From a failed footballer with mediocre grades and no plan for the future, to graduating top of my school with a perfect 45 in the IB – here’s how the tables turned.
With a single WhatsApp text to my football coach informing him of my decision to quit, my hopes and dreams ever since I was a child collapsed in an instant. The thing that gave me a reason to wake up every single day, and what motivated me to work hard despite all the hardships life threw at me, disappeared with the tap of a screen.
My whole life, I wanted to become a professional footballer. It was to the point that I simply couldn’t imagine myself doing anything else. Football was part of who I was – my identity. Like any ambitious kid at the time, I’d constantly daydream about the day I’d be able to represent my country, South Korea, and score the glorious winning goal in the World Cup final.
Not only did I love the idea of becoming a professional athlete — it was one of the few things I was genuinely good at. Ever since primary school, I’d never been particularly talented at academic subjects like Math, Science, or Humanities, nor did I enjoy them.
During school award ceremonies, I’d sit and watch my Korean friends collect all sorts of academic prizes while I had absolutely nothing. To cut myself some slack, I did win a fair share of sports and P.E. awards — but back then, they weren’t really considered “real” achievements because they weren’t academic.
Although it sucked being labeled as “dumb” or “not academically gifted,” I didn’t really mind for most of my life. Why? Because I told myself my talents must lie elsewhere — in my athletic ability. I rationalized that grades didn’t matter; I’d succeed in a different way.
Since then, I dedicated my entire life to becoming a professional football player. Not only did it motivate me, but it was also the biggest reassurance I had against my insecurities. Coming from an Asian culture where academic success is everything, football was my escape from that judgment.
After all, what do grades even matter if I’m going to become a professional athlete anyway… right?
Table of Contents:
A Collapsed Dream
Not gonna lie — I really thought I was going to make it. While living in Leeds, I was scouted by the Leeds United youth development program, and even in Hamburg, I played for a highly competitive academy. In many places I went, I was considered one of the most likely people to actually make it.
So, why didn’t I make it?
The simple and rather obvious answer is that I wasn’t good enough.
It was a slow and painful realization that I’d hit my ability ceiling, and the guys I was facing were simply bigger, faster, and literally just better than me at football too.
And coming to terms with this HURT like crap. It hurt my pride, soul, and mind. To dedicate that much physically and mentally to a sport your whole life, just to find out you probably can’t make it – it simply sucks, and there’s no sugarcoating it.
To be perfectly honest, it wasn’t so much the fact that I couldn’t achieve my dreams of becoming a footballer that bothered me the most. It was the overwhelming thought that I now had to find something else to do and dedicate my life towards. Something new to dream about. I thought to myself: where the heck do I even start looking?
Facing The Mountain Ahead
After making the massive decision to hang up the boots, I was now about to enter the IB Diploma Program, which is considered to be one of the most rigorous high school programs out there.
Having basically turned a blind eye to academic work my whole school career, with football as my excuse, I can’t even formulate with words how doomed I felt in that moment before starting. It was an absolute mega-combo of shame from failing to achieve my dreams and having to now face “reality.”
This reality felt far from ideal, as I lacked the absolute fundamental basics for subjects like Math and English, getting below-average grades for both. I literally had two years to make something out of absolutely nothing.
Now that I couldn’t blame my grades on football, I was afraid of embarrassing myself not only as the kid who wasn’t good enough as an athlete but also wasn’t good enough for school.
Well, whether I liked the situation or not, the IB was an inevitable mountain I had to climb — one which I couldn’t climb as I did before through physical measures, but I needed a different strategy.
A Mustard Seed of Faith
Having established the severity of my cookedness, I pretty much gave up on myself to be able to substantially turn things around with my own ability in the time I had left.
By turn around, I don’t mean I was afraid to fail or something like that. I definitely think I would have passed, but I didn’t have much hope in doing well in the IB.
In hindsight, giving up on myself was probably the smartest decision I’ve made. I had the self-awareness to understand that I had no knowledge, talent, or any ability in achieving great academic success, but I did have one thing — the tiniest mustard seed of faith — and it was the only thing I ended up needing.
“For truly I tell you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you.”1
Within the midst of all uncertainty, there were pretty much two routes I could have taken. I could have victimized myself and given up on scoring highly — perhaps just try to scrape enough points to get into some kind of university so I wouldn’t end up as an absolute disappointment. Or I could have interpreted my failure as part of God’s bigger plan — one which I couldn’t possibly understand.
Although it really wasn’t easy, I chose to decide upon the latter. After all, both routes required some kind of faith, except that for the first choice I’d have to have faith in my own ability and luck, whereas if the second choice was true, it would mean that God, the creator of the universe, was there to help me.
And so, I decided, given the uncertainties, to put my faith in God over myself and commit to Him 100%.
“Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and he will establish your plans.”2
I realized that if it’s true that quitting football was part of God’s plan, then entering the IB at this time, in this state, probably is too. And if that is the case, logically, there wasn’t any reason for me to be worried! I didn’t have to victimize myself or set limits on what I could achieve due to my past.
Having freed myself of the burden to figure everything out, and relying on God’s power and promises instead, I decided to completely throw away what is considered “realistic” and aimed to get a 45 in the IB — the highest grade you could possibly get.
Looking back, was I being delusional or realistic?
Well – it depends on how you view it.
From a societal point of view, I was probably seen by many as an overly optimistic kid who didn’t really have a grip on reality. I mean – not even the smartest students who’d studied consistently aimed for that kind of score. Who was I, then, to believe I could achieve something like that?
However, if God did exist, I figured these words by Jesus Christ would be true too:
“If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.”3
Believing in these words, the next step was pretty straightforward. I prayed to God every single day to help me get a 45 in the IB and worked hard without a doubt in my mind that I was going to achieve it with His help.
A goal that might seem completely absurd on its own suddenly became realistic, if it was true that God was by my side. Knowing this, I’d argue that aiming for the highest possible score was actually the most rational decision I could have made.
After all, if you truly believed that God was invested in your journey and with you wherever you went, wouldn’t it be more absurd to downplay your potential and what you could achieve?
And so, the dreadful IB journey began — but with confidence in God, not fear in my own abilities.
How God helped me get a 45 in the IB
As evident in the article title, you probably know now what I managed to achieve in the end but might still be a bit puzzled as to how I actually did it. I’ve claimed that I’m convinced it was God who helped me achieve the IB success story, and not my own abilities. What do I mean by this, though? How did God help me?
I hate to burst your bubbles, but God’s help wasn’t Him pumping some magical pixie dust into my brain helping me know exactly what to write, nor was it Him sliding me the mark scheme for my Biology HL exams. I definitely had to put in the work myself, but I received the perfect score by faith before I even began the journey.
To think about things a bit more critically then — how do I know that it was God and not my own abilities? Maybe I was actually decent academically but never managed to unlock or realize this because of my focus on football.
Can I prove that it was God who helped me, and not myself or luck? I cannot. But it also can’t be proven that it wasn’t God who helped me. Here’s why I believe it would have been impossible without God:
Let’s start from the beginning. If it weren’t for God’s guarantee that He was backing me, I’m convinced that I wouldn’t have even dared to aim for such a high score and would have probably given up quite soon.
Even after committing to God’s help, I’ll re-emphasize that I didn’t get some kind of supernatural knowledge to bang out 7s from the very start. In fact, my progression wasn’t linear at all. I was getting absolutely shat on in some subjects.
Ninety-nine percent of the time, I didn’t really know what I was doing, nor did I have any clue as to how I was going to improve in some of my subjects.
I literally used the nearest John Grisham book that was on the shelf at home for my extended essay because I had no idea what to do. The only thing that kept me going was God’s word, telling me not to walk by sight, but by faith instead.
The hardest test of walking by faith came when we got our results back for our final mock exam (a practice exam conducted just a few months before the real one), and I got a bloody 3 for Math. I would have needed an absolute miracle to get from a 3 to a 7 in the time I had left.
But for some reason, I was strangely at peace — a feeling that despite the odds I was up against, everything would be alright. Well, we could attribute this again to my delusion, or perhaps these words explain better why that was the case:
“You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast, because they trust in you.”4
I can’t prove which effect took place, but all I know is that I continued to believe that anything was possible with God, and I ended up getting the 7 for Math too (my mom was in disbelief).
Walking with God during the IB not only enabled me to achieve my highest potential but also allowed me to enjoy the process. I wasn’t burdened as much with how I was going to get my grades up but instead focused on giving it my all with faith that God would figure the way out for me.
I was more relaxed and got to enjoy the learning process, knowing that no matter how bad a situation seemed, God would make a way.
Not only that, but I never really had to pull any all-nighters or study hours upon hours each day either. Quite the contrary, actually — God gave me rest even during the IB.
“In vain you rise early and stay up late, toiling for food to eat – for he grants sleep to those he loves.”5
And so, whether you believe in the power of God’s words like I did or not, the truth is that I wouldn’t have had the strength or courage to start, sustain, and finish the two-year course with a perfect score in mind without His promises.
In fact, I’d say it would require more faith to believe that those words (that did exactly as they said they would) are false and everything was simply attributed to myself and chance.
God’s Plan is Beyond Imagination
On my graduation day, something extremely unexpected happened. With an astonished look on his face, the principal told me that I’d broken the school record by receiving the most subject awards — for all three of my HLs, with TOK as the cherry on top.
I was baffled, honestly. Having known the state I was in just two years ago — a failure without any hopes of doing well in the IB — to achieving a perfect score and breaking the school record for awards was absolutely surreal. It proved to me that truly nothing is impossible with God.
Fast forward four years after the IB, I’m currently writing this while studying at university, and I couldn’t be happier with the position I’m in today.
Although there was a point when I thought my entire purpose in life was to become a footballer, thinking about it now, I’m actually really glad I didn’t make it. Who would’ve thought that I’d actually enjoy… learning? Well, God certainly did.
If you’re in a season of life where nothing makes sense and the task at hand seems impossible, perhaps it’s time to let go of the steering wheel and commit to the One who knows you better than you know yourself.
“In their hearts humans plan their course, but the LORD establishes their steps.”6