Why Great Athletes are Hardcore Believers in the Growth Mindset
Great athletes are hardcore believers in the growth mindset. Having a growth mindset means you believe you can get better at something you’re not naturally good at through hard work and effort. Contrarily, having a fixed mindset means you believe you can only get better at something if you have natural talent in that area.
As a result, athletes with a growth mindset believe that reaching their goals is 100% a product of their hard work. Not luck, not chance, not genes, not coaching, and not any other factor not within their control.
Furthermore, this is what makes great athletes great. Athletes with a growth mindset see any deficiency in skill is an opportunity to focus their effort.
On the one hand, if an athlete has a fixed mindset, exposing a deficiency in skill is a demotivating setback. On the other hand, an athlete with a growth mindset believes that if they can find a way to work harder and smarter addressing that deficiency will make them even better. Therefore, athletes with a growth mindset are grateful when someone exposes a deficiency in their skills.
As a mental skills coach, It would be easy for me to overstate how important any one mindset is to an athlete’s success. However, if an athlete has a fixed mindset and they can get help to change to a growth mindset, I’m confident that it’s not an overstatement to say that would be a game changer. While they may not go from good to great overnight, undoubtedly in both the short and long run they will be far better off.
With that said, I highly recommend all athletes read Carol Dweck’s book on this topic and learn as much as possible about this critical way to orient their thinking.