Ep. 148: Reborn in the Ring: Gabi Jacobs on Walking Away, Coming Back, and Trusting the Process

Team USA discus thrower Gabi Jacobs didn’t start track dreaming of the Olympics. She joined in 7th grade just to hang out with friends, then quietly became a three-time All-American and three-time SEC champion at Mizzou. After a heartbreaking Olympic Trials in 2021 and the pressure of juggling demanding jobs with elite training, she walked away from the sport completely—fully believing she was done.

In this episode of The Mental Mettle Podcast, Gabi and I dig into how she went from that “I’m done” moment to a full-on comeback, and why her reasons for competing now are totally different than they were before. She talks about growing up a multi-sport athlete at Normal U-High in Bloomington-Normal, thinking more about volleyball than track in college, and how Mizzou’s coaches taught her to dream big while obsessing over the daily details.

Gabi explains how she used SMART goals, training journals, and small, tangible wins to build a high-performance mindset, and then what happens when that mindset collides with burnout. She takes us inside the 2021 Olympic Trials—making the final, fouling out, and the mental crash that followed. From there, she made a deliberate choice: rather than do the sport halfway, she chose to quit and focus on her career.

Two years away from throwing changed everything. Watching SECs, USAs, and then Worlds in Budapest lit a fire she didn’t expect, especially seeing women she used to compete against on the world stage. A simple conversation with her dad, a longtime high school track and cross-country coach, gave her the framework for coming back: start again, and if it brings you joy, keep going. If it doesn’t, it’s okay to stop.

Now training again in Columbia, Missouri with Coach Dane Miller of Garage Strength, Gabi is rebuilding as a Team USA discus thrower with a very different internal compass. She’s structuring her life around training and part-time work, coming back from a knee injury, and using the same process mindset to navigate recovery and the long season ahead. The focus is no longer on sponsorships or status, but on seeing how good she can become and enjoying the grind along the way.

Gabi also holds a master’s in Positive Coaching, so when she talks about goal setting, small wins, burnout, and joy, she’s drawing from both lived experience and positive psychology. If you’re an athlete, parent, or coach wrestling with pressure, expectations, or burnout, this conversation will give you a real, practical look at what it means to step away, come back, and truly trust the process.

If you found this helpful, hit subscribe for more conversations on mental performance, resilience, and mindset from athletes across all sports.

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