High Performance Mindset | Learn from World-Class Leaders, Consultants, Athletes & Coaches about Mindset - 531: Choose a Growth Mindset

Episode Date: January 19, 2023

This week on the podcast, we talk about various ways to adopt a growth mindset vs. a fixed mindset. When we adopt a growth mindset, we see challenges as exciting and find optimistic ways of explaining adversity. A growth mindset has been linked to achievement, more happiness, healthier relationships, and a higher motivation.   “Quote of the Week: "I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”  Michael Jordan   Power Phrase of the Week: "When I get frustrated with my progress, I will remind myself I just haven’t done it yet.”

Hi friends, my name is Dr. Sindra Kampoff, a national leader in the field of sport and performance psychology. Every week I'm on the local radio sharing my top tips on exactly how to develop the mindset of the world's best, so you can accomplish all your dreams. Get ready for a jammed, packed episode focused on practical tips to help you get after your goals and step out of your comfort zone. Let's go. Time to check in with Cinder Kampoff today. We talk about a growth mindset and we talk about

this quite a bit. Cinder, you're going to start us off with a quote. I love this. I love this quote by Michael Jordan. He said, I've missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times I've been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I failed over and over and over again in my life, and that's why I succeeded. And so tell us why you chose that specific quote for today. I think because, you know, everybody is familiar with Michael Jordan, and people, you know, you hear people say, like, he's such a natural. He was just born with talent.

But, you know, of course he wasn't just born with talent. And that's not the only reason he was successful in his career. And so it's well known that Michael Jordan, for example, was cut from his high school varsity team. In fact, the college team he wanted to play for, North Carolina State University, didn't recruit him. And there was a couple of other teams that could have chosen Jordan in the draft, but they didn't recruit him. And there was a couple of other teams that could have chosen Jordan in the draft, but they didn't. And so what's interesting is when he was cut from his

varsity team, his mother actually told him, go back and discipline yourself. And so as you see, Michael Jordan throughout his career had what we're going to call today is your growth mindset instead of a fixed mindset. So we're talking about this growth mindset. What is it? Well, according to over 30 years of research by Carol Dweck, she's a professor at Stanford University, we face challenges with either a growth mindset or a fixed mindset. And when we adopt more of a fixed mindset, we see our ability or our intelligence or our athletic talent as fixed at birth.

We're unable to change it. But when we adopt more of a growth mindset, we believe that we can grow and change for the better. We believe our ability is gained from hard work and dedication. And natural born talent is just a starting point. And we believe that we can get better at something with hard work and support and belief in the right opportunities. Sandra, why is it so important to have this growth mindset? Well, when we adopt more of a growth mindset, we see challenges as exciting and as, you know, we can kind of find optimistic ways of explaining adversity.

And we focus on giving our best effort instead of the outcome. We believe our qualities can improve and we are constantly learning. And so people actually with a growth mindset are found to be grittier. And actually a growth mindset is linked to achievement and more happiness and healthier relationships. So it's important that we adopt this and it is our choice. So what is a fixed mindset then? A fixed mindset, when we adopt this, we believe that we should avoid challenges, and they're really threatening to us. So we see situations as like an opportunity, and we don't

ever feel like we're good enough. And so we think, you know, our qualities are set in stone. And we think our intelligence, our personality traits, our creative abilities are just, you know, what we have right now. And we don't move forward because we feel like we're going to fail. So we're focused on the outcome and maybe looking silly. And so when we adopt more of this fixed mindset, we can give up, we don't grow and improve, and we make excuses for our performance. So we obviously want to adopt one of them. So how do we adopt that growth mindset, which sounds better? Well, so a key part of adopting more of a growth mindset

is watching the language that we use. And I like one of the things that Carol talks about is using the word yet. Okay, so let me explain. With a fixed mindset, you might say things like, well, I don't get it or I can't do it. But if you just add yet to that, like I don't get it yet or I can't do it yet. And so that kind of really helps you adopt more of a growth mindset and then catch yourself when you are using more of this pessimistic

fixed mindset and change your thoughts to more of an optimistic growth mindset. So, for example, you might think naturally to yourself, well, you know, she's just born with that talent or she's just a natural born singer or something like that. And so notice when you're saying those kind of words in your mind and instead choose about more of a growth mindset. Well, she's worked hard to get to where she is. That would be more a growth mindset statement. Cinder, what's your final point today? So I'm just going to encourage people to notice the language that you're using and to continue to adopt more of a growth mindset language. So other growth mindset languages or statements

might be, you know, mistakes help me learn a lot about myself, or I can learn anything I want to. I like to try new things. And what is the power phrase this week? I like this power phrase because I think it really focuses on more of a growth mindset. When I get frustrated with my progress, I will remind myself I just haven't done it yet. Yet. All right. We're going to add yet to everything. If people want to get in touch with you or follow along with your work

or maybe check out your two books, what do we need to do? Yes. Sure. You can head over to DrCindra, so D-R-C-I-N-D-R-A.com. And I talk about this in my book, Beyond Grid, and this is based on one of the chapters in the book. So you can head over there and find more information about the book there. Way to go for finishing another episode of the High Performance Mindset. I'm giving you a virtual fist pump.

Holy cow, did that go by way too fast for anyone else? If you want more, remember to subscribe. And you can head over to Dr. Sindra for show notes. And to join my exclusive community for high performers, where you get access to videos about mindset each week. So again, you can head over to Dr. Sindra. That's D-R-C-I-N-D-R-A dot com. See you next week.