In keeping with my recent blog themes,
creating practice/training environments that ARE TRULY LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS, I am advocating that teaching athletes
to focus on the process of improving themselves
daily through employing mindful and
purposeful effort towards mastering needed skills.
Vern Gambetta, in a recent blog of his, gives
coaches great advice on creating a practice environment that is geared towards
the growth
mindset athletes. His advice: “IN
DESIGNING AND IMPLEMENTING TRAINING (PRACTICE) SESSIONS, FOCUS IS ESSENTIAL. …it
is imperative to have a specific
objective for the training (practice) session and a very focused means to achieve the objective. Less is
more.”
What Vern so simply states is NOT something
that is clear to many coaches.
Basically, everything involved within the daily practice/training session should be focused in pursuit of each
session’s objective. As he puts it; “only include NEED TO DO activities,
get rid of NICE TO DO. In addition he adds that “Be sure to consider what happens inter-workout; essentially the
preceding workout (practice) should set up the current workout (practice) and
the succeeding workout should flow out
of it.”
As coaches, we need to give athletes a purpose with which to focus their energy and determination
on. I can assure you that if your athletes do
not have a goal or purpose in mind they will
end up just wasting time and going through the motions. Coaches can instill
purpose within their athletes by
creating practices/ training sessions that are aimed at improving the level of
skill/performance of the athletes by employing only the drills/exercises/skill performances, etc. that effectively
transfer directly to improving the athletes performance through improving performance of the targeted
skill.
Coaches need to ask the critical question: “What is the best drill, skill-teaching
method, small-sided game, exercise, etc. that I can use to achieve the objective of each session/practice?”
It should go without saying that today’s
youth have limited time and ability to focus. This makes the “Less is more” approach a valuable
tool.
Setting objectives and goals for each
practice/session IN ADDITION to short- term weekly goals has proved successful
for many top athletes. Former American Jr. Decathlon Record holder, Curtis
Beach has adopted this approach since graduating from Duke last year where he
was a multiple All-America in the Decathlon with a world-class best score of
8,084 points. After elbow surgery in
June, he decided to switch coaches and training sites which has brought him into
a “NEW LEARNING ENVIRONMENT”.
Beach, responding to his adjustment in this
new environment with respected coach Dan Pfaff states “Dan has been teaching me to be much more process-oriented---looking at the next step in front of me---rather than be so long-term goal
oriented like I used to be. I focused on crazy goals so far in the future, I didn’t see what I needed to do in front of
me, especially technically.” He adds
that he now has replaced quantity/volume
of training with QUALITY work and low volume.
Focus on quality practice that directly
transfers to performance improvement is what process oriented practice/training is all about. Athletes who focus
on outcomes, like Conference Champ,
Gold Medal, etc. are not giving themselves concrete,
daily objectives that will result in slow, steady improvement.
It is the daily, weekly and monthly
improvements in performance that lead to steady performance improvements.
Former British Olympic sprinter and Bobsled
push athlete, Craig Pickering, is now a coach who writes a blog for aspiring
athletes and coaches. In his latest blog, 11
MISTAKES I’VE MADE (so you don’t have to) he ends up each "mistake" section
with a short paragraph titled “Learn
from me”.
One of the lessons he
recounts is how he learned to succeed by focusing on the process of getting the most
out of his self. He did this by NOT
focusing on whom he was racing, but instead on the process of racing well. He
stated that in training/practice it is important to focus on things you can control, like the process of racing. Then,
in competition, you are better able to perform to your ability IF you focus on the process of racing IN THE
SAME WAY you practice racing.
The importance of teaching/developing a growth mindset is critical to effective
learning and improving consistently throughout the short or long term career of
an athlete. Athletes who adopt the growth mindset tend to learn from
mistakes, embrace effort and hard work and employ
focused, purposeful goals in their daily practices/training sessions.
Kenny Selmon, a freshman hurdler this year at
Univ. of North Carolina is a great example of this type of growth mindset and the humility and self-discipline that comes from
working to be the best he can become despite already having achieved
INTERNATIONAL SUCCESS (by winning a Bronze Medal at the World Youth
Championships as a high school junior).
As a senior, Selmon won the USATF Junior
National Title as well as the prestigious New Balance HS National Championships
where he went on to the JUNIOR WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS. At worlds he missed qualifying for the final because of a stumble over the ninth hurdle in his semi-final.
His response? “That race actually was reassuring because I know that without stumbling
I could have run 49. It taught me so much. It definitely showed
me what I’m capable of doing.”
His reply about goals for this, his freshman
season in college, was consistent with his growth
mindset. “ I
definitely want to get under 50 flat (400 hurdles). I want to keep improving and run my best in each
race.”
Learning from mistakes, seeing growth in a
performance mishap and seeking to improve himself each day are all signs that
Kenny Selmon is a product of an OPTIMAL LEARNING ENVIRONMENT created by
parents, coaches and teachers who undoubtedly were focused on giving him their
best effort in developing him to be
the best he could be.
If you have not already read any Mindset articles, research papers or book
by Dr. Carol Dweck, I highly recommend you do. Below is a small sample of her
information relevant to motivating students through proper affirmations.
“I was motivated to research young students
when I was at Columbia at the height of the self-esteem movement. They have
shown in over 15 years of research that praising
intelligence and ability puts kids into a FIXED MINDSET, and it backfires.
It limits them. It makes them afraid of challenges.”
“Praising and encouraging the process that the child engages in is
really productive. By “process I mean the strategies the child
uses, the effort put in, the persistence, or even taking on a
challenging task is admirable. The
more you focus kids on the process of learning and improving, the more they will welcome challenges and stick to them.”
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Put emphasis on learning on improvement, not on results. “YET, is a growth mindset word and a great response
to a struggling student or athlete that exclaims THAT THEY ARE NOT GOOD AT a
skill, subject like Math, etc.”
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“Keep your child focused on growing their brain through doing hard things and
sticking to them. (the same for athletic skills) This is the greatest gift you
can give them. It will server them throughout their lives.”
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Creation of a Growth Mindset can be aided by “self-talk” or thought phrases
through which children are encouraged to use in various situations. Below is
list of some positive phrases to REPLACE the negative self-talk or thought.
WHAT CAN I SAY TO MYSELF?
Instead of: Try
thinking
I’m not good at this. What
am I missing?
I’m awesome at this. I’m
on the right track.
I give up. I’ll
use a different strategy.
This is too hard. This
will take time and effort.
I can’t make this any better. I
can always improve, so keep trying.
I just can’t do math. I’m going to
train my brain for math.
I made a mistake. Mistakes
help me learn better.
She is so smart. I’ll never be that smart. I
‘m going to figure out how she does it
so
I can try it.
Plan A didn’t work. Good
thing there are more plans.
It’s good enough. Is
it really my best work?
NEXT
POST: Using Mindsets, Efforts, Fear of
Change and Comfort Zones in developing athletes.
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