I would say that when I have reached my goals, I have that feeling of great achievement. In reaching them of course I made painful sacrifices. 

An example was when I was still studying in my high school/secondary years, I remember that when I started my first year in high school, I had just transferred from an international school to a private school and the pressure was very high. There's no such thing as free time and activities, it was mostly about books and theories the only hands-on subjects were pure lab science subjects but that was later in my senior years. Anyways, changing was hard because suddenly there were methods, numbers, names and theories I had to learn and memorize, I had to take down notes as fast as I could and I never did any of those before as they were more advanced from my previous school. I remember failing all my subjects and passing only english as that was what I was strong in as well as sports, designing, music and other co-curricular stuff. So as the years passed by I noticed I had to improve or nothing might happen to my life I made it a goal to at least pass my subjects and I started going to tuition almost every day from a teacher whose also a friend and helped me in every single step, I started catching up, sometimes I even didn't get enough sleep to study especially when exams were coming as I was a slow learner. 

I noticed that time was getting faster people are getting older and I wanted there to be more to my life but at that point I really didn't know what to do and I think I was in my 3rd secondary year. People started asking me what I wanted to be and I really didn't know and especially when receiving my report card I feel a great disappointment like it wouldn't be enough if I were to be employed by a company. Then one day one of my teachers were trying to encourage the whole class as classes were divided according to grades-Class A where the brainy students were and Class B where students mostly fail or just pass and I was in class B-until I heard this teacher say, "If you aim low, you will get low. If you aim high, you will get high" and then also said, "If you aim for a pass, you can easily fail, if you aim for a C(credit), you may at least pass, if you aim for a B, you may at least get a C and if you aim for an A, you may at least get a B." and that gave me a strong motivation that in the end of year 3, all of my 7 subjects were graded credits or above which barely happens in my class. 

Before year 4 starts, Class A students normally go to the science stream where they study pure bio, chem and physics as well as a.maths and other core subjects, while class B goes to the arts stream and studies general science, history, arts, d.maths, etc.

Now at the end of year 3 my class teacher was distributing out the report cards but didn't give me back mine and wanted my parents to see the principal. I was very scared that I thought my grades might have suddenly dropped in my final exam that might get me expelled. 

After my parents spoke with the principal, they came with good news. I had a choice if I wanted to transfer to the science stream class!

From there, I actually caught up in how fast they studied, I even stopped going to tuition, it was hard but I managed to. Then I started making new goals such as studying here in singapore instead of studying university in philippines. My parents did get a bit disappointed about that and because I wouldn't be with my older sisters. I still went for my goal as learning conditions in philippines are quite poor and the fact that there is a high crime rate and its quite hard looking for employment even after graduating. After reasoning with my parents and negotiating with my parents, they eventually allowed me to go independently and supported me. It was hard being separated with my family and living here alone but its keeping a promise that I will study well and enjoy in what I will be as I grow up."