Working Harder

Knowing and valuing yourself, setting goals, and planning help build important foundations, but action is required to make your dreams come true. To take control of your life it is necessary to choose and take appropriate action. Take charge. Move forward. Sometimes students with disabilities need to work harder to achieve the same level of success as their peers. As reported by one student who is blind:
I accepted the fact that I must work harder than other students to get the same grade.

But, learning to work hard has a positive side:

Sometimes I think that all of us with disabilities have an advantage over those who have things come easier to them. Whatever it is we want, we have to want it and then work for it. That necessary desire promotes drive to accomplish, succeed, or achieve. Others around us may be content to float, or do the minimum most of the time, but not us. For us, having what everybody else has is an accomplishment, and having tasted success we want to keep succeeding.

The willingness to take risks is critical to achieving success. As reported by one young person with a mobility impairment:

I keep going when people tell me I can't. I am not afraid to try things and I don't give up. My parents took me everywhere and I did everything like a normal kid. I have a good friend from kindergarten who is able bodied, and she knows me so well that we do all sorts of stuff that people might not think I could do, but we come up with a flexible plan and we do it.

Advice about risk taking from successful people with disabilities includes:

• Nothing worthwhile comes without risk. Without risk, success cannot be achieved.
• Never give up.
• Do not pity yourself for what cards you have been dealt. It happened... now move on.
• That moment of insecurity is worth the achievement in the end. It is important to keep that in mind throughout life.

"Don't allow your disABILITY to shut you out of life; your request for Access has been Granted"