Motivation Monday: The 2016 U.S. Olympic Women's Gymnastics Team

Last night, the dreams of five lovely young women came true: the five-woman U.S. Olympic women's gymnastics team was named in San Jose, California.

Simone Biles, Laurie Hernandez, and Madison Kocian became first-time Olympians. The other two members achieved their dreams for the second time.

Gabby Douglas and Aly Raisman became the first U.S. women's gymnasts to make a consecutive Olympic team since Dominique Dawes and Amy Chow did in 2000. Douglas is the first reigning Olympic all-around champion to return to the Games since Nadia Comeneci in 1980.

Here they are: @Simone_Biles, @lzhernandez02, @Aly_Raisman, @gabrielledoug and @MadisonKocian! #RioReady pic.twitter.com/AVOjI3ItJM

— USA Gymnastics (@USAGym) July 11, 2016

And all five of these gymnasts provide great motivation and inspiration, whether it be words of wisdom on social media or in an interview that have helped them accomplish their goals and make it to the Games. Each of them has taught me something special, something I can use as motivation when needed, which makes rooting for them even better.

Motivation Monday: Find Your Passion

It's been a while since I last did a Motivation Monday post. And though part of the reason for that is lack of time, I've also lacked ideas. I created a Motivation Monday blog series in an effort to post more consistently, and at the time, I thought I'd have the time and plenty of ideas.

While I could've just been posting a bunch of inspirational quotes every Monday, I didn't like the idea of doing that week after week. I thought it'd be tiring. I felt like it'd lose its purpose or something.

But I figured out a way to possibly make it less tiring and repetitive when I do post quotes for Motivation Monday. When I do post quotes for these blogs, there will be a theme that all the quotes relate to. This week's is passion.

Words to Remember When Facing Rejection

Today, I got an email with news I didn't like, I didn't want to see, I didn't want to be true. It upset me a lot at first, because I felt like I failed and that once again, I wasn't good enough to get this. Because let's be real, rejection never feels good. But it's part of everyday life. Things don't always go our way.

You might not get into your number one college. The person you like may not like you back and rejects you. The job you applied for may have decided that you weren't a good fit. Your parents might not let you go hang out with your friends. Or it may be as simple as you want a double chocolaty chip Frappuccino from Starbucks but they don't have anymore java chips. (That's actually happened to me quite a bit.)

No matter what rejection you face, no matter what didn't go your way, you can't dwell on it. No one gets everything he/she wants. You have to learn from it and move on. That's what I had to do today.

An Evening with Friends and Jamie Tworkowski

June 8, 2015 was the day I had been waiting for ever since I found out that Jamie Tworkowski, founder of To Write Love on Her Arms, would be in the Chicago area for his If You Feel Too Much book tour. This stop would include a book signing, book reading, Q&A session, movie screening, and photo ops.

The event was officially called An Evening with Jamie Tworkowski. There was a framed poster with the title and Jamie's picture outside of the theater. I attended the event with my twin sister Ashley and our friend Sofie. It began about 15 minutes after 7 PM, when it was supposed to begin. When he finally entered the theater, he walked down the aisle closest to where Sofie was sitting. She was so excited; when he passed her on his way down to the stage, she giddily said "Hi!" to him.

After talking about what a weird and cool venue we were in -- there were little movie character statues all around the walls and ceiling of the theater, and we were all sitting in office chairs -- he began by reading two chapters from If You Feel Too Much, "Flowers to the Sea" and "There is Still Some Time."

Jamie Tworkowski reading part of If You Feel Too Much.

Learning About Faith and Trust

Even though I got to watch a lot of gymnastics this weekend (including attending two meets), which always makes me feel better, I had a not-so-good weekend.

An assignment for one of my classes was stressing me out all week. I tried to not worry and stress over it, but I just couldn't help it. I felt like nothing was working out. That seemed to be true and reached its peak when I woke up on Saturday morning.

I woke up around 8 AM to my alarm and immediately checked my phone as I was expecting an email due to the problem that I encountered on Friday. The email I was expecting was there. As soon as I finished reading it, I panicked. I felt like everything that could go wrong was, and even though it wasn't, I felt like all of the blame was on me. The worst part of it was that this wasn't only affecting me. It impacted others too.