How Team USA Finds Motivation to Train for the Olympics and Paralympics

Motivation is not something that you find

you got it or you don't, like,

we're here for a reason.

There's plenty of days

where I just don't want to do it,

and on those days I ask myself, well,

do you really want to do it though?

And that answer is yes,

so I go do it.

[upbeat music]

For me a big motivator is obviously

bringing home another gold

and I try to just visualize that and remember that.

But really I don't do this for myself

I more do it, you know, for the people I love.

I wanna make people proud.

And then obviously

I want to think about the effect it's gonna have on,

you know, girls that look up to me.

'Cause that's one of my favorite things,

getting messages from like younger girls

that are excited and inspired.

So I think I just try to think about if I do this

and I can pull another gold out,

that's gonna change the world in a way.

I find motivation by just wanting to be great

and continuing to make sure that the women's game

and women's sports we're constantly growing.

So that and also motivation from my kids,

knowing that they're looking up to me

and trying to be my best for them.

I don't really need motivation to do anything.

It's more of just I know that I have to do it

so I go and do it.

It's like me walking into work or me drinking water

or me, I don't know, like doing laundry.

When I'm in the thick of training,

my motivation comes from my husband

and also comes from my goals

that I've set for myself

to where I wanna be and who I wanna be.

Motivation it comes and goes

like motivation does unfortunately.

But once that motivation is high,

I try to take it all.

I take advantage of it.

Full 100% effort.

My motivation has changed

throughout the course of my career.

Early on in my team USA career,

my motivation came from winning a gold medal.

Now that me and my team has done that a couple of times,

my motivation has shifted.

The impact I can have off the court

is so much more important to me

than the impact I can have on it at this point.

My life and my world completely changed

the day that I found wheelchair basketball.

And I am working so hard

to provide that experience

to as many people with disabilities as possible.

We need to raise the awareness of adaptive sports.

We need to raise the impact adaptive sports can have

on people with disabilities.

I find the motivation from my family.

Anytime I'm training,

usually I'm away from them.

So just really trying to be intentional with the time

that I'm taking away from my family

continues to help me get through it,

especially in the thick of training.

So when I'm in thick training,

my motivation is having really good rides

just because it inspires me to do even better.

And when I don't have the best ride,

I look at what I've done great

and what I've done not so great,

and then I bring those up

to really positive moments in my ride.

I walked off the track in Tokyo in fifth place,

one inch away from the bronze medal,

and it was one of the most devastating moments

of my entire life to to fail on the world stage,

to come so close to the podium

in front of my family and friends

and millions of people watching around the world.

I was embarrassed, I was devastated, I was heartbroken.

So I set my screensaver as a photo

that the medalists were taking, that I was watching.

There's days I get up and I don't want to train.

There's days where there's obstacles, roadblocks,

things aren't going well and my body's feeling really tired.

I open up my phone, I see a photo of the medalists

that beat me in Tokyo.

It reminds me to keep going.

I can't get complacent.

I can never be content

and I use this screensaver, this photo,

as a reminder that I can't let that happen again.

It's kind of cool to see how much my body can do

and how hard I can push it.

If it were easy, everybody would do it.

And like to me, I'm able to do this

and it's so hard, but I'm so thankful I can do it.

And a motivator is being the best I can be.

Honestly, it's just my family.

I got into archery because I wanted to provide for my family

and that drive is still there.

Trying to remember that feeling

of when I'm really riding at my best.

I just have to get 1% better every day at what I do.

And that 1% comes from getting into

those uncomfortable moments and then thriving in them.

So I know that when I'm in that deep depth

and I don't want to be there anymore,

that's when I have to, you know, wake up.

Honestly like my motivation is just get it done.

The biggest thing is just

to continue to tell myself like, you're almost done.

Like, just finish it

and then you don't have to worry about it right now

I feel like I find motivation

through like all my teammates.

I mean we have such amazing,

or an amazing group of gals

that are training full time together

and everybody's working so hard

and we're all trying to achieve the same goal.

And so like if I'm having a particularly bad day,

like I can like leverage off of like Abby's amazing shots

and be like, oh, like I can celebrate her successes

to like get myself out my little hole.

That's actually something I've been working on a lot

is like celebrating the small wins even if they're not mine.

Like especially if I'm frustrated,

like looking at someone else do something well

and I'm like awesome.

That was cool.

I find motivation,

one just 'cause I haven't accomplished what

I want to in my career so far.

So I think that's definitely one.

But my family, the people who've supported me growing up,

you know, I play for them.

I wanna make them proud and I think that's

as much motivation as as one can need.

This is where having teammates is really helpful

because on those hard days it's really easy to look inward

and having people like Ashleigh

or other teammates who know you really well

and being able to go to them

even sometimes say like, hey,

today's a rough one, you know,

and being able to acknowledge that

and share it allows you to kind of move past that

and allows that space for your teammate to help you.

I think about my why and the whys that my teammates have.

I think that that's really helpful,

especially in like stretches of bad times.

In moments, like one of my whys is challenge.

Like I love to be challenged.

I play this game because it never stops challenging you.

Motivation comes with me just wanting to prove

or continue to prove that I can compete at a high level.

I want to continue to show like the world,

the longevity of the team USA wheelchair basketball program.

What I try to do is just maintain love for skateboarding,

get out, skate with my friends,

maybe take a day off training, go do something else.

But most of the time I'm pretty happy.

I think my teammates definitely, we've gotten to a point

where it keeps me going

and what makes me love the sport even more.

When I first started

I didn't make my first Paralympic games in 2008

and I was told I'm too small

and it's unrealistic to be an athlete

and I wanted to show young girls

and young athletes

that you don't have to have the perfect body type.

There's no such thing as being too small

or too big or whatever it is.

It's just unique to yourself

and finding your unique abilities.

Also just being visible and being seen

and helping young girls know

that you can be successful in sport

and not just at your team sport

in middle school and high school.

You can represent team USA and you have value and worth here

and to show what strength looks like

and it looks like sweaty, muscles and you can be beautiful

and empowered and showing that

and then showing what people with disabilities

can do on the start line.