Yesterday as I began my 3rd day of quarantine in a Melbourne hotel, I was looking through Instagram, trying to make time pass by and I came upon a quote from Ralph Marston “See your actions as being driven by your choices, not controlled by your needs.” Later in the day something else came up about the same thing and it made me realise that the universe was sending me some kind of message.

It has been a while since I have written a blog and that is for a number of reasons. First as most of you would know I was at the Tokyo Paralympic Games competing in the road cycling and I felt like I needed to concentrate on just what I was doing in the moment. Second, on September 2nd during my road race I was unfortunately involved in a crash only about 6 minutes into the race.

I remember as a little girl I loved getting presents, I mean who doesn’t?! Even today if we are honest with ourselves, we love getting a beautifully wrapped gift to open. Everyone opens presents different, some may just rip it open off excited to see what is under the colourful paper and bows, but some just methodically take the parcel apart trying not to rip the paper so that it can be used again. As a child I think I was a definite paper ripper! But as I got older, I did like taking my time, relishing what was in the parcel.

Have you ever been so caught up in doing something that time just passes you by? Have you focused so much on what you are doing that you seem to miss out on other things in life? Well the life of an elite athlete can be exactly that.

How many times have we all set goals only to set our sights on the outcome instead of the process? I know that I have done it in the past even during a race by aiming for a specific time or speed that I want to finish in (the end product), instead of looking at the process during the race. Most often than not I fail at reaching that certain time or speed.

It’s amazing how dreams can become goals and goals can become reality if you put the hard work in and believe in yourself! 1968 – 7 years old I watched my first Olympics.

Lately, I have noticed how noisy the world is, it never seems to stop! The other day I was trying to think of the last time I just sat in silence and to be honest I don’t remember. To sit with nothingness, no phone, no radio, no music, no television, no computer, no sound at all.

This past weekend the 2021 Para Cycling Road World Championships were held at the Circuito Estoril in Cascais, Portugal. On my vision board that I have in my office are the words ‘Gold – World Championships – Portugal June 9-13, 2021, in big bold letters. Little did I know when I put them there that a pandemic would hit the world!

We all do it, talk to ourselves. But think about it, are you critical or positive to yourself? I would hazard to say that we are all much more critical of ourselves than positive. How many times have you thought or said to yourself you wished your stomach was flatter, or you were skinner or in better shape?

We all experience frustrating times in life and especially in the last 15 months during this pandemic. We all thought that once we got through lockdown last year that life as we know it would return to normal. Well now as us Victorians are into our 4th lockdown the frustration is building again.

How many times have we hung on to something so tight that we never wanted to let it go? Or held back on trying something new due to fear of failure, embarrassment or rejection? The protective walls that we build around ourselves can sometimes be stifling but they can also be useful during particularly difficult times which create a safe environment where we can heal.

None of us likes to be wrong or make mistakes! I know that I hate it, but why do we feel like it is the worst thing? Being wrong or making a mistake can leave us feeling unworthy or less valuable. We think people are always watching and seeing our mistakes. But sometimes we are the only one that really notices our mistakes because the rest of the world is more worried about themselves.