You have to fall in love with the process of becoming great.
I would say I have fallen in love with this process of
getting better every single day,
and now it’s just like what I wake up and I’m excited to do that.
My name is Olivia Moultrie.
I’m 16 years old and I’m a midfielder for the Portland Thorns in the
National Women’s Soccer League,
and I'm the youngest player to play in the league.
I've been a professional since I was 13 years old,
but I made my debut this year at 15 years old.
I had my first goal and my first assist at 15,
which is the youngest in league history.
When I first got here, people definitely didn't treat me exactly like
just any one of their other teammates because when I first got here,
it was like, “Why is this 13-year-old here?”
The first thing I had to do was earn their respect.
And once that happened, I mean,
then it was just the journey to becoming teammates.
So, I mean, most of the time I’m with the Thorns doing our team training,
or if I’m not with the Thorns,
I’ll train with my dad and my sister here at our house.
We’ll be working on technical foot drills, accuracy.
I love being able to do it with my sister—that she’ll come out
and train with me.
I'll wake up and eat breakfast or grab a snack and go out to train.
I mean, there are definitely mornings where I wake up and I’m like,
“Dang, I’m tired. It’s early.”
But I always feel better after it’s done because I know
I woke up and did that.
And then lunch, second session of the day, whether that’s soccer or
a strength training or something like that.
And then it'll be dinner.
And then, you know, just hanging out with my family
and finding time to do that.
But also, something I make sure to do before
I go to bed is to read my scriptures,
to make sure to look at the Come, Follow Me.
But just to make sure I find, you know, a spiritual moment before
I go to sleep is something I try to do every day as well.
Setting goals has always been a very important part of my life.
I think the way you achieve something big is you have to set the goals—
that’s how you start, you know?
Because how do you know what you want to accomplish if you don’t write it
down and and say it? So, I mean, for me, like I said,
I had to set the goal of:
I want to be the best player in the world.
And there are little goals that go along with that.
But then it just comes into working every single day
and just getting a little bit closer to the goal every single day,
taking little steps.
You know, I’m working and I’m growing
and putting myself in uncomfortable positions,
getting better every single day. And that’s just getting me closer.
Every challenge can become an opportunity.
A challenge isn’t something that stops you.
It's just something that allows you to grow and work harder.
If you didn’t have challenges, how do you grow as a person or
as a player on the soccer field, you know?
My biggest spiritual goal is just continuing to use the platform I have
and the position I’m in to just share the gospel with as many people as I can.
In terms of challenges becoming opportunities spiritually,
it’s like something Elder Holland said.
It’s like, this is the one area in our lives where “we get credit for trying.”
In soccer, you need results, you need to win, you need to,
you know, accomplish things.
But I mean, in my spiritual life, it’s comforting
because you do get credit for trying.
You get credit for trying to just become a better person
and become closer with God.
In terms of just balancing life,
considering how young I am and being a professional, the first thing
I would say is I always have this grounding presence of knowing that
I always have somebody to pray to, somebody to talk to,
in, you know, our Heavenly Father.
And that's the thing that can always bring me back down from being nervous
or feeling like I have a lot of things to juggle.
And I pray before every game. Like before the kickoff happens,
I’ll be standing on the field and I’ll just say a quick prayer in my heart.
And I have done it since I've been like 10 years old
and I'll continue to do it forever.
And it just gives me this one last deep breath of,
“I know this is going to be OK.”
And, of course, my family is so, so important to me.
I mean, soccer may be the most important thing that I do,
but it's not the most important thing in my life.
It’s always gone for me: faith, family, and then my soccer.
I think the the thing I'm most proud of is just that I am a daughter of God
and that I feel like I have a relationship with Him and that
I have my faith that I can always turn to—
and knowing that He’s always there is special.