The Word Athletes Must Use to Change from a Fixed to a Growth Mindset
Yesterday I was working with a small group of athletes on some techniques that made them look and feel clumsy. Within the first 10 minutes I heard the word “can’t” at least four times.
The word “can’t” is the poster child for having a fixed mindset. Carol S. Dweck, Ph.D. in her preeminent book on mindset describes the fixed mindset as believing that human characteristics are forever carved in stone at birth. In addition, with a fixed mindset you believe you’re either good at something or you’re not. If you are good at something it will be easy, if you’re not it will be hard.
Unquestionably, having a fixed mindset is unproductive. Moreover, for athletes it also severely limits opportunities to improve. In sports, the process of improvement is a game of inches and athletes must find these inches in the most uncomfortable places. Places where the little voice in their head will tell them that they can’t.
To defeat this voice of self-doubt screaming “can’t” when training gets uncomfortable, athletes must be hard core 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, effort, as well as overcoming the pain of fatigue and boredom.
Furthermore, athletes with a growth mindset see any deficiency in skill is an opportunity to focus their effort. As a result, this focus is a gift because it provides a new motivation to energize their training.
Changing Self-Talk from a Fixed to a Growth Mindset
It’s not that athletes with the growth mindset never have self-talk with the word can’t. It’s a sneaky word that slips into the mind of even the most disciplined people. Instead, they subdue the word by adding the most powerful word to symbolize the growth mindset right after it…. “YET”
Rather than say, “I can’t do a back handspring”, say “I can’t do a back handspring yet”. Adding that little three letter word will change self-talk from a fixed to a growth mindset.
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 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 being clumsy to a gymnast 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.