Kimiya Byrne

SELFMOTIVATION. Passion. Perseverance. These have been the backbone behind the achievements of triplethreat Kimiya Byrne.

Excelling across arts, sports and academically, Kimiya has found enjoyment in the range of people she meets in each group.

‘‘Something my mum’s always said is what you put out into the world is what you get back. That’s been part of her cultural and personal values. So I always thought if you’re giving to your community, supporting others and being a positive influence, that will be reflected back,’’ she said.

She believes how well someone does at school is ‘‘not a reflection of how smart you are, but how much work you’ve put in. It comes down to what you do . . . I think being dedicated and not giving up when I get to a point where it’s hard’’.

With a full schedule, a challenge has been finding a balance between keeping up academic studies and her extracurricular interests.

‘‘Especially with lots of times where I would have karate at the same time. I’d have a practise for music and find time to practise for all the different things, but I think scheduling it out and not procrastinating about things, and getting on to it. That’s been my biggest challenge has been balancing social life, academic and the other things I like to do,’’ she said.

Of all her achievements, the most fulfilling have been reflective of what else was occurring at the time, Kimiya says.

‘‘Last year, I was really happy to get excellence endorsement for level 2, but I think that was also a reflection of being able to achieve that on top of everything else I was involved in, because it did become hard with everything to get sorted and I was really hoping to get good grades on top of all the other things.’’