Mindset trumps all. This is especially true once we realize that everything begins in the mind, including front squats. Carol Dweck, Ph.D., is leading research on two prevailing frameworks that create our state of mind. First, there’s the growth mindset — which essentially understands our attributes, including our talents and tendencies, as malleable traits. The growth mindset believes we can improve (or degrade) skills and have some element of control in most of our characteristics. Second, the fixed mindset understands our qualities as more deterministic. Outcomes for fixed-mindset individuals are more generally interpreted as reflections of who we are.
If you have a little bit of growth mindset about others, you might be interested in the following four ways to talk to an athlete (regardless of his or her mind’s orientation) to reinforce growth-mindset characteristics: