aditya Birla Group – Influencing the Life of Millions, IIM Raipur

Overcoming My Biggest Challenge – Not Easy But Not Impossible Either

Since my childhood I have been a sports enthusiast. Name any sports - cricket, football, volleyball or even snooker, I have played them all. And not just playing in general. I was playing football ever since I can remember. As I grew up I started playing for local clubs and soon was participating in various inter school tournaments, followed by district leagues and club tournaments. By the time I completed my high school, I had decided to pursue my career in football. All was going good but then something happened which changed my life completely. When I was in the final year my school life, during a football match I suffered an injury in my right foot. Multiple fractures made it impossible for me to play for at least next one year. Even after that, the doctor suggest me not to play since the risk was too high. For couple of months post injury, I was completely lost. I had no idea what I would do if not football. Since I was solely focussing on football for past two years, academics had become my second priority and accordingly I was not doing very good. But I realised that I had to make a decision since it was 12^th standard. I started focusing on academics since I was not playing football anymore. It was really hard in the beginning, the thought of not playing football coupled with the pressure to do well in 12^th standard. But eventually I overcame my personal issues and did better than what anyone expected from me. I scored the highest marks in my school and was able to get into one the top colleges of Delhi University. This was followed by getting into an IIM in my first attempt. The hard work that I had to put into achieving this gave me a lifelong lesson of not stopping if faced by an obstacle of any kind. You need to adopt yourself as per the situation and have to make sacrifices if the need be. In the end everything works out provided you give your best shot at it. And yes I do play football now, just not professionally.

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