“Every day brings a chance for you to draw in a breath, kick off your shoes, and dance.”
– Oprah Winfrey

“Every day is a new beginning. Treat it that way. Stay away from what might have been, and look at what can be.”
– Marsha Petrie Sue

“If I fall, I’ll take the fall and get up and keep going.” Mirai Nagasu

“Mirai” means “future” in Japanese, and Olympic figure skater Mirai Nagasu has always been focused on it.

Mirai’s journey began in Montebello, California. An only child, Mirai was born to Kiyoto and Ikuko Nagasu and raised in Arcadia, California.

Mirai began skating at the age of five, citing the fortuitous beginnings to her love of the ice. “Due to typical sunny beautiful California weather, my parents always loved to take me to play golf with them…but one rainy day, my mom decided to take me ice skating and that’s when I knew I wanted to keep skating…Bye bye golf!”

Mirai quickly took the skating world by storm.

Mirai won the U.S. junior national title at the 2007 U.S. Figure Skating Championships. The following year, she won the U.S. senior title – an incredible feat for any skater. 

In 2010, with the Olympics on the line, Mirai came through like a star placing second at the 2010 U.S. Championships. Mirai stole the show, lighting up the rink with her energy, poise and infectious smile. She placed a very impressive 4th place finish at the 2010 Olympic Games in Vancouver.

In the ensuing years, Mirai battled injuries and coaching changes, but her passion for skating never wavered. In January 2018, Mirai was the buzz of the national championships. She was praised for her commitment to the sport, and for coming back after the sting of missing the 2014 Olympic Team. Mirai won the silver medal and was so emotional after her free skate that she sobbed in the joy and cry. This time, they were tears of joy as she earned her spot back on the U.S. Olympic Team.

“I really took time to remodel myself, because I didn’t want to feel that regret,” Mirai said during the announcement on NBC’s Today Show. “This has been about my journey and my goal to get here. To accomplish it has been a dream come true.”

At the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, Mirai made history by becoming the first American woman and only the third woman in history to land a triple axel in an Olympic Winter Games. She performed the difficult three-and-a-half revolution jump, helping Team USA win a bronze medal in the Olympic team event. “It was my dream moment,” Mirai said. “It felt like the stars aligned.”

In the above story of Mirai, I see a woman who has gone through so much to get where she is. In her journey she went through so much struggles to do better in her skating but never gave up even when she felt like giving up. In her story I hear the narrative that every day when we wake up, have have a new chance to prove ourself, follow our goals and invest into ourself to enjoy the compounding effects of yield in the future.

Since none of us knows what the future holds, the idea of having a new beginning can sometimes be terrifying. However, if you focus on having an optimistic mindset, starting over can be an exciting time. Just like Winston Churchill’s famous quote that “a pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.”I believe that we can change our perspective to see problems as challenges instead. A challenge is something that invigorates us and causes us to see things in a brand new light. We can let our challenges cause us to rise to the occasion. Everything great that has ever happened in our world was once a problem that irritated and frustrated someone. That is why it was called a problem. But, when a situation is viewed as a challenge it causes people to want to rise to a new occasion, to change things, to improve things. I think the word challenge creates in us a new perspective of wanting things to be better. It is when we face our challenges and overcome them that we shine the best in life.

No matter how bad was yesterday, it has passed and today is a new beginning and we have the opportunity to make good of what we have failed to achieve yesterday, so that we could achieve a better result in the future. Let every day of your life is a new beginning, not just the first day of the year. You can make Daily Resolutions, not just New Year Resolutions. Any day is suitable for making them. Regard every day as the beginning of your new, better, and happier life. Start every day of the year with feelings of happiness and with the anticipation that great and wonderful things are going to happen.