Trent Hines

Making a shifty move, you get past the first defender, you hurdle over the next and the path is clear. There is nothing but green grass in front of you. Running, you pass the 50, the 40, the 30, the 20, the 10, and just before you’re approaching the in-zone, the opposing team player, number 24, comes to try to stop you from your touchdown. You have two options. You can run through the obstacle, or you can let the obstacle stop you. In life there are two options, you can attack your obstacles head on or you can let them defeat you.

My organization is Overcoming Obstacles Together, or O.O.T, is a Texas A&M University-Texarkana club in which people come and talk about the obstacles they face. Attendants of O.O.T go through 5 stages, introduction, acknowledgement, encouragement, overcoming, and finally sustainability.

In the first stage, people who attend get to know each other through icebreakers, games, and simple conversations. This stage allows the people to get familiar with people and to be comfortable for the next stage which is the acknowledgement stage.

In the acknowledgement stage people have an opportunity to share to the group what they have experienced in life and how it has affected them. In this stage people will openly address the obstacle they are dealing with in life. Everyone will clap after each person has acknowledged an obstacle, providing encouragement and reassurance that they are not alone.

In the Encouragement stage, the most vital stage, people will have to encourage one another with high fives, hugs, words, and thumbs up, creating a positive and encouraging environment. There will be activities which will be competitive but everyone who is not participating will have to cheer on those who are, everyone will get a chance to compete.

Next is the overcoming stage, and in this stage people have to put action into removing their obstacle. For example if someone’s obstacle is drinking, than they must stop drinking. Everyone will be given an accountability partner and they will check up on each person periodically to make sure that each person is putting action into overcoming the obstacle.

Last is the sustainability stage, and in this stage people will become leaders and some people will assist and mentor anyone that had the same obstacle as they had and they would take them through all the phases. This stage will make a person be self-sustaining, since there are people that look up to them and that they are making a difference.

You have just run over number 24 for the touchdown and your team won the game. Overcoming Obstacles Together (O.O.T) will make people start to look at their obstacles optimistically and they will know that struggles in life are as big as you make them and they are small to the members of O.O.T so join today and have victory over all obstacles.