How Two Decisions Led Me to Olympic Glory Steve Mesler
One day, I found myself
at the top of a mountain,
one descent to go, one last chance
to fulfill a lifelong dream.
I wasn’t even old enough
to walk into a PG-13 movie alone
when my dream took roots.
Yet there I stood,
my three teammates by my side,
facing the opportunity to make history.
My mind wandered, just for half a second,
but that half-second was filled
with a lifetime of memories,
and two decisions that brought me
here to the top of the mountain.
I made the first decision
after a very challenging period
in my career as an athlete –
five years of recurring injuries
as a track athlete.
Five years – that’s a long time
to dedicate to anything.
But as much as I loved track,
the injuries were slowly killing
my drive and my dreams.
My injuries had me feeling like a failure
at a sport I was once great at.
The last of the series of injuries
required major elbow surgery.
As I sat on my couch, days out of surgery,
I thought of an old coach
and mentor’s words,
comparing me to a great
bobsledder he once knew.
“Bobsled? No way!”
But after year upon year
of not reaching the goals
I set for myself in track,
it was time for a change.
So I reached out
to the US Olympic Committee,
and they told me to start training.
I was going to be a bobsledder!
I didn’t know anything about it,
but the first decision had been made.
There I was, in what felt like
a blink of an eye later,
about to push my four-man
sled with my team
to the chance of Olympic gold,
Olympic glory.
“Back set! Front set! Ready and –”
the driver yelled, and off we went.
We dug as deep as we could,
and as the cadence of our steps increased
and the sled accelerated,
we left everything we had on the track,
before leaving the ice
and boarding our Night Train sled.
And a calm came over me.
And once in the sled,
as it was picking up speed,
for just another millisecond,
my mind went back
to that day on the couch.
“How can I train for the bobsled
team without getting hurt
over and over again like before?”
I looked in the mirror
and realized I still wanted to compete.
I still wanted to succeed.
But I had to face the reality
that my getting hurt
wasn’t to be blamed elsewhere.
I realized that if I had a problem
it was up to me to change it,
and that what I had
been doing all this time
may not have been best for me.
I had to confront my reality
and make a change,
and that was the second decision.
The decision in my mind not to get hurt
anymore had many layers,
but it mostly had to do
with taking responsibility
for all the variables in my life.
If I thought something
I would do or something I felt
would lead me to injury,
then it most certainly would.
I would have to have
a fundamental shift in mindset.
I learned to let go of the fears I had
trained myself to have over the years
and decided to trust myself and my body
to push through situations I had
thought insurmountable before.
What followed those five years of injuries
were nine years of not missing
one race I entered
for the USA National and Olympic teams.
Because I made a decision,
then another one,
and held true to those two decisions,
I found myself back with my team
approaching 90 miles per hour.
And as we came around the last corners,
I could hear the crowd cheering
and the cowbells blaring, and a hard
“You!” coming from the masses
as we passed by at 95 miles an hour.
But someone wasn’t yelling “You!”
at us, they were yelling “USA!”
We were moving so fast,
we only heard the first piece of it.
We then came around the last bend,
and when we all looked up,
the clock simply read “1.”
We had done it; we were
Olympic gold medalists.
We were the best in the world.
My hands went up immediately,
as the moment I had been waiting for
my entire life had finally come true.
And as our sled slowly came to a stop
and I looked into the crowd
to see my mom, dad,
sister and family
and friends crying for me,
I knew my decisions had been worth
the sacrifice, worth the fear.
Two decisions and those five minutes
sitting on that couch
began to change my life,
and sticking to them fulfilled my dreams.
It was those decisions
and standing by them
that ultimately gave me the confidence
to perform at the Olympic games.
What two decisions
can you make and stick to
that will change your life forever?
I challenge you to look
at what you’re doing in your life
and think of what you dream to do.