Mindset-Revisited. How having a growth mindset can help in challenging times.

Formula for success

When you want a thing bad enough to go out and fight for it,
To work day and night for it,
To give up your peace and your sleep and your time for it;
If only the desire of it makes your aim strong enough never to tire of it;
If life seems all empty and useless without it,
And all that you dream and you scheme is about it;
If gladly you’ll sweat for it, fret for it, plan for it,
Pray with all your strength for it;
If you’ll simply go after the thing that you want with all your capacity,
Strength and sagacity; faith, hope, and confidence, stern pertinacity;
If neither poverty nor cold nor famish nor gaunt
Nor sickness of pain to body or brain can turn you away from the aim
That you want;
If dogged and grim, you besiege and beset it, you’ll get it!
(Author unknown. Poem taken from talk by Elder Vaughn J. Featherstone, Acres of Diamonds, BYU Speeches of the Year February 3, 1974.)

I love this poem, whose authorship is unknown. There are a few versions of this poem but this particular version is my favorite and there is no author mentioned. I love this poem because I believe it to be the true definition of what it takes to develop a growth mindset and growth mindset practice-"Strength and sagacity; faith, hope, and confidence, stern pertinacity;". I believe that if you want to achieve anything you must get up and go to work. You must work to develop certain characteristics that will help you to achieve the seemingly impossible.There is nothing that is unachievable! Look at the progress in technology over the last 100 years. Man has walked on the moon, people own palm size computers, carry their telephones with them. Man has cured polio, and other childhood diseases. In swimming the Men's American Record 50 yard Free is under 18 seconds and the 100 Free is under 40 seconds. Few people believed that would ever happen. This is going to sound very simplistic, but I believe you can do anything if you will apply that one line from the introductory poem, and develop a "can do" mindset 

Introduction

For this post I wanted to share some thoughts about Mindset and the COVID 19 Pandemic situation. These are highly unusual times we are experiencing. Think about how we are having to live. We have been asked by our federal, state and local governments to practice "social distancing" which was defined as staying 6 feet apart from other people. In stores that we labeled as essential many of them have placed a worker at the front door where they count the number of people in the store and do not let anyone in until another leaves. Most of these stores have also put up plexiglass shields for their checkers to help prevent close contact between the customer and the employee. Other measures have been to require all customers, and employees to wear masks. Some businesses, like gyms that were allowed to re-open have to take patron's temperatures, clean and sanitize their weight machines after each use, limit the length a patron can train as well as requiring everyone to use hand sanitizing lotion after exercising. These are just a few of the "new" normal practices that businesses have resorted to in order to conduct business. Grocery stores and restaurants have mask wearing employees deliver food to your door, ring the doorbell and walk away but look back to make sure you get your food. The COVID 19 Pandemic has put most of us into some type of isolation in our homes, and certainly our personal lives. Due to these changes, and alterations in our lives we have become isolated from others. It could be a period of despair and fear, or it could be a time period of growth and progress. It all depends on how we are able to view the challenges of the times. At this critical time of seemingly isolation we need to have a "can do" attitude of growing and learning.

Application of Mindset

In her book, Mindset-The New Psychology of Success, Dr Carol Dweck makes the following statement, "...people can do a lot more than first meets the eye." (Dweck, 2016, p 72). Applying the principles of a growth mindset to our times mean that we should look at these times as an opportunity to grow and progress. We can foster and grow a character of determination by doing certain things. In her book Dr Dweck gives the following ways to foster, or grow a growth mindset:

1. Have a change of mind(set). Embrace change as an opportunity to grow.
2. Develop skills that will help us grow and foster our change of mind set
3. Focus on the learning process. If you fail to learn from some task then look at the task in another way and implement a "new" way to get it done. Learn from this new way.
4. Put forth an honest effort to embrace learning and growing in all areas of our lives.
5. Work through and show "grit" in all challenges. You must find a way to wear down your challenges and out last them, not the other way around.
6. Learn from your failures or mistakes. Take joy in the effort to do hard things and believe that if you persist long enough you can and will learn how to do hard things as long as your effort and commitment is continuous and never ending. I call this "continual, never ending process", or init's shortened form the "I can" method of learning. If at first you do not succeed, change your strategy and begin anew and keep trying until you find a way to do what  you set out to do. Remember how many times did Edison fail in developing his electric light? Remember the steps that were steps of success and keep them. Discard those steps that were not effective, add new steps and press forward in another attempt to do learn.
7. Treat mistakes, or failures as "temporary non-success". Everyone has heard the saying by the great scientist Albert Einstein that, "You never fail until you stop trying". When you make a mistake, or fail at doing something, re-evaluate and try again with a new tactic.
8. Take joy in the journey and the adventure to achieving your goals, regardless of how many ties you have to change a strategy or adjust an approach to tackle a problem.

Summary

These times can be times of great growth and development. We can find ways to help our swimmers grow, progress and prepare for the days to come when they will be back in the water. Experiment with means of communication and the computer. Look for opportunities to bring your team together via Zoom, Google Hangouts, anything that is "virtual" can be a great help in dryland activities, goal setting, team building. Have your team do a "drive by", or more precisely a "jog by" where members of the team would put a small in their yard where they could list one or two exercises to do. Then members of the team, one, or two at a time can jog by that team members house do the exercise, or exercises and then jog to the next house. You might choose 5 or six homes in close proximity and rotate this activity through the team so everyone gets to visit another team member's house. They could also do this over Zoom, or Google Hangouts with each member of the team assigned to lead an exercise.

You can build your team during this time period by looking at this pandemic as a chance to grow and learn, a chance to improve and get better. You can do great things by evaluating how you view challenges.