Build a Resilient Mindset
Resilient versus Brittle, NBC Commentators Have it all Wrong About Competitive Mindset
I read a great quote on Twitter the other day, “If shoveling snow were an Olympic event, I’d watch it” (from @BlueBoxDave). So it is with me. As a result I find myself watching ice dancing, the skeleton and other sports that I will not think about for another four years.
When I watch the Olympics for three hours each night for two weeks, I start saying things like, “their twizzles were slightly out of sync, that will cost them some points…” Another is that I start to get annoyed with the television coverage, the announcers and interviewers. And it’s here that I have a point to make.
A Brittle Mindset
Without exception, the NBC commentators and interviewers convey and reinforce a brittle mindset about the Olympic competitors. Commentators say phrases like, “This downhill run will determine if the last 4 years of effort were worth it”, and “This 2 minute skating program can validate their years of hard work.” Interviewers directly ask competitors questions like “Was the effort worth it even though you didn’t win?”
These types of comments and questions help create drama. After all, NBC needs viewers to stay engaged. But these comments couldn’t be further from the reality of how expertise gets built, or how the immense talent possessed by Olympians gets developed. I’m quite certain that no downhill skier stands at the gates on the top of downhill run and thinks to herself, “I better have the run of my life, or the last four years will be a waste.”
This kind of thinking creates performance hampering stress, and can lead to downward spirals of execution as difficulties arise. I’ve seen this happen in youth sports all the way through the Olympics (picture the skater who makes a mistake and is off ‘kilter’ the rest of his routine). And I’ve seen it in the workplace as well. So avoid the mindset that leads to phrases like:
It all rides on this event.
Winning this medal will validate all the work and time I’ve invested.
Our season goal is to win the championship.
Winning is everything.
These phrases create a brittle mindset which is fragile. So, what happens when a team targets winning a championship, but has a mid-season setback — is the season a waste? I’ve been there as a player, as a coach and in the workplace. It’s a box that’s hard to get out of.
Yet, there are individuals and teams that excel despite setbacks and adversity. What’s their secret?
Building a Resilient Mindset
Because in competition, difficulties and setbacks will arise. The goal then, is to prepare in a way that leads to a resilient mindset, one that is open to challenges and trained in recovering from, or adjusting to difficulties as they arise.
There are many elements to this kind of preparation and training and it’s a topic worthy of a book. For now, I want to focus on building a resilient mindset — a way of approaching practice, skill acquisition and talent development that leads to robust performance and dynamic adjustment to challenges.
One key to dynamically adjusting to changing circumstances is ‘over-preparation’. What I mean by this is to prepare to execute a task (athletic, work related, school related, really anything) under different circumstances. To continue with the Olympic metaphor, the snow in Sochi has caused problems for many of the downhill skiers. The mountain has a combination of natural and man made snow. It has areas of shade and Sun which cause different conditions and it has challenging combinations of jumps and turns. Many promising competitors have been defeated by these conditions.
So how to prepare for something like this, where the conditions are less than perfect? The question I’d ask to start is, how much practice time is a skier devoting to less-than-perfect conditions? Is part of his or her process to:
Seek out icy conditions to work on edging?
Find early morning shaded snow?
Practice transitions from shaded ice to ‘spring’ soft conditions?
Practice turns on overskied snow?
Practice recovery from a bad turn?
Does this make practice harder — more expensive — require more time? The answer is yes. Would practicing in these diverse conditions build resilience toward unforeseen circumstances and confidence about sketchy conditions? Yes. (Note: I’m not a ski coach, so I’m certain these recommendations are not expert… they’re simply what I’ve observed about Sochi).
When someone commits to a process of getting better and training to build skills every day, an important aspect is to continue to build deep expertise on fundamentals. Never assume you have fully mastered a fundamental skill. You can carve a turn on ice? Great, have you mastered turns on ice and then soft spring snow within seconds… What about a small jump and immediately carving into a turn, on ice? In Sochi, the winners have been the skiers that were ready for these conditions.
The Benefit of ‘Over-Preparation’
The process of ‘ over-preparation’, or deep fundamental learning, leads to a resilient mindset and the confidence that comes with it. And when you’re standing at those gates on top of the mountain, you’ll be confident you can adjust to whatever the mountain offers.
