Mindset

In a modern world, where we have to cope with all the required life standards and constantpressure to be an achiever, words like MINDFULNESS and MINDSET are more and more necessary.

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American psychologist Carol Dweck’s describes in her book Mindset: the new psychology of success: The fixed mindset is the belief that your qualities cannot be changed. Since you believe these qualities are a permanent part of who you are, you feel the need to constantly prove yourself. The growth mindset is the belief that your qualities can be changed and nurtured through effort. You believe that people may be born with different gifts, interests, or temperaments, but everyone can change and grow through experience and practice. The good news is, mindsets aren’t permanent and can be changed, i.e. you can choose what you believe. You’re likely to have a mix of both mindsets, but skew toward one of them. You also don’t have the same mindset all the time. For example, you may have a fixed mindset toward your personality but a growth mindset toward your abilities.

In sports, Mindset is one of the most important elements to pursuit and achieve goals. The Mindset in sports should be faced as important as the natural talent, technical component or strength and conditioning. As mentioned by Michael Sheard, a Senior Lecturer in Sport and Exercise Psychology: “at the top level of any sport, all the challengers have the requisite technical skills, but it necessitates mental toughness to use that talent consistently to became a champion athlete”  Mental Toughness: The Mindset Behind Sporting Achievement 

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Even with all available information and access to all studies and researches related to the importance of mindset in sports we have nowadays, we still facing prejudice associated with this area in the sports environment. Coaches, Athletes, parents and managers sometimes don’t give the proper attention to sports psychology, which is most of the time used to fix problems. However, it should be used in all different phases, (from planing to competition) in all ages (from the base to high performance), for all involved (athletes, coaches, managers, parents).

Gareth Goodsir mentioned in our podcast:there are three key elements in sports performance. It’s like a Piramide – Technical Skills / Physical Preparation / Psychological Readiness (a missing piece on the sports environment): you will need everything, it all should be working together”.

Paulo Barroso / Solid Sports