Fixed Mindset vs Growth Mindset

I read a book recently called Mindset by Caroline Dweck and basically the idea is there are two types of mindsets you can have in life:

1) Fixed Mindset - Intelligence is fixed, your IQ in 5th grade isn’t going to be much different than your IQ at 40 years old.

2) Growth Mindset – Intelligence can be improved and can grow. With hard work and effort your IQ at 40 can be better than your IQ in 5th grade.

Based on these 2 mindsets there are a lot of implications.

EFFORT - Those with a fixed mindset see effort as a negative. It shows weakness, it shows you weren’t good enough to do something on your own. They almost see effort as cheating. The phase “imagine how good they would be if they actually tried (or learned technique, or practiced or studied)” is seen as a compliment, and in our society it usually is meant as compliment (which is stupid if you think about it)
Someone with a growth mindset sees effort as the way to get from point A to point B.

OBSTACLES/CHALLENGES – Those with a fixed mindset, stay away from things that they know they won’t have immediate success. If they aren’t good it must not be their thing. As much as they see doing something well without effort as a strength, they see struggling as a beginner as a weakness.
Someone with a growth mindset, embraces challenges knowing that they are opportunities to grow. Doing something you are already good at doesn’t make you any better. Why not challenge yourself.

Dweck posted some interesting research on this fact. They did a study with children solving puzzles; basically the children were given an easy puzzle to solve, where given some feedback and then asked if they wanted to do another puzzle that was more difficult or one that was of the same difficulty. They found that when they solved the first easy puzzle when the researchers said something like “wow you are so smart” (a fixed comment) then asked if they wanted to try a harder puzzle, the children predominantly said no. (all that could happen with a harder puzzle is they prove they actually aren’t smart). With another group they used a growth comment like “I like the way you worked through that puzzle until you found the right answer”. When these children were asked if they wanted to try a harder puzzle they mainly said yes.

CRITICISM – With a fixed mindset any one giving negative feedback is seen as attacking you and criticism is ignored. With a growth mindset criticism is seen as finding a way to improve. They tend to want criticism to help streamline their improvement.

Lets apply this to track. There are many athletes who do an event once and because it didn’t go as well as they planned try to avoid that event from then on. There are many athletes who if they have a big lead they ease up, or if they are way behind they also ease up or do just enough to win. There are many athletes who wait to see what place they got before they decide if they have done a good job or not. These are all fixed mindsets and we need to get rid of them. The only thing we care about is PRs which are the best measurement of growth we have. Everything else is irrelevant to me. There is this belief that if the philosophy of “I don’t care about winning” is the philosophy of a loser and is setting your standards low. I see us as holding you all to a higher standard regardless of who you are racing, throwing or competing against you have to compare yourself to yourself. We will not recognize poor effort that wins.

The funny thing is, at the end of the year, the team that focuses on every person getting as good as they can, how is that worse than the team who focuses on winning as many meets as they can?

As an athlete I had a fixed mindset, I didn’t like the triple jump because I wasn’t good at it, I had good jumping ability but couldn’t put it together. I should have been a good Triple jumper. Instead of putting in more time to learn the event and improve I shrugged it off and focused on the long jump, something I had natural talent for. Every triple my thoughts were “I know I suck at this but wait til you see me in the long” If I jumped well and lost, I sucked. If I jumped poorly and won “Hey at least I won”.

As a coach I have developed a growth mindset, every year I force myself to spend most of the pay on information to make me a better coach. One year I actually spent more to go to a coaching clinic then I made that year coaching. I have 100s of videos from tons of coaches explaining how they instruct and coach concepts. I change the program every year because I al always trying to improve, one season will never be the exact same as a previous season. When I got my master’s degree, my Master’s Project was designing a training guide for coaching sprinters based on the scientific research.

Website Update

Hey all -

I updated the website, there is now a video page where I have linked all the videos that me and Alberto have taken this year. Also I posted some more photos that Alberto took at the Garlic Classic and some photos from the hill. - Coach Mike

2011 Season

Hey all,

The 2011 season has begun, I am going to try to start using this thing more often, I haven't posted anything since the triple DQs at BVAL last year, that was painful. Finally getting some meets under our belt has got me excited again and ready to go. After each meet I will post a recap here mentioning PRs and anything notable worth mentioning. - Coach Mike

STAL Finals

Hey All,

Great Meet, honestly we couldn't ask for anything better well maybe some 6th places turning to 5ths but...haha (we had Ashlynn in the 100h, Lauren in the LJ, Dominic in the TJ, & Catherine in the 100 all finished in the dreaded 6th spot, as we know only the top 5 advance) Of course Ashlynn, Dominic and Catherine all PRed and Lauren had her 4 longest jumps of the season so lets not get too gready haha.

So the good news, everyone who was ranked in the top 5 going into the meet advanced, on top of that we had a couple people who were ranked outside the top 5 step up and advance as well. Chelsie went from ranked 13th out of 15 runners to 4th place in the 3200. Jada went from 8th in the HJ to 4th. Sosebee went from 9th to 5th in the LJ and from 6th to 3rd in the HJ. So our team is bigger than we expected it to be which is awesome.

Next the great news, we had 38 PRs. This brings our season total up to 236, our goal is 250. Could it happen at BVAL? Full list here.

Also we had 2 school records. Jada broke the Frosh Soph Girls 300h school record with a 49.52 and Catherine, Pauline, Erika and Lauren broke their own school record with a 50.14 in the 4*100.

Other notes from meet:

Stephanie, Jacob, and the guys 4 by 4 all won league titles (Viz, Daw, Eric and Montoya).

Daw had 4 events he won 2 of them (HJ & 4 by400). Got second in the other 2 (400 & 4 by100)

Jacob, Erika, and Pauline advanced in 4 events.

Chelsie had 3 huge PRs. 8 seconds in the 800, 8 seconds in the 1600 and a minute and 2 seconds (13:46-> 12:44) in the 3200. An awesome meet for her.

Taylor "Santiago" Howard - got 9th on Tuesday with a PR, then the 8th place person dropped out so he got into finals and took advantage going from a 46.32 to a 44.98. Both were PRs.

TJ advanced in 3 events, the only one he didn't advance in, he got a PR by over a foot (SP).

Our 3 100 hurdlers Aly, Ashlynn and Tula were ranked 9,10 and 11th going in to the meet and all 3 made the finals.

2nd Year in a row all 4 relay teams advanced.

Like I said Great job everyone. See you at the track- Coach Mike

Been a while

Hey I know it has been a while since I have posted but I am really trying to use the new website alot more. www.liveoakcaf.com All my updates as well as any information posted is listed in the "News" Section. It is just a running tally of the most recent news. I would like the website to be something that you check each day rather than each week. As for the blog, well I am still trying to figure out what its role will be in the future now that I can update the website much more easily.

I think it will be around for larger updates that are too big for the website. If I do that though I will link it to the News section so the website should be all you need to check. - Coach Mike

New Uniforms

Here is a picture of Leach sporting the new uniforms.

Spring Break

Schedule for the rest of the week:

Tuesday: form running drills, 4*150s (walk back as recovery) Arnold Workout
Wednesday: In-n-out 200s (bring some cash if you want to get something there)
Thursday: Speed day (relay handoffs, starts, short approach jumps) 3*Sprint-float-sprint, multi jumps, multithrows
Friday: Capt the flag or Pre meet for those competing Sat.
Saturday: Quicksilver Invite Entries posted here


Also at 1:00-3:30 before practice on Tuesday and Wednesday we will have our "decathlon" Some alums are coming back for it, some athletes are trying it for the first time. Should be fun. If you do the decathlon on Tuesday you are excused from the running (150s). On wednesday you can skip the interval runs and just go straight to in-n-out. With no pole vault it is modified a little. Plus to get it to run faster we changed the order of events.

Tuesday
100m
Shot Put
Long Jump
Weight Throw
400m

Wednesday
110hh
Discus
High Jump
Javelin
1500m

Sobrato Dual Meet Results

Just letting you guys know I posted the results of the Sobrato meet on the website.

www.liveoakcaf.com

I will let you guys find the results, force you to navigate through our new website.