I’ve always loved that success is a definition that is personal and fluid. It is something I define. A definition that I’ve actively worked to reclaim and to personalize.
In a very external sense, I defined success as winning the gold medal. There is no doubt I would have been disappointed if I didn’t do this in Paris. There absolutely would have been a piece of me, at least initially, that felt failure. But beyond initial reactions, I can’t conflate failure with heartbreak, and ultimately I would have separated the two as they are two very different things. You can get your heart broken and not have failed. You can win and feel a deep disconnect from yourself and the experience and not be successful. So yes, I would have been heartbroken if I lost in Paris, but I wouldn’t have failed, because the medal had little stake in the game of Success and Failure. It did not represent that for me. It couldn’t. I truly believe I wouldn’t have won if it did.
I spent years learning and growing to actually and wholeheartedly release the all consuming obsession with that gold medal. Years ago I had bridged the concept but it felt so forced. It felt an impossible theory that was laced with good intentions, but was delusory, rose colored hopefulness.
Perhaps it is ironic that my faulty, common definition of failure led me to finally understanding the layers of success, and forced me into reflection of its ever changing definition. I had been to seven World Championships/Olympics and, on paper, I “failed” every single time. Over and over and over. 2,555 days and honestly many more before even those days. Why in the world did I keep trying when I had a 100% failure rate? Now that sounds dramatic as I was winning nearly every match I wrestled, coming up short in one single match a year. But if my definition of success was winning gold, I was then, by my definition, failing. My brain had one definition of success, but clearly, my heart had another.
To continue making the decision to keep stepping on the mat, keep risking tremendous and painful heartbreak, I realized that I was not just wrestling for a gold medal. The proof was in my years of efforts despite “failure”. I had years worth of data that told me a different story than the one I painted in my head. I could finally connect the dots that I DID believe in doing this despite the very real possibility that I would never win a gold medal. What was once mocked by my cynical brain, all of sudden became a full body, heart, and mind belief that success was entirely dependent on my internal experience, my personal growth, my authentic choices within a series of chaotic unknowns. A challenge that was, “how much can I step into the present moment as Sarah?” How much can I embody and represent my values within all of this? Tempted by other people’s definitions of success that made me question my own. Tempted by the elusive gold medal I had spent decades attaching myself to. Threatened by fear and doubt. How much could I accept all of that and STILL choose to be Sarah amongst it all? THAT was success to me. This is a process I can do every single day. And the sweet, wonderfully intense adventure of competing is an intoxicating stage to engage with this in.
If you look at the years between 2021- 2024, when I really started to practice this, you would see that it was not an instant fix. I would be doing very well, but in high pressure moments, not have the mental endurance to stay in that presence. I remember during big matches, my brain actually switching up and going from “success is being Sarah” during the quarters to “success is ONLY winning gold medals” during the semis. I’d freeze. I’d lose matches I was winning. I’d lose myself on the mat, replaced with a manic desire for something completely outside of myself. Each one of those moments though taught me so much. I reflected, I cried, I corrected, I doubted myself, but more importantly, I tried again. I kept trying to find how I could be Sarah, how I could embody this definition of success, in the most heightened moments of my life. And at the 2024 Olympics, I finally did.
Finally freed by the constraints of external objectives, I felt so wholly present and authentic on that Olympic stage, it feels dreamlike looking back. I am so happy I won the gold medal. But believe me when I say, I am PROUD and FULFILLED most by who I was and who I became through the experience. It was the most illuminative, human experience of my life. I was very simply and yet amusingly complex, just Sarah. And for me, this is the greatest success of my life.
So how will I define success now? Thankfully, and hopefully, not different in the slightest. Perhaps different in application but the boundless nature of self exploration continues on forever. I’ll never arrive at some final version of myself and what a gift is that? A lifetime’s worth of purpose and drive. For now, wrestling will be the medium in which I work. Eventually, it will be something else. But in whatever channel I am growing in, the goal, and therefore the definition of success, will always be: Be Sarah.
