Mindset
How you “set” your mind daily is a big factor in the progress you make. In this section, I’d like you to find out whether you have the mindset for growth, mastery and long-term success, or whether your mindset is holding you back. We can all improve our mindset. Working towards having the optimal mindset should be an ongoing part of your self-development and it’s something you can do daily.
Your mindset:
- Is your automatic way of thinking, which determines your behaviors and habits
- Is your beliefs about yourself
- How you perceive your standing against others
- Is your attitude to challenges you deal with challenges
- Will affect your long-term success
In her book: “Mindset: The New Psychology of Success”, Professor Carol Dweck of Stanford University tells us of a study she did to determine the effect of praise on the development of young students. 400 students were given a simple, non-verbal test. One half of the group was praised upon their result by saying things such as “you are so smart”.
The second group was praised, not by the result, but by the effort and process they went through to get to the answers, i.e., “you must have worked very hard to get these answers, well done!”
Next, the students were given 2 options for a second test. 1. A similar test to the first one, that they should do equally well at, or 2. A more difficult test, but a better opportunity to learn.
The results were compelling. 67% of the group praised for being “smart” went for the first option, as the easier test that would guarantee them a similar result.
Surprisingly, 92% of the group praised for effort and process opted for the harder challenge.
What we are shown here is 2 different mindsets. The first group who (because of the way they were praised) became driven by their ego and the feeling of being “smart” again. These students exhibited more of what Professor Dweck calls a “Fixed Mindset”. Conversely, the second group, through praise of effort and process, became less motivated by the result they might get and more motivated by the opportunity to learn something new. Professor Dweck says that these students have more of what she calls a “Growth Mindset”.
Now imagine that we reinforce this type of thinking over and over again…
I’m sure that you’ve already concluded that the mindset we must work towards daily is the “Growth” or “Mastery” mindset.
One of my goals for this training program is to show you ways that you can move yourself away from an Ego mindset and more towards a Growth mindset every day. This will give you the freedom from judgment to play better golf and the open-mindedness and curiosity to keep learning. Let’s take a deeper look into the traits of both mindsets, so you can learn more about you’re your current mindset is and start your transformation today.
A Fixed or Ego Mindset
Let’s start with the mindset that will hold us back from becoming the best we can be. A person with a Fixed mindset has the following beliefs:
- That you’re born with your talents
Ability is predetermined and limited by genetics, and we have little power to change it.
- The result and standing against others is the most important thing
The result they get on that day defines their current ability level. Because their motivation is more “extrinsic”, a performance is either a success or failure based on the result. They miss out on valuable learning opportunities to improve because they are too consumed by the outcome. As shown in Professor Dweck’s study, those with a fixed or ego mindset would rather do something easier to get a good result than to do a challenge which they might fail at, even if they will learn more. Without the benefit of being able to look deeper beyond the result and learn, long-term performance is limited.
- Scores reflect who you are as a person
Because they believe that ability is part of their DNA and who they are, those with a fixed mindset struggle to separate themselves from their results. They take bad results personally, and good results can lead to overconfidence. For this reason, they can often fixate on rankings and leaderboards, compare themselves to other players and worry what other people think of them because of their score. Status is important to them and because their view of themselves is tied to results, their confidence can be fragile.
- That mistakes show weakness
The ego mentality of a fixed mindset player makes them vulnerable to (inevitable) mistakes. The results-based goals and fear of how they will look puts a lot of pressure on every shot. If they make mistakes, they don’t cope well and often react emotionally.
Ryan Holiday, author of “The Ego is The Enemy” says: “Your reputation will take knocks. If it can’t handle it, it wasn’t that good in the first place.”
- That Practice Can Be Wasted Effort
Because they believe that their ability is fixed and they have little control in changing it, fixed mindset players aren’t as motivated to as practice hard. When they do practice, they invariably practice the things they are good at (which satisfies their ego) and avoid those areas that they struggle with.
A Growth or “Mastery” Mindset
“An amateur is defensive. A professional finds learning (and even occasionally being shown up) to be enjoyable. They like being challenged and humbled, and engage in education as an ongoing, endless process.” – Ryan Holiday, The Ego Is The Enemy
The Growth or Mastery mindset is not limited by what other people think, status, or a belief that your skills and talents are inherited and fixed. Let’s take a look at what Professor Carol Dweck tells us about people with a Growth Mindset:
- They believe that talent and skills are learned
People with a growth mindset believe that talent and ability can be improved and learned over-time i.e., you “grow” from your experiences and hard work. Research in the field of neuroscience confirms this is true, and that the brain and neural connections/pathways can change and strengthen, with the right perspective (mindset) and approach to challenges. Daniel Coyle says in his book “The Talent Code”: “Although talent looks and feels predestined, in fact we have a good deal of control over which skills we develop, and we might have more potential that we might ever presume to guess.”
- They have a longer-term view of success
Players with a growth mindset have the perspective that every day and every round is a step towards mastering their craft and themselves, whatever the outcome. It doesn’t stop when you reach certain goals or have setbacks. The “journey to better” never ends…
- They value learning more than the results
Players with a growth mindset have a predisposition towards learning, which increases performance and ability over time. They are curious about every round, no matter what the result. They know that results come and go, but skill development is the key to long-term success.
- They are highly motivated
Players with more of a growth mindset are more motivated to work on their game, especially their weaknesses. Because their purpose for playing goes deeper than achieving results and status, they put in more work, dig deeper, and get more out of themselves. Their goals have more meaning which makes them more motivated to achieve them. Being competitive to a player with a growth mindset means using competition to push themselves and learn more about themselves.
- They embrace challenges, failures and mistakes
Also in his book “The Talent Code”, Daniel Coyle says “Struggle is not optional—it’s neurologically required: in order to get your skill circuit to fire optimally, you must by definition fire the circuit suboptimally; you must make mistakes and pay attention to those mistakes.”
A person with a growth mindset is happy to expose themselves to challenges, as they view them as the best opportunities to develop skills and themselves (“From struggle comes strength”). And there’s further upside to this – because mistakes are more accepted for their learning value, a growth mindset person plays with more freedom and less fear, which (ironically) leads to fewer mistakes. Angela Duckworth, author of the book “GRIT”, says: “A fixed mindset about ability leads to pessimistic explanations of adversity, and that, in turn, leads to both giving up on challenges and avoiding them in the first place. In contrast, a growth mindset leads to optimistic ways of explaining adversity, and that, in turn, leads to perseverance and seeking out new challenges that will ultimately make you even stronger… the secret to outstanding achievement is not talent, but a special blend of passion and persistence.”
- They are more in touch with their values and purpose
High self-esteem comes from sticking to your values no matter what the outcome. An ego mindset player would probably sacrifice their values for a better result. After doing the Player Pledge exercise earlier in the module, you should know what your values are. Every round is an opportunity to work on becoming the player and person that you want to be, regardless of the result. If you can uphold those values, you will build self-esteem and confidence in yourself.
- They are more optimistic
Players with a growth mindset are generally more positive because of their perspective (i.e., any task is a win-win: you succeed or learn). Because they are convinced that they can keep evolving and benefitting from challenges, they are more optimistic about the future, which improves attitude and performance. People with an optimistic outlook have more good things to happen to them!
- They welcome feedback and don’t compare themselves to others
The growth mindset golfer welcomes constant feedback directly from their performance and from their coaches. They are honest with themselves about the areas they can get better. They don’t need to hear how good they are from others to feel confident or feel the need to compare themselves to others. They are their own measure of success.
- They stay humble no matter how successful they become
Players with a growth mindset deal with winning in a better way than those with an ego mindset. Instead of thinking they have it all figured out, they realize that winning is only temporary. They know that if they get complacent (by falling into the trap of the ego), they will stop growing and their performance will suffer in the long-run. The greats don’t take success for granted and keep working hard on the journey to better.
Changing Mindset
Developing more of a growth mindset doesn’t happen overnight, but every day you can make incremental changes (with greater awareness of your thinking) that can take you closer to it. Research shows us that the brain is adaptive, and with focused practice, you can improve mindset and develop high performance habits to become your best.
Change Your Perspective On Struggle and Failure
“I know fear is an obstacle for some people, but it is an illusion to me. Failure always made me try harder next time.” – Michael Jordan
Any situation which tests you and narrows the margin between success and failure is the optimal learning opportunity. Don’t be afraid to expose yourself to the possibility of failing. Feeling challenged (both mentally and physically), although uncomfortable at the time, is where deep learning takes place and should be embraced, not shied away from. We’ll talk about some techniques that you can use to feel “more comfortable being uncomfortable”, in Module 4. Like Michael Jordan said, use your failures to drive you to more success.
Measure performance by your mental scorecard rather than the result
Results will come and go, but those results shouldn’t affect your mindset. With a better mindset every day and every round you have an opportunity to grow. Whether you shoot 70 or 80, did you give yourself the best opportunity for success? Ask yourself questions such as: How was my focus, my self-talk and my body language? What did I learn and how did I respond to challenges?
As we saw in Professor Dweck’s study, simply changing what the students were praised for, changed their mindset. You can do the same with the questions you continually ask yourself and by celebrating the moments where you demonstrated the growth mindset.
Your mental game scorecard is a great tool to be able to keep you more focused on process and learning, instead of ego and results. You can download the scorecard in the next module.
Journal, reflect and hold yourself accountable
Journaling and writing about your experiences is a great way to identify what you’ve learned, what’s helping you and what’s most important for you to change. We’ll talk more about using your performance journal in Module 6.
Remember that golf is what you do not who you are
After winning The Players Championship in 2019, Rory McIlroy spoke about how he had made some changes in his mental approach which had helped him take pressure off himself. He said that in the past, he had tied his scores with how he felt about himself as a person which made him push too hard to get results (i.e., he had too much of a fixed mindset).
In the off season and early part of 2019, he made an effort to change this mindset and have a new measure of success for his rounds (his process goals), and to do a better job of separating Rory McIlroy “the player”, from Rory McIlroy “the person”.
Remember that golf is not who you are, it’s what you do. With more of a growth mindset, you can separate the two, play with more freedom and learn from every round.
Exercises
What is your vision?
Why do you want to achieve it?
Describe your current mindset, whether it’s a growth or fixed mindset.
What are the characteristics and values of the player you would like to become?
What is your “player pledge” or “player identity”?
Not including technical skills, what is currently holding you back from becoming the player you want to be?
How are you going to start developing a growth mindset daily and during your rounds?
