My first weeks in Australia were absolutely overwhelming. Between flight drama from the freeze across the Continental US, to the overwhelming heat in the Australian Capital Territory I’ve been trying to organize not only my thoughts, but also my entire life here for the next couple of months.

Let me tell you, last week’s quote has become something ENTIRELY different to me this week.

“Your greatness is not in what you have, it’s in what you give.”

It’s so easy at this point of my life, to look at it subjectively, celebrate all of my accomplishments, and have an optimistic outlook on what the future holds for me.

What I tend to forget is all of the struggle and hardships I had to go through to get there. Rome wasn’t built in a day, neither are most prosthetic legs or even (especially) internationally elite level athletes. When I started cheerleading, I wasn’t really any good at it up until my fourth or fifth year, after hours upon hours of private gymnastics lessons, practices and conditioning camps.

I have been lucky to get as far as I have in Paralympic track and field on my natural ability and a smattering of formal training here and there. The Aussies have made it abundantly clear to me, that my training age, at best, is still well into its infancy and I have a lot of work ahead of me before I can be truly prepared for the next big international competition (cough Rio cough cough)

I remember my high school cheerleading coach told our team once “you only get the amount of what you put into it” regarding how hard we work reflecting on performance. Nothing has felt more true while I do the smallest changes to drill techniques that hurt my brain more than my body, but SOMEBODY (it was me…) put up (yet another) quote to remind me:

“Your greatness is not in what you have, it’s in what you give.”

And for right now, training in the off season, I’m planning on giving as much as humanly possible… And I’m not kidding when I say I totally want this! (Cough Rio cough cough)

It’s important to set and keep your goals, but sometimes staying dedicated to the WORK is harder than staying dedicated to the DREAM.

Gotta get back to training!