There are times when the energy is low. You might want to feel sorry for yourself but, what keeps me going and I think what keeps a lot of high performance athletes going is they remember when they were riding high, you know, they were at the Olympics, and I remember well. You know, I’ve been on television. I’ve been a broadcaster for all these years. And you don’t forget that. And so, I take little bits of victories, little victories, such as writing a really, really, really good article. It’s very gratifying when you do something well, and you don’t need anybody to tell you, or to direct you, or to push you, or to ask you to do it again. You just do it well. And I take a lot of pride in doing things well. And so those are those little victories of an article well done. Like when you hit send, you go, yeah, I killed this article. Like, I really put in everything I have to make this article a great one. And so it’s just those little victories that spur me on. You know, everything is connected. It’s all leading to something. So you know, running track, and then, you know, being a high performance athlete, and then, I’m working as a as a journalist.

First of all, it is important to identify what it is that you want: what’s your goal? It is important to identify the goal. Then understand that you may not attain that goal this year, or even the next year. If you stay true to the goal, and understand that you may not just simply skyrocket to that goal, you may have to work diligently, it may not be really flashy, cool, it may not be something that your peers think is particularly glamorous, you may have to take little bits and pieces of that goal before you get to the whole goal. But when you stay true to who you are, and what it is that you want to do in this world, with that kind of Olympic kind of mindset where you’re just like, “Okay, I know my friends are doing well and my girl is excelling at what she’s doing. She just got a promotion, and I’m still here feeling like I’m kind of disconnected.” But as long as you’re connected to your goal, as long as you don’t lose connection with that goal, then you are on the right track. It’s hard in this day and age of social media where you’re watching people and they’re living their life, and of course, they’re only showing you their best life. And so if we are to compare, that’s a deal breaker, you just don’t want to start comparing yourself to anybody. You really don’t. Like that’s the beauty of track and field. Yes, there’s a winner. There’s gold, silver, and bronze. But there, you’ll see people coming in like, eighth in the race, and then jumping up and down because they just ran a PB (personal best) because it’s really about you and how you perform so it’s still meaningful that you ran your fastest race ever. You can’t be sad if you didn’t win, right, because what was your goal? Oh, to run a PB. So you did your goal, you know, you accomplished that.

[This sound byte is from an interview with Rosey Edeh for the Longitude.site Olympian Mindset project. To see more insights on the project, stay tuned for upcoming announcements.]

Thank you Rosey for sharing your story.

Working steadily and diligently to achieve your goals can be exhausting. But taking a break, re-establishing your goal, and figuring out why you want to achieve a certain thing can supply you with new energy. This is something I personally experience on a daily basis and something that I also recognize in Rosey’s story. But hearing her story reminds me again that staying true to yourself can lead to great success, or may even be key to it. Yet the path towards it may not be glamorous. College isn’t glamorous. That is what I figured out a few weeks into my freshman year. But knowing my goal gets me through the toughest of times. And for those of you out there who are like “But what if I don’t know what my goal is?” Don’t worry, neither did I. So, I decided to stop looking too far ahead. Instead, I said, “I want to get a college degree, ‘full stop.’”

And just like a track athlete running a personal best, if that is my goal, then that is what I’ll focus on, even if it means coming in last. I’ll catch up later.