First, what is a mindset? A mindset is defined as “the established set of attitudes held by someone.” It means that a mindset is comprised of a person’s beliefs that are ingrained in their minds. Even though a mindset is an abstract idea, it can be identified based on a person’s words, actions, body language, facial expressions, and effort. And mindsets don’t just apply to a sports setting either! You can develop a mindset for each environment you are a part of – a mindset regarding school, relationships, work, life, etc.
This leads us to our next questions – can mindsets be a bad thing? Unfortunately, yes mindsets can be a “bad thing” when they are not beneficial to you. If your mindset is not comprised of positive thoughts, optimistic feelings, and willingness to improve, then your mindset might be a “bad thing.” If your mindset is full of thoughts like “you’re going to mess up” or “why try anyway, you won’t do well” or “just give up!” then obviously this is not the best mindset to have. If your mindset does include some of these thoughts or feelings, there is no need to fear! With the right mindset training, your mindset can shift to be more positive!
In addition, there are different kinds of mindsets that you can have. Specifically, you can either have a fixed mindset or a growth mindset. A fixed mindset is when you think that the qualities that make you special (like intelligence or talent) are fixed traits. On the other hand, a growth mindset means that you believe your abilities (again, like intelligence or talent) can be developed with effort. As you can see, these are very different mindsets! People with fixed mindsets are more likely to “give up” on something because they assume if they aren’t good at something, they won’t get any better because they aren’t naturally good at it. People with growth mindsets, however, recognize that if they aren’t good at something they can improve at it if they put effort into it. As you can see, the idea of “effort” is one of the main differences between these two mindsets. Just to emphasize, growth mindsets are more beneficial for athletes and people in general!
Through all this information, you can see that mindsets have a lot of components built into them. They can be good or bad; they can be fixed or always-developing, they can be positive or negative; and they can be utilized in all facets of life. Because our mindsets can majorly affect us – positively or negatively – it is important to know how to develop our mindsets properly. That is what our goal is as a Mindset Training Organization. We love helping athletes recognize their abilities and improve themselves with the help of mindset training. We understand how important it is and now, hopefully, you do too!