Let’s get to the basics…
I mentally walked through all of my conversations at the end of the week and realized a theme of processing style was underlying a lot of them. Furthermore, I stated to pull apart what was beneficial to these people and what was not beneficial in terms of progress and development.
Before long, the wall separating the people who were good at what they do and the people that were stuck in old way that were not working, was as the title says: Growth vs. Fixed Mindset.
Growth Mindset
The approach to most of life with a sense of optimism, solution finding and resiliency to adversity. All of this combined, forces an open mind to finding more wins in life. For athletes, this is finding those wins but also being open to learning something new to sharpen physical and mental skills.
Fixed Mindset
“I don’t need…” / “I don’t want to…”
Two phrases that were thematic with people with a fixed mindset. A mindset that is opposite of a growth mindset, and centers around pessimism, shutting down or having emotional blowups when faced with adversity , and neglecting the ability to learn beyond their present physical, mental and emotional self.
We can get into the deeper parts of the athlete self of course, but when we bring it back to the basics, we fall into one of two categories here. With a fixed mindset, you are fighting against yourself to become the best version of yourself. With a growth mindset, you maximize the opportunity to reach your highest potential in all aspects of your athlete self.
If you fall into a fixed mindset, you aren’t stuck there, just as if you have a growth mindset, you will have that skill forever. Reach out to myself or someone that you believe has a growth mindset and try to apply various tools or advice that is given to help you become more of a growth mindset athlete.
What are some of the best pieces of advice that you got that helped you grow in your profession / as an athlete? Let me know and be sure to subscribe to stay up to date with postings!
-Malique Taylor, The Athletes Therapist and Mindset Champion
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