“Didn’t Think She Was Good Enough”: Simone Biles’ Mother Once Revealed, How the Gymnast Struggled With Self-Esteem

Becoming the best at any skill takes a lot of practice, hard work, and determination. Athletes train for hours every day to gain the skills to beat their competitors. To reach the level of Simone Biles, the undisputed GOAT of gymnastics, hard work must come with unshakable mental fortitude.

But it’s not nearly as easy to keep up that mental strength spanning years of training and competing through the developmental years of adolescence. And even Biles struggled to deal with the growing demands of perfection in a sport like gymnastics.

Simone Biles struggled with confidence in her skills

When Simone Biles graduated middle school, she decided to get homeschooled so she could devote her time to gymnastics and turn elite. Her social life suffered, but she made leaps and bounds in her progress. However, she didn’t quite believe that she was doing well enough.

She turned hyper-critical of her performance and often teared up from the frustration. “There were weeks when I couldn’t remember a day that I didn’t cry,” she shared. Nothing worked, not meditation or breathing exercises. Her mother, Nellie Biles, convinced her to see a sports psychologist.

“The self-confidence was what really bothered me,” Nellie recalled. “Regardless of how she performed, she never thought she could measure up to her peers because her peers were her idols. She didn’t think she was good enough. It was hard to get through to her that you are just as good.”

READ MORE: “I Hid My Muscles”- Simone Biles Opened Up Once About Unwanted Attention Received at School Due to Muscular Body

For years she couldn’t build up her self-esteem

When Simone Biles started competing in the senior elite division in 2013, she bagged the US Nationals title and the World Championships all-around gold on her first try. She repeated that feat the next year, and still, it didn’t help her self-doubt. By the time the 2015 World Championships rolled around, her anxiety reached a fever pitch.

“Everyone was crowning me the three-time world champion before we had even started, and that stressed me out,” Biles explained. Though she defended her title, Biles was discontent with her performance. Her coach explained that her desire to make people happy drove her more than anything else. She wanted to win for them and not for herself.

The level of prowess that Biles achieved was heads and shoulders above her competition. The skills in her arsenal by the time the Rio Olympics rolled around couldn’t possibly get her less than gold if she performed anywhere near her best. The mathematical guarantee of that helped her manage her nerves.

Though she probably lost out on her youth experiences by choosing to homeschool, Biles doesn’t regret her decision in the least. “I gave up a lot, but I made the right decision because look what I’ve accomplished,” her mother recalls her saying. Biles won five medals in Rio, four of them gold, setting an American record for most gold medals in women’s gymnastics at a single Games.

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