If you have spent any time at all looking for information relating to self protection, it is likely that you have come across someone writing about the importance of “mindset”. If you are new to the idea, it may seem a little confusing. Everyone seems to agree that it is very important, but not everyone seems to be talking about the same thing. As it turns out, there are a number of ways this word is used and many of them are of value, but only if you understand how it is being used.
This is why you will find those who study philosophy talk about the importance of defining terms. While we may all use the same word, it may not mean precisely the same thing to both of the people in the conversation and this can lead to confusion. Once you understand this, you will not have to look far online to find an argument between people that seems to have its roots in both parties assuming different definitions of a word they are both using.
Complicating this further, a word like mindset is useful to describe a general principal. This principal applies in a number of subtly different ways to a subject as complex as designing and implementing an effective and appropriate self protection strategy for yourself. Because of this, it is important to understand the definition of the term in the context of the conversation. Why this is will become apparent as we continue this article.
Let us begin this discussion then, by looking at Merriam-Webster’s definition of mind-set:
- A mental attitude or inclination
- A fixed state of mind
- (Defined for English language learners) A particular way of thinking: A person’s attitude or set of opinions about something.
- (Medical Dictionary) A mental inclination, tendency, or habit.
These definitions not only provide us with a good starting point, but definition #2 gives us a great opening to talk about a very important principal.
Let us start then by accepting for purposes of this conversation definitions 1, 3, and 4.
My intent here is to give you a tool that will be useful to you whenever you come across discussions of this (or any other subject) where confusion may be caused by a misunderstanding of how a specific word was used. With practice, you will quickly be able to recognize in context how someone is using a word, in this case, “mindset”. Articles from knowledgeable people that were apparently in conflict and caused confusion before can now become useful as you realize they are just using the same word in a slightly different but still applicable way.
One more useful trait in studying I want to mention lies in developing a skill I learned from a close friend of mine, Dr. Craig Johnson. He says you have to “…develop the sense of an old cow. Learn to eat the hay and spit out the sticks”. In other words, you don’t have to agree with everything someone says to learn from them. Absorb and apply the information that is useful and discard the rest. You may have heard the saying “Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater”. Don’t throw out useful information just because there is some element you don’t agree with. Everything you read and hear will fall on a spectrum (more hay or more sticks), but you will find your growth in knowledge and skill is faster if you learn to glean what is useful from your sources of information. I have learned many things by reading work by someone I respected, then reading their critics. Learn to think critically and make your own decisions about things.
If you haven’t read it, “Taking the Red Pill” talks about how we are all limited in our understanding and will never reach a point where we stop learning. Respect the opinions of established experts of course, but don’t assume their information is the absolute truth (yep, everything I say goes into that bucket too!).
Earlier in this article, I mentioned that mindset is a useful term, but that it applies in a number of different ways when we are talking about use of force training. To illustrate this, I am going to touch briefly on one useful way this term is used.
Like building a house, we want to start with a solid foundation. In order to accomplish this, I believe the most important idea to recognize is that our minds and bodies are incredibly adaptable. As we saw in the “Red Pill” article, even our Mental Models (mindsets) are adaptable. If you recognize rigidity in an area of your thinking, you are not stuck with that. You have the capacity to change and improve.
A great resource for learning more about this is Carol Dweck’s book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success (https://www.amazon.com Mindset-Psychology-Carol S- Dweck/dp/0345472322). Dr. Dweck likes to talk about “the power of yet” (1) to illustrate the principal of adaptability we are discussing.
She makes the distinction between what she calls a “Fixed Mindset” and a “Growth Mindset”.
In a fixed mindset (definition #2 from above), people believe that their basic qualities like intelligence or talent are simply fixed traits. This mindset says talent or potential that you are born with (and have a set amount of) creates success. This essentially happens without effort since your genetics determine how successful you can be at any given skill or area of knowledge. This mindset is dangerously flawed and will hold you back from your potential.
Let’s talk about some indicators that you may be struggling with a fixed mindset in an area.
One indicator is if you find that are more interested in documenting, or being recognized for being “intelligent” or “skilled” in an area than you are in developing intelligence or skill. In martial arts, this would be someone that makes the recognition (say a belt ranking) more important than the skill that rank represents. When Coach Brandon Jones and I ran our boxing and martial arts gym, we frequently saw this with new young male students who signed up for classes. They frequently seemed more interested in proving how skilled or dangerous they were then they were in actually developing their skill.
Because of the last point, people with a fixed mindset will avoid the very challenges that will help them attain the skill they desire. When they fail to attain the skill, they put it down to genetics. Can you see how this ties together with what we talked about in “Taking the Red Pill”? (Taking the Red Pill) This is an example of the “blue pill”.
You can’t “fail” if you don’t try. People with a fixed mindset in an area will cling to the comforting illusion that they were just “born that way” and this relieves them of the responsibility of pushing into the discomfort to become better. You will hear “I was born not good at…” or some variation of that theme.
In contrast to this is the Mental Model that Dr. Dweck calls the “growth mindset”. This approach recognizes that their most basic abilities can be developed through dedication and hard work. Intelligence and talent are just the starting point. This view creates a love of learning and resilience that is essential if you want to achieve real skill and high accomplishment.
People who have developed a growth mindset don’t see mistakes as failure but as opportunities for growth and improvement. You begin to look forward to the challenges that will cause you to improve rather than avoiding them. Can you see now why this is so important?
Take a look at this illustration from Mindset to see the contrast on how these conflicting Mental Models will affect you in various ways:
(2)
When you are doing your own research and you find a principal that seems to apply across different fields of study, it is probably important. This concept of a growth and fixed mindset provides a great example.
One of the foremost authorities on the study of expertise, Anders Ericsson wrote:
“… but I see the core message as something else altogether. In pretty much any area of human endeavor, people have a tremendous capacity to improve their performance, as long as they train in the right way”(3)
Ericsson and his colleagues have studied expertise across many domains (examples: chess, music, athletics, dance, etc.) searching for common principals that led to the highest levels of achievement in any endeavor. In future articles we will be discussing Ericsson’s findings in greater detail, particularly the principals of approaches he calls Deliberate and Purposeful Practice. What is important here is that Ericsson’s findings confirm the importance of the “growth mindset”. Look at the quote above again. “…as long as they train in the right way” “…people have a tremendous capacity to improve their performance”.
That first part can’t be overlooked and brings up the importance of Mental Models again. A misunderstanding of how to apply this principal can be just as harmful to someone’s progress as the fixed mindset itself. To illustrate this, here is part of an interview from The Atlantic with Dr. Dweck:
Gross-Loh: So it seems that the danger is that some teachers think they have growth mindset and believe it will transfer to their students, even though they themselves don’t really understand it. How about this: Are there educators who do understand the idea that abilities can be developed, but don’t understand how to pass it on to students? Are there certain children who are more vulnerable to this sort of misunderstanding of growth mindset?
Dweck: Yes, another misunderstanding [of growth mindset] that might apply to lower-achieving children is the oversimplification of growth mindset into just [being about] effort. Teachers were just praising effort that was not effective, saying “Wow, you tried really hard!” But students know that if they didn’t make progress and you’re praising them, it’s a consolation prize. They also know you think they can’t do any better. So this kind of growth-mindset idea was misappropriated to try to make kids feel good when they were not achieving. The mindset ideas were developed as a counter to the self-esteem movement of blanketing everyone with praise, whether deserved or not. To find out that teachers were using it in the same way was of great concern to me. The whole idea of growth-mindset praise is to focus on the learning process. (emphasis mine). When you focus on effort, [you have to] show how effort created learning progress or success.
Gross-Loh: What should people do to avoid falling into this trap?
Dweck: A lot of parents or teachers say praise the effort, not the outcome. I say [that’s] wrong: Praise the effort that led to the outcome or learning progress (emphasis mine); tie the praise to it. It’s not just effort, but strategy … so support the student in finding another strategy. Effective teachers who actually have classrooms full of children with a growth mindset are always supporting children’s learning strategies and showing how strategies created that success.
Students need to know that if they’re stuck, they don’t need just effort. (emphasis mine) You don’t want them redoubling their efforts with the same ineffective strategies. You want them to know when to ask for help and when to use resources that are available.
All of this is part of the process that needs to be taught and tied to learning. (4)
This idea is consistent with Ericsson’s principals of Deliberate Practice. Effort alone is not enough. The focus of this blog and our various social media will be on the ongoing development of increasingly effective Mental Models through the principals of Deliberate or Purposeful Practice.
When you look at the quote at the beginning of this article and think about how it applies to what we spoke about in “Taking the Red Pill” regarding the importance of adaptability, you can see why this is so important. If you want a glimpse of just how deep the rabbit hole goes, check this out… In addition to everything we are talking about right now, in this one sentence we also see fear as an important consideration. That is absolutely true. We will be discussing fear a lot and its effects on our decision making and perceptions in future articles. For now, it is enough to know that fear has a powerful effect on the way we think and building adaptability and resilience is vital to our performance.
There is a lot to unpack in that tiny quote and this article is long enough already…
Now we have a foundation to move forward with. So, after reading the first post, let’s say you have made a conscious decision to seek the truth and to continuously update and improve our Mental Models based on your experiences. Now, as we explore further, we discovered that our bodies and minds are extremely adaptable.
Yes, it is true our genetics do have some say in our potential. No amount of practice will lengthen your bones and change your height for example. That is a consideration that may be important to your performance if you want to be a basketball player or a gymnast. Also, there is a very good reason for weight classes in combat sports such as boxing or MMA. While this is all true, genetics are not as great a limiting factor as is commonly believed. We found that our bodies and brains are extremely adaptable and the sky is the limit on our ability to develop skill if we commit to putting in the work using effective principals of practice. Exactly what these principals are will be addressed in a future article(s).
[1] Carol Dweck TED Talk on Growth Mindset: https://www.ted.com/talks/carol_dweck_the_power_of_believing_that_you_can_improve
[2] Mindset: The New Psychology of Success – Carol Dweck
[3] Anders Ericsson and Robert Pool (2017) Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise p. 113
[4] Christine Gross-Loh (December 16, 2016) The Atlantic Daily: How Praise became a Consolation Prize – Helping children confront challenges requires a more nuanced understanding of the “growth mindset”. You can find the full article online here: https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2016/12/how-praise-became-a-consolation-prize/510845/