Your Thoughts………….
By vishwa on Health, Inspiration, Training
February 15, 2016
I am reading a book titled Jail House Strong written by Josh Bryant and Adam benShea in kindle. The Kindle book reader says to me that I have read eleven percent of the book. Till now the premise of the book speaks about two interesting mind sets—fixed and growth. Moreover, I thought I would share the views with you.
What is fixed and growth mindset?
People with a fixed mindset believe that they are born winners or losers. They think that talent and intelligence are fixed traits. Moreover, they feel that success is achieved through talent alone and not through hard work and development.
Now comes the interesting part. The author here explains about the growth mindset which I would like to quote verbatim.
”In the growth mindset, people believe they are not born winners or losers, but choosers. Perhaps the western writer and rugged individualist, Louis Lamour, explains this mindset best: “Up to a point a person’s life is shaped by environment, heredity, and changes in the world about them. Then there comes a time when it lies within their grasp to shape the clay of their life into the sort of thing they wish to be. Only the weak blame parents, their race, their times, lack of good fortune or the quirks of fate. Everyone has the power to say, ‘This I am today. That I shall be tomorrow. Through dedication and work ethic, anyone can develop both talent and intelligence to their limitless potential. The growth mindset spawns overreaching greatness. In athletic performance, science demonstrates that when an athlete believes in his or her competition plan, the athlete is more likely to achieve success.
I endorse the above views on the growth mindset. I cannot relate to a fixed mindset. Moreover, although I find myself to doubt my ability I never step back. I always want to give it an honest try. Moreover, I believe having doubts is good for oneself. For, when in doubt you try to overcome it by giving your best. However, unaddressed fear can backfire and bring down your performance. Perhaps, we walk a tightrope. Either you get strong or you lack the strength.
Your thoughts?
2 thoughts on “Your Thoughts………….”
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Honest try will motivate and bring more confidence.
Apologies for the delayed response, Coach. In terms of mindset, I completely agree that growth mindset is what leads to success. Irrespective of how talented you are, if you’re in a fixed mindset, there will be a ceiling to what you can achieve because you’re not looking to improve, you’re just trying to do what you know best. But in terms of actual performance, I think it’s back to the age old debate of nature v/s nurture. I think it’s combination of both that works. For example, Federer v/s Nadal and Messi v/s Ronaldo. Federer and Messi are blessed with incredible talent but if they relied only on that, Nadal and Ronaldo would eat them for breakfast every single day but the fact that they put in the hours to work incredibly hard to make use of that talent, makes them a little better everyone else. But Nadal & Ronaldo prove that hard work can also get you there.
They have similar debates about leadership. Are leaders born leaders or can people be taught to be leaders? During some class in Business school, one of our professors quoted his research. Apparently, only upto 30% of leadership skills can be natural but at least 70% can be taught. So, I guess in terms of successful performance everything can be overcome by hard work which is good. All of us have the opportunity (more or less can be debated) to be successful irrespective of our talent.
Btw, there is a great book from Malcolm Gladwell called “Outliers”. Fascinating read. He says that all success stories focusses on intelligence and ambition but he says success is far more complicated than that. His premise is that, to be great at something you need 10,000 hours of practice and all successful people have put in that many hours but the ability/opportunity to put in those hours depends on a lot of factors. I’ve attached the .pdf version of the book if you’re interested in reading it. It’s a great book.
Cheers,
Sowhardh