Pursuing Coaching Mastery Through a Growth-Mindset
In 2016 I read Carol Dweck’s masterpiece Mindset: The New Psychology of Success and since then have been mindful of this topic of a fixed mindset versus a growth mindset. In the same year, I also read Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance by Angela Duckworth and these two books combined have immeasurably forged my view of the power of having a strong work ethic and believing that anything can be achieved with a little bit of luck and a whole lot of effort. Being cognizant of the idea of having a growth mindset has made me acutely aware when one has a fixed mindset. As a coach, the battle between having a growth mindset and a fixed mindset becomes visible through how we respond to player’s mistakes, how we view mastery in our coaching profession, and if we believe our influence is making a positive impact on player’s character choices.
1. Response to Player’s Mistakes
Mistakes are a part of learning and having the perspective that mistakes breed growth is crucial to building confidence in athletes. Karch Kiraly, 3 time Olympic Gold medalist for the U.S National Volleyball team, calls this process training ugly. “Training sessions are designed deliberately to stretch players out of their comfort zones, which will lead to many mistakes and the appearance of an ugly practice” (Gilbert p304). It’s momentous for players, despite their mistake or failure, to see that coaches are praising their correct decisions and effort despite a favorable or successful outcome. As coaches we must judge the decisions and effort of our players independent of the outcome. This is the epitome of a having a growth mindset as a coach. It’s essential that in our responses to player’s mistakes, both with our tonal response and our body language’s non-verbal response, we are positive motivators and teachers and not manipulators and perfectionists.
2. View of Personal Mastery
Henry Ford said, “Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.” I believe seeking personal mastery through a growth mindset is what Henry Ford is describing as “more intelligently.” Coaching is an art that is never meant to be mastered. When we believe we have achieved mastery, we no longer are sponges for learning. Having a growth mindset as a coach means we are industrious, or in Angela Duckworth’s definition, we are full of grit. Pursuing personal mastery directly correlates with industriousness in that we identify our flaws and weaknesses as opportunities to close our performance gaps. Closing our personal performance gaps is a daily, determined quest for deeper learning, catapulting us into a standard of excellence that results in continuous “becoming.” This steady “becoming” is a consummation of us being better coaches and better teachers of the game. “Teaching better implies a perpetual pursuit of improvement. It suggests that we never ‘arrive’ at a point of complete mastery but are continuously and relentlessly in search of enhancing out craft” (Gilbert p299). The coaching profession fluctuates between countless, unseen hours of preparation and study to bouts of successes and failures. We must view personal mastery through the lens of improving our capabilities, not proving our capabilities.
3. Influencing Player’s Character Choices
Sport challenges an athlete’s work ethic and responses to adversity. How we view athletes in our coaching philosophy will determine how they flourish and mature through these character choices. Having an athlete-centered approach precisely places the emphasis on holistically developing the complete athlete. Having a growth mindset for a coach is critical in this realm because for select athletes, the finish product of a holistically developed, mature individual occurs years after they moved on from our program. Our challenge is to view athlete’s periodic lack of worth ethic and poor responses to adversity as teachable moments, lesson’s that might not be fully comprehended until a later stage in their maturity.
Adopting a growth-mindset in coaching provides a foundation for genuine success. “Successful people across professions have a growth-mindset because they define success in terms of continuous learning and improvement” (Gilbert p302). It’s essential for us to critically self-reflect and evaluate where we fall on the paradigm of a growth mindset. The benefit to this paradigm is believing we can evolve in the areas that we acknowledge we have a fixed-mindset. “Yet” is a powerful word when making the paradigm shift from a fixed mindset to a growth-mindset. We might not know everything there is to know in coaching, yet, but with daily hard-work, commitment, and discipline we are on the path to personal mastery.
References:
Gilbert, W. (2017). Coaching better every season: a year-round system for athlete development and program success. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics.
