December 4, 2013

How Your Mindset Affects Your Agility Performance

Carol Dweck’s book “Mindset: The New Psychology of Success” describes two basic mindsets: fixed and growth.

From the accompanying website:

“In a fixed mindset, people believe their basic qualities, like their intelligence or talent, are simply fixed traits. They spend their time documenting their intelligence or talent instead of developing them. They also believe that talent alone creates success—without effort.”

“In a growth mindset, people believe that their most basic abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work—brains and talent are just the starting point. This view creates a love of learning and a resilience that is essential for great accomplishment.”

In which mindset (growth or fixed) would you place the following comments?

  • My dog is a bar-knocking, startline-breaking, off course-taking, slow-trotting kind of dog that will never excel in agility.
  • My dog’s weaknesses in agility can be improved with hard work and great training.
  • I’m not fast enough, tall enough, or young enough to be a truly great agility handler.
  • I have the dedication to be a truly great agility handler.
  • I’m not going to try out for the world team because we don’t have a realistic chance of winning and I don’t want to look stupid.
  • Trying out for the world team will provide me with valuable experience and inspiration that can improve our future agility performance.

When you reflect on your own training, trial performances, and future goals, which mindset dominates your thinking?

For more thoughts on mental management:

You may also like

  • Carol Dweck’s book “Mind Set” sit on my bed side table always learn something new everytime I pick it up.If you have kids I think it is a must read.

  • Funny, I just had this exact talk with someone the other day. We can either see something as an “oh well, it is what it is” or as something we can improve. I think we all fall into the “oh well” category every now and then…the trick is catching ourselves when we do so that we can ultimately improve.

    • This idea of mindset is one of those things that you can change simply by being aware of it! By recognizing fixed thoughts you can see them for what they really are – self imposed limits. Remove those thoughts and remove those limits!

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