Motivation Quote by Mary Decker

There is a quiet brutality in Decker's phrasing: the pressure isn't coming from coaches, crowds, or rivals, but from an internal bar that never stops rising. "I've always got such high expectations" reads like an athlete's mantra until the second sentence flips it into something closer to captivity. She's not confessing ignorance of her own perfectionism; she's confessing powerlessness over it. "I'm aware of them" signals self-knowledge, even maturity. "But I can't relax them" admits the grim twist: insight doesn't automatically translate into relief.

That tension fits Decker's era and image. As one of the most famous American middle-distance runners of the 1970s and 80s, she competed in a world that rewarded stoicism and turned discipline into identity. For elite athletes, expectations aren't just goals; they're the scaffolding of daily life. Lowering them can feel like betrayal, not only of potential but of the self that was built around chasing it.

The line also carries the cultural subtext of women's sports in that period: constantly needing to justify seriousness, to prove legitimacy, to be exceptional rather than merely good. Decker's inability to "relax" expectations isn't melodrama; it's the logic of a career where fractions of a second decide whether your narrative is triumph, disappointment, or wasted talent. The quote works because it refuses the tidy redemption arc. It names ambition as both fuel and restraint, an engine that keeps running even when the body and mind beg for idle.