Mindset

When I was a young boy I was totally interested in baseball.  I remember thinking that if your batting average was .300 you had a chance of going to the Hall of Fame while if you hit .250 you were mediocre.  The difference between greatness and mediocrity was 30 hits over the course of a year (180/600 compared to 150/600).  At the time the average regular player played 150 games a year which meant that the difference between great and average was one hit every five games.  Once I figured this out I wondered would we know who the great players were if we did not keep these statistics?  How come these great players constantly had that one extra hit every fifth game.

Jerry Grote, a great defensive catcher, talked about the mentality of hitters.  He would say that when an average hitter got a base hit early in the game they thought that they accomplished their days work.  That later in the game when they came up they did not bear down as hard because they thought that they accomplished their goal for the day.  On the other hand, the great hitters always focused as they thought after getting one hit that this was the day that they would get 3 or 4.  Grote thought that at the major league level the difference was not always talent but the mental approach to the game.  This was my first introduction to mindset and the realization that ability might not be the only factor in performance.

Now I have seen this mindset work with students.  When a B student sometimes scores an A on a test they sometimes relax on the next assessment thinking that there “B” is in the bag.  They do not have to try that hard because they will hit their goal.  These students have the ability to be A students but do not have the mindset to get it done.

I then read some amazing research done with eyesight.  At first, they tested people viewing a regular eye chart.  After recording their scores, they then tested the people on an eyechart flipped upside down (read more)  People’s showed improved eyesight with the chart flipped upside down.  The brain expected to be able to see the top lines of the chart so therefore due to that expectation people performed better.  Now again, that is not going to make a person like me who is almost blind without my glasses to see with 20/20 vision but it shows the power of mindset.

Again, I see this play out in the classroom where when some students are told the problem is going to be hard they automatically think that they can solve a problem.  For whatever reason they have convinced themselves that the problems are too hard for them.  It sometimes takes me asking them one or two questions before they can solve what seemed to them to be a complex problem.  They had the ability to solve the problem but they lacked the confidence to perform.cannot solve it.  However, when I ask them some questions they can answer the questions and solve the problem.  It is the mindset that some students have that they are not smart enough to solve the problem when they really do have the ability

So, what are my takeaways from these examples.  That the difference between good and great is not always found in the talent but sometimes in the mindset.  That the difference between good and great is not always in the talent but often in the mindset.  So how do you go about changing your mindset?

This is my last thought of the week for the year.  I truly enjoyed engaging with you in this matter and will start this again when school starts up next year.  As always your feedback is welcome.