In college, track and field has an indoor and outdoor season. Indoor runs from December to late February, while outdoor runs from March to May/June. Let alone the fact I had never competed collegiately before this year, I had also never competed at an indoor track before two months ago. In the triple jump, I expected to pop out with a new personal best (pr). Instead, on all attempts, I jumped 2 feet short of my high school pr of 37-11 feet.
This seemed to set the mood for the rest of the indoor season and I couldn’t break 36 feet for the next three meets. I was in a slump I’d never experienced before and I started feeling like I wasn’t going to be the athlete I once was no matter how hard I trained.
A couple of days ago I was scrolling through Instagram when I came across a post a track athlete at the University of Colorado posted. She was celebrating her new personal bests from a meet over the weekend. The post was captioned: “COMEBACK>SETBACK”. As I read on, I realized that in the previous season, she was feeling just as I did—hopeless about not making progress athletically.
That day I told myself that I was going to improve my mindset and approach my training more aggressively. I was going to do everything with intention and a strong mind.
An athlete can only be great if they believe they are great.
The Unspoken Athlete 
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