Paralympic champion Nicky Nieves on positive self-speak, breaking down barriers in volleyball and changing perceptions of Para athletes
"The importance of positive self-speak to me is the difference between getting out of a rut and staying in one," explains Nicky Nieves, a Paralympic gold medallist on the U.S. sitting volleyball team at Rio 2016.
"We all know that we're going to have bad days... but your positive self-speak will be the determining factor in how you decide to carry on - and what that carrying on looks like."
From the outside, Nieves appears to be a bundle of positive self-speak: The Paris 2024 hopeful is earning her Masters in clinical mental health as she works toward a second Paralympic appearance, while also running her own non-profit and seeking to be a voice for all athletes with a disability.
"Sometimes I don't know where I find the energy, but I find it," she told Olympics.com, laughing. "I think I do really work well under pressure... and I have these reminders that there are good things [waiting] at the end: That I'm working hard to graduate and to go to the Games.
"I think that's where my energy comes from."
Nieves is realistic, too - and honest: "It's really freaking hard," she added, laughing again.
Nicky Nieves: 'I'm tapping into that inner "I can"'
Nieves has been a part of the U.S. women's sitting volleyball team for over a decade, helping the squad to world championships medals in 2014, 2018 and 2022 - in addition to their gold at Rio 2016.
With experience on her side, she's continuing to push for more coverage of Para sports, as well as being a vocal advocate for Latina and Black women (Nieves is Puerto Rican) and any person that has ever been told "no" as they try to pursue something new and different.
"I'm tapping into that inner 'I can' and battling the 'I can'ts'... what's meant for you is meant for you," she said, referencing her own path and what she hopes to share of it for and with others. "If you are given the opportunity and the blessing to do so, you would be doing yourself a disservice not going at it 100 per cent and wholeheartedly."
It's that approach that Nieves has kept at her centre, but also that has afforded her the energy to try to maintain the schedule that she does, something she says comes back to her practice in faith, which she has cultivated over time after growing up Christian.
"[I'm] practising gratitude because I'm here and not a lot of people get to be in my position... [to] be on Team USA, go to the Games," she said. "I have a medal. Like, how many people can say that?"
Very, very few.
Nieves on her Afro-Latina roots, pushing more for the Paralympic Movement
Nieves was born without a left hand, and, though the cause was never clearly determined, doctors believe the umbilical cord might have wrapped around it while she was in the womb. After growing up in Queens, New York, her family moved to Florida, and Nicky picked up volleyball, athletics and cheerleading thereafter.
Nieves, now 35, said she had to learn through challenges and roadblocks that she could write her own story: "Those [people] that are for you will be with you, and those that are not... were not meant to be around you," she said she'd tell her younger self if she could.
Nieves carries confidence in her disability, as well as being an Afro-Latina in volleyball. ("Puerto Rican people are very, very proud," she said, laughing.)
"For me, it's just breaking down walls... [it's about] showing everyone that like, 'Hey, we do exist' and we do exist in these spaces that are not really made for us," she said. "And although sometimes it is very scary and intimidating to do that because... you don't know how it's going to be taken, just doing so [and] knowing that I'm creating a better future for those who look like me to come after."
Nieves wants to do that for the Paralympic Movement as a whole, too.
"I might get slack on the Olympian side, but, it's a little harder for Paralympians," she said. "I say that because we're different people. Some of us can't function without prosthetic devices. Some don't have the money to go get those prosthetic devices or access doing things without their wheelchair or whatever the case may be.
She continued: "It's just hard... everyone's adapting. Regardless, if you think about it or not, in some way or shape, you're adapting, even if you have all of your limbs. And our adaptation just looks a little different and it can be more intense. So it can be really hard."
And that's where her mantra comes in: The importance of positive self-speak to me is the difference between getting out of a rut and staying in one.