By T.J. Jumper
The last several weeks have been focused on four characteristics of high success. Every successful person I know and every athlete that has won major championships has shown those characteristics. Not one, two, or three, but all of the characteristics implemented consistently. Today’s post I am going to expand on Dr. Carol Dweck’s Growth Mindset.
Having a growth mindset is the path to excellence because the focus is on improving until expertise or excellence is developed. When the focus is not on day-to-day improvement but on just winning or losing, improvement and growth is limited. In the long run winning will also be limited, as others will be getting better while your growth is slower.
Slow growth and small improvement is the result of not having a growth mindset. Without a growth mindset, practice isn’t as purposeful and too much focus is on the competition. With the growth mindset, you are working to get better and master the skills, which allows the athlete to develop and improve habits. One of the major problems in sports, especially youth sports is the win at all cost mentality. This goes against the growth mindset and always results in the individual or team not being elite when it matters, which is usually older than 16 years-old. Picture the team that is great at 10-12 years-old and the parents and players share how great their team is. The focus is in the wrong place, the focus has to be on getting better at the game.
You can still play to win. Being internally competitive is typically natural for a person. During the regular season the focus should be on working to get better. Once the post-season or the biggest competition arrives, then the focus moves to winning and little focus is on improvement. Therefore, most of the year is improving to get better which will result in a long term plan and more success.
So how do I go about implementing a growth mindset? Identify the skill and technique that is needed to be excellent at your sport. Then determine what it looks like to master each of the skills or techniques. Then reflect and self-analyze how your current level of skills compares to the master skill level. Finally make a plan of how you will close the gap between your level and the master skill level or maintain the master skill level. Then it is about being driven, committed, and determined (implementing all four of the characteristics for high success) to follow that plan. This is how to self-analyze with a growth mindset that will sustain continued improvement.
So when is the best time to do this level of self-reflection and self-analysis? The best time is shortly after a season is over. This should be a wide or big scope. The most crucial time to improve is in the off-season. It is good to do it after the first couple of competitions. Once you are into the heart of your season, it is good to have a smaller scope of improvements to work on. When deciding on the smaller improvements choose just a couple and choose the ones that can result in the largest gains.
During the season is when you can reflect after every competition or minimum once a week on the “4-musts”: physical, technical, tactical, social/mental/emotional. Questions to ask yourself, “Did I play hard the entire game? Did I lose my cool at all during the game? Did I make the best tactical decisions? Did I implement some of the technical skills I have been working on? These are just a few of the reflective questions that you could answer. Then make short term plans to improve or maintain those areas of the “4 musts.” These are all lessons learned and will make you a better athlete.
Parents what can you do to help with self-analysis
- Facilitate the process of your athlete(s) determining what are the skills/techniques that need to be mastered. Then move to determining what having mastered that skill/technique looks like.
- Then through a conversation, have the athlete self-assess their ability with those skills/technique versus what having mastered them looks like. Depending on your athlete’s relationship, including a coach and getting what they think may also be useful.
- Then as a family make a plan how each of the areas will be worked on.
- During the season focus on the “4 musts” and have the athlete reflect on those at least once a week and determine how they can get better each game.
Also, in blog post 2, we talked about addressing tough situations. They are included as they serve as a good reminder that connects to this topic.
- As a parent remember the training and game is not about you, it’s about the athletes, team, and the progression to be better. Learned this the hard way when I would get too competitive and emotional at my kids’ games. Also learned that college coaches also recruit parents, so just cheering for positives during the game.
- During the ride home, as a parent, wait until the athlete is ready to talk about improvements. Stick to the positives during the ride home, or just be quiet. It takes a little bit to come down from the competitive mentality.
- Make sure your athlete understands they are more than the sport or the game. The sport is what they do, not who they are. Winning or losing doesn’t dictate who they are. There is more to life than just the sport. Everyone, including professionals, have a life after their career is over or outside of game and practices. In the future we will have a whole blog post about this topic.
- When talking or praising the athlete, praise action and not the result. For instance, “you played so hard.” Stay away from “you are a good soccer player.” The improvement process is not a straight line and there are many variables that play into an athlete’s improvement. One of which is the growth of height and strength. Also kids learn and improve at different rates.
- Focus on the process. The key to continued improvement is getting better technically, understanding the game, and adjusting to the speed of the game. Results early do not guarantee the same results as the athlete gets older. Also, an athlete can improve their process, but you can not improve the result because it is already history once the competition is over.
If you ever have questions, please reach us at jumperathletics@gmail.com We plan to take a little break from posting blogs because of the winter holidays. The next blog is titled the “Cost of Accepting Average,” and will be posted on Sunday, January 9, 2022.