Q&A: Kara Goucher

I’ve always struggled with mental side of the sport. I’ve tried everything under the sun to gain control of my confidence. I even went to a dance therapist in high school, awkwardly dancing to relieve stress. One of the tools that’s helped me the most is a confidence journal. I write in it every night. It makes me acknowledge something positive about that day, even if I had a bad workout or race. It’s a practice of recognizing the work that I’ve put in and all of the positive developments along the way. I’ve shared this, and one day a publisher approached me. Throughout the writing process, the book evolved into a bunch of tools with information on how they work and how I’ve used them.

Picking a mantra helped me focus on what I wanted out of training and the end goal. When the going gets tough and you repeat a mantra so many times, it brings an emotional response. Different mantras for different seasons help you focus on what you’re trying to accomplish and help turn off the noise around you.

I’m the queen of negative self-chatter, telling myself, 'I don’t belong, I’m just this girl from Minnesota, how did I get here, I’ve been fooling everyone.' For a while, my mantra was 'I still belong.' It reminded me that I was supposed to be there. It’s also important to have a power word, like 'I’m confident,' 'I’m courageous,' or 'I believe.' When those negative thoughts creep into my head, I say this phrase. This helps me focus back on myself. That’s really the theme of the book: When you focus on yourself, you measure yourself against yourself. When you do that, you can’t fail.

I’ve had 10 total surgeries over the course of my career, so I feel like I’m one of those people who can deal with anything. In a weird way, I was relieved. I wasn’t in my head about it. Whatever was wrong, like bone spurs or having a tendon taken out, were all things that could be fixed. I never feared surgery, and I didn’t fear the comeback either.

Honestly, it’s a combination of both. When I won my first national title which were the Olympic trials in 2008, those last three steps I felt like, 'Oh, my God. This is actually happening!' It was a blur after that. All of a sudden, I’m at training camp and the Olympics. Now that I’m older and looking back, I wish I slowed down a little bit. But that’s also the nature of the game, you’re always looking ahead.