Every day counts

“Goals pave the way from where we are today to where we want to go,” Shannon Miller said at GIE+EXPO in Louisville, Kentucky.

While long-term goals give you something to shoot for, you should set short-term goals that you can work on every day. And you need to be specific. You can’t just say that you want to be more successful. You need a specific achievement in mind.

 “I think the hiccup for all of us is actually getting up and doing it,” she said.

Getting ready for a marathon is like getting ready for a sales call since you need to prepare the same way, Miller said. You can’t only get serious about what you want to achieve in the days leading up to the big event. You need to give it your all every day.

“Every moment counts and it all adds up,” she said. “What separates winners from losers is follow through.”

When Miller finally achieved her dream of competing in the Olympic games, she stepped out of bounds and lost any chance at a medal in one event, and fell during the vault. And then she only had the most feared event in gymnastics left – the balance beam.

The night before the big day, she called her mother and fell apart. Her mother asked her: Did you do the best you could? And, of course, she said she had.

Her mother then told her she needed to show how much she appreciated the opportunity to compete and that all she could do at that point was go out and enjoy the moment.

While one of her biggest assets had always been her ability to block out the audience, on that last event, Miller let them in and she felt their support. And she landed on her feet.

“If I’m ever in doubt about the importance of setting goals and getting back up after a failure, I think of that moment,” she said. But she never could have done it without support. From her parents to her coaches to her trainers, doctors, teachers and community, she knew she hadn’t done it alone.

“When you have a bad day, your team is there to help you rally and when you see someone else having a bad day, that’s your chance to contribute,” Miller said. “EXPO is a good opportunity to reach out and connect and find people on your team,” she said. “We get caught up in the nitty gritty and forget about all of the people out there.”

After her gymnastics career ended when she was 19, Miller felt like she had lost her team. But then in Then in 2011, she was diagnosed with a rare form of ovarian cancer. She felt like she had lost her control and she felt like a victim, which she hated.

Then something switched in her mind. She knew she had to fight the cancer and got back into her competitive mindset. She knew she needed to fight.

But after she started chemotherapy, she ended up back in the hospital. “All I could think was ‘I can’t do this,’” she said.

But then she thought about her young son and knew she couldn’t give up. She thought about the people she had on her side. So she took her cues from them and kept on fighting.

Gymnasts often visualize doing their routine perfectly before they compete. It gives them the right state of mind and the confidence the need to go out and do their best. It’s like the old saying, Miller said: If you think you can’t, you won’t.

A negative attitude won’t only bring you down, it will affect your entire team, Miller said. “A negative attitude is one of the worst things you can have in a ream environment or for yourself. You can get over problems, obstacles, but you can’t come back from a bad attitude.”