‘Tiny successes add up’: Why our breakfast with cyclist Anna Meares will blow your mind

Between 2004 and 2014, Australian cyclist Anna Meares pushed her body through 20,000 hours of training to shave a single second off her time in the 500m Time Trial event.

One second. Over a decade.

It takes the term ‘incremental achievement’ to a whole new level.

“When you’re improving by one 1,000th of a second, or one 100th of a second, it doesn't seem like much at the time,” Anna says.

“But when you have a replicable process and application, that 1,000th of a second continues to add up and the small margins become really big wins over a long period of time.

“And that kept me intrigued. That was what kept me striving to push every day: to test myself and my discipline, to see what my body was capable of doing.”

Anna Meares OAM is one of the greatest Australian cyclists of all time. The daughter of a coal miner from central Queensland, Anna collected 18 gold, 16 silver and 10 bronze medals at Olympic, World and Commonwealth Games levels during her 15-year career.

Her ability to compete at a global level over an incredibly long time – she was the first Australian athlete from any sport to have won individual medals at four consecutive Olympic Games — will be just one key theme of her speaking appearance in the capital next week.

Zango is bringing Anna to Canberra to inspire the real estate industry with her insight into success: from structuring teams and communication to competitiveness. She’ll also talk about being mindful and “staying in the now” when your ultimate goal may be years away.

“There were days in my career where motivation was not good, and that was often,” Anna says.

“Sometimes it was just a battle not to hit the snooze button. That is a win. Sometimes it was a win to get my feet on the carpet. Sometimes it was a win to eat my scheduled breakfast. Sometimes it was a win to not go to a party because it would interrupt the routine and structure of my life.

“But it paid off in the end. It doesn't always, but you have to give yourself every opportunity for commitment and those small wins to pay off in the end.”

There are things Anna finds “definitely hard to talk about”, like breaking her neck in a horrific cycling crash in 2008, and the death of friend and coach Gary West to Motor Neurone Disease in 2017.

But one story she knows Canberrans will love is the strategy she developed to de-throne rival cyclist Victoria Pendleton on Victoria’s home turf at the London Olympics in 2012.

For three years ahead of the Olympics, Anna and her team developed a training campaign labelled Know Thy Enemy.

“That campaign encompassed mindset, mindfulness, battling the odds, resilience, motivation, how to control the controllables and how important now is,” Anna says.

“We tend to be so focused on what we did and where we want to go that we can really easily overlook the little things we can do now to better impact where we want to end up in the future.”

Win tickets to see Anna!

We have two double passes to give away, including a meet and greet and a signed copy of Anna's biography Now. Head to this Facebook post or to Instagram to enter. Good luck!