If you're reading this, and you are or ever were a cheerleader, these lessons will all be too familiar to you. Over the last decade, cheerleading has grown more than ever. For those of you who have faced the stereotypes of cheerleading, or gotten into heated arguments with people over whether or not it's a sport (which it is), I totally sympathize with you. So here's a few lessons that we have all learned from this sport that we will remember for the rest of our lives.

1. The Show Must Go On

Your stunt falls at competition, causing your flyer to dislocate her elbow. Suck it up. You fall in your tumbling pass. Get up. You break your wrist two weeks before nationals. Tape it up. In order for your team to compete, they need every single person to be on that floor. We've learned that you have to suck it up, push through the pain, and do what's best for your team.

2. Dealing With Stereotypes

Well, since you're a cheerleader, you're snobby, rude, stuck-up, and a slut. Right? Not right. Somehow cheerleaders have gotten this stereotype (*cough cough* the "Bring It On" movies) and it's something that we can't seem to make disappear. We're not stupid. Most of us have very high GPAs, were in the National Honor Society in high school, and have repeatedly made Dean's List in college. So quit thinking that we sit in class saying, "Wait, like, I don't get!" We love what we do, which is why we do it, and we've learned to take these stereotypes as motivation to prove you wrong.

3. Hard Work

So, you want to get that new tumbling skill that you've been working on forever. Well, it's not going to come easy. You spend countless hours in the gym working on that skill, and probably all of your parent's money on private tumbling lessons. You also have to be in shape. People don't realize how absolutely exhausting it is to throw a non-stop two-minute-and-30-second routine. For those of you who've never thrown a full out, it feels like you just got hit by a bus the second that music stops. You have learned that there's no such thing as an "off" day. You have to work every day at being the best, whether that means going for a run, staying at the gym until your coach kicks you out, or using your mattress as a spring floor (do not try at home. It will end terribly).

4. Trust

Have you ever done a trust fall at summer camp as bonding? Well, we do that every day at practice when we throw our flyers 25 feet in the air, and they trust us to catch them. We trust our tumbling coaches to not let us die. But, most importantly, we trust our coaches to always do what's best for us, even if that means sitting us out when we keep competing through an injury. Being able to trust people this much is something that we have learned solely through this sport.

5. Fake Smiles

So you just had the worst day ever. Your boyfriend dumped you, your iced caramel latte spilled on your uniform, and your little sister just threw up in the car. It's competition day and, guess what, if you don't smile, your coach and the judges will want to kill you. You realize that you have to put everything going on in the back of your mind, and smile like you're having the best day ever. This is a life lesson a lot of people still haven't learned.

6. Dealing With Haters

"Cheerleading is not a sport." This is honestly the worst thing you could ever say to a cheerleader. I can guarantee that if you bring this up, you will end up in a very long, heated argument and you will lose. Just don't ever say those five words. Period. For us cheerleaders, we've grown up defending this sport, and it's made us realize that the world won't always be on our side. We know how to stand up for what we believe in, and have been able to do this since we first started walking on our hands.

7. Things Go Wrong

You eat the mat in your standing tuck. A flyer hits the floor. You blank out and forget your dance motions while competing. It happens and you move on. We've learned to accept the fact that something went wrong, figure out how to never let it happen again, and learn from it. How many people learn that lesson before age six?

8. No Sleep

We've also learned that sleep is precious before we even get to college. All-star practices always seem to be between the hours of 6 and 11 p.m. This is because most all-star cheerleaders do other after-school activities, so practices have to be late. We understand that we're not going to get to bed early, and so when we pull our first all-nighter of college, it's really nothing new to us.

9. Teamwork

If there's any lesson that cheerleading teaches that many other sports don't, it's how to be the best individually and as a team. You work hard to have the best tumbling on the team, and that's not a bad thing. By becoming the best individually, you help out your whole team. Weird? Yes. Your team also has to work together to be the best as a whole. Your practices are basically split up into working individually (tumbling) and working together (stunting). You can't win without your team and your team can't win without you. It's as simple as that.

10. Family

Our team is our family. When you spend every day practicing with this group of girls and guys, you form a bond that is unbreakable. You spend your time together in hotels at competitions, eating on the road, doing homework in the lobby of the gym, doing each other's hair and makeup, and winning and losing together. In all honesty, you're probably with them more than your actual family. You've learned that your family extends outside of the people to whom you're related, and includes your teammates, coaches, and fellow gym members. They are your go-to people. You love them through it all, and you'll never forget any of them.