Winning for Yourself First

There’s a moment in every athlete’s career when the truth about motivation becomes  painfully clear. 

For me, that moment of truth began on a main street in Kilkenny City, the day of my first All Ireland Senior Final. I was 20 years old - young, raw, talented, yes, but still carrying the  belief that winning was something I did for other people. 

In the hours before that final, I walked through Kilkenny’s city centre completely locked into  my own world. I had tunnel vision; a young athlete trying to manage nerves by narrowing life  down to the smallest possible frame: step, breathe, perform. 

What I didn’t know - what I wasn’t supposed to know - was that a crowd of people from my  local community had hired a bus to come down and support me. 

Now, that sounds harmless at first but at that stage, early in my career, I absolutely hated  fuss. I didn’t want crowds, distractions or noise. They knew that, so their plan was to arrive  quietly, take their seats, and offer silent support. 

But fate intervened. 

As I walked along the main street, I unknowingly approached the whole group. They saw me  before I saw them. And in absolute panic - terrified they’d distract me - they scattered like a  flock of birds. Grown adults diving into doorways, ducking behind sandwich boards,  pretending to examine shopfronts. The entire street became a comedy sketch. 

And the part that says everything about my mindset at that age was I didn’t notice a single  one of them. 

I was so focused, so internally wrapped up in the pressure, that the world could have folded  itself inside out and I probably wouldn’t have registered it. 

In those days, I wanted to win for everyone but myself. I wanted to win for my family, my  club, my county, my country. 

I wanted to win for my early coach, for the people who had believed in me. Ironically, I was trying to win for the people on that bus hiding behind lampposts to avoid me  spotting them. 

That kind of external motivation sounds noble. It sounds selfless. But in truth, it becomes a  weight – and a heavy one - especially when you’re already carrying your own perfectionism  and internal pressure. 

In the aftermath of that narrow final defeat, the painful part came. Over the next two or three  years I experienced some devastating losses. Not just defeats; these were identity-shaking  losses, the kind that leave you walking in circles for weeks after the match, unable to process  what happened.

It was in those losses that a lesson revealed itself. It was a lesson learned through lived  experience, one that some may regard as unconventional or even controversial. It is a lesson  that an ambitious athlete reading this might not like to hear, but it was my truth. 

I learned that when you lose, the world doesn’t stop with you. For the most part, everyone  else simply returns to their own lives. 

They return to their jobs, their routines, their families, their friends, their normality. They  move forward but it is you that is left picking up the pieces of the dream that just shattered.  You are the one who made the sacrifices, you are the one who put your life on hold. You are the one who gave everything and yet left the arena with nothing. 

It was over that period, as the hurt accumulated, that it hit me:  

If I wanted to honour the people who supported me, I had to win for myself first. And I needed to be ruthlessly selfish in trying to do that. 

Because the truth is that all those people I thought I was performing for didn’t want me to  win for them. They wanted me to win for me - and I had lost sight of that. 

I had made their pride and their expectations one of my primary motivators, not realising that  the pressure I created was unsustainable. I had taken external meaning and turned it into  internal burden. 

The breakthrough was realising that elite sport is clinical and ruthless. It is emotionally  charged on the outside but psychologically surgical on the inside. You cannot carry the world  onto the court or the pitch with you - the weight will crush you long before the final whistle. 

I had a screensaver on my phone for a period of time, a quote from Tony Dungy, a former  NFL coach. Dungy was known as a calm and demanding coach who expected his players to  execute their assignments perfectly and own their mistakes. The quote read:  

“No excuses. No explanations. You don't win on emotion. You win on execution.” 

It’s one that I have shared with some groups and athletes that I have worked with over the years.  

I used it to remind myself that while emotion can be a motivator in my training and  preparation, success ultimately comes from disciplined execution and taking responsibility.  

Teams today talk about using negativity from journalists, disrespect from opponents, love for  their community, or the memory of loved ones as fuel.  

And yes, of course, all of those things can fuel you. They can sharpen your focus, fuel your  motivation, deepen intensity, elevate effort and preparation. 

But from my experience of competing at the top level, come game-time they cannot be the  core of your motivation. 

Because when the game is on the line and pressure collapses the world into single key moments, external motivators don’t hold, they evaporate. 

And what you are left with is yourself: your discipline, your standard of preparation, your  expectations. 

External drivers can ignite and amplify effort but internal drivers sustain it. 

One of the most powerful things that I ever learned in my career is that if you want to make  people proud, first win for the person who has to live with the outcome - and that’s you. 

That might sound like the selfish option but, in fact, it’s the only option. Only you can  become the best version of yourself. 

To make others proud, make yourself proud first. The rest will follow.