Coaching Topic: Mindset

What do we mean by the term mindset? 

Mindset is a mental frame or lens that selectively encodes and organises information. We have a lot of information coming at us all the time, and we can’t possibly process it all, so we tend to categorise information. If we’re struggling with something, we might well have the mindset around that particular activity that it’s not something we want to spend time and energy exploring. We will save some energy by dismissing it. So that might be our mindset about, let’s say, swimming as an example. So you might have had the experience as a child of not being able to swim very well and your mindset might be that you’re not going to pursue that anymore. It’s just the narrative that we build up around a particular topic, and it’s not just what we tell ourselves, but perhaps what we’ve heard other people say about us too.

So if we’re around people that are saying, ‘you’re rubbish at that’, we might well stop trying at that point. If we’re around lots of people that are really good at something, that are encouraging us, we may keep trying.

Carol Dweck, a professor of psychology at Stanford University, had the notion of the difference between a growth mindset and a fixed mindset. She primarily works in education, looking at children and the development of children, She came up with the idea of a growth versus fixed mindset back in 1998.

Her idea was that if you have a growth mindset, you are happy to think about how you might develop and that your intelligence isn’t fixed, that you can learn and develop new skills.

If you have a fixed mindset, you just accept that you’re either intelligent or you’re not intelligent, you think that you can’t do anything about it, if you’re not good at something, you just have to accept you’re not good at something.

Her work was primarily with students. And what she found was that the children that had a fixed mindset who then started to struggle with something, for example, maths. They would say, ‘well, I’m not good at maths’. And they’d generally be told they weren’t good at maths. So pretty soon that story would get around that, ‘he’s not good at maths’, and they would just accept that, and that would become their narrative around maths. Those with a growth mindset, whilst they might struggle with maths, would be prepared to continue to work at it, to get better at it, to improve on it, and would be quite happy with that. That’s the fundamental difference between the two. And obviously this is something that could carry on into later life as well. She had the notion that people generally have a fixed mindset or they have a growth mindset.

Fifty years ago people thought the brain was the brain, that it couldn’t change much. Now we understand more about neuroplasticity. We know now that whilst an awful lot of changes happen in that growth stage up until the age of 25, our brain can continue to change well into our 90s. Dweck’s growth mindset work coincided with that research into neuroplasticity and we have evidence for what she is proposing. However, her research suggested that individuals were either of a fixed mindset or a growth mindset, one or the other.

In this article you will see that it’s more nuanced than that.

How is this useful in the coaching room?

We might well have somebody who presents themselves as not being able to do something and they might say, “well, I’ve never been good at that”. You might well start to explore what the narrative is and what their mindset is about that thing. If we help our coachee to do some metacognition, some thinking about their thinking, that’s a really good way to explore what’s going on for them; whether they’re correct in their thinking, whether the mindset they have about a particular endeavour is true or not.

Here’s a coaching conversation between Tom and Helen exploring mindset:

Tom: So tell me something that you are particularly good at.

Helen: Something I’m particularly good at? Well, let’s focus on yoga.

Tom: Yoga.

Helen: Yeah.

Tom: And what is the story that you tell yourself about yoga?

Helen: So I discovered yoga when I was about 18, so quite a long time ago now. And I have a natural aptitude towards it. I’m naturally quite flexible. I still can’t do all the poses. And I have had times where I’ve gone for months where I haven’t done any yoga at all. And when I’ve come back to it, I’ve always felt at home with it, comfortable with it, and I can just do it. That’s not to say it’s without its challenges, but I think I’m good at it and I enjoy it.

Tom: And how do you feel about the challenges?

Helen: I love the challenges because it gives me something to work towards.

Tom: Okay, good. And what do other people say to you about your yoga?

Helen: Some people I know also do yoga. And, you know, we’ll just talk about yoga and how great it is. A lot of other people will be like, oh, no, I couldn’t do that. I’m not flexible. And they immediately shut it down because they think they’re not flexible. And what I know about yoga is, although I am naturally flexible, it is not about being flexible. So it’s about so much more than that.

Tom: Okay, but you have that sort of affirmation from other people that you’re good at yoga?

Helen: Yes, yes. I’ve had feedback from teachers saying that I have good proprioception, awareness of where my body is, good alignment and that kind of thing. You know, even a few weeks ago, someone said, ‘you have a really strong practise.’ So I have the affirmation from teachers and from people that I talk to about yoga. And when someone says they can’t do it, it almost gives me a positive frame because, it’s almost like ‘you’re lucky you can do it’. So there’s something positively affirming about that as well.

Tom: Yeah. And what do you think? You mentioned that you’re naturally quite flexible, but it’s not about that. So what do you think the reasons are that you are good at yoga?

Helen: There is that natural ability. I think also that I appreciate that it’s not about just physicality and that it’s about getting to a place where you can be comfortable in your body, find peace, find balance. Not just physical balance, but balance in your mind, connection. But also it’s the willingness to not be good at it. In that I can’t do all the poses. There are some that I just can’t get past the first stage. There are some that I get to a certain point and I just can’t do the advanced elements of them, and I’m prepared not to do them in their entirety. And I think that willingness to not be perfect at it allows me to just give it a go.

Tom: Yeah. And you were saying that I can’t do certain elements, but it sounds like you can’t do them yet. I think that’s an important element of having a growth mindset is the yet. So working towards things that you can’t do at the moment.

So that’s your mindset around yoga. And it sounds like you have a very well rounded growth mindset about yoga. So let’s think about something else that you’re not good at. Tell me something you’re not good at.

Helen: Well, it’s funny you should mention swimming earlier. Because swimming is not really my thing. I’m not a strong swimmer. If you catch me on a day where I’m not aware of what I’m saying, you might even hear me say I can’t swim.

Tom: Okay.

Helen: Which is actually, factually incorrect. But I’m not a good swimmer.

Tom: So what’s the story you tell yourself around swimming?

Helen: I can’t swim. I can’t float. If I go in the sea, I’m going to get eaten by something. Yeah. And I’m just not a strong swimmer.

Tom: And what do other people say to you about your swimming?

Helen: Well, it’s funny because I think one of the reasons that I didn’t learn to swim from a young age, you know, I think about your grandchildren and they’re taken to the pool on a regular basis, even from being in nappies. That didn’t happen because my mum has a fear of water and can’t swim. So there’s that in contribution to my belief, even though my dad’s a great swimmer. But also when I was in my twenties, I decided to have swimming lessons so that I could do my PADI open and water diving qualification. And I had a group swimming lesson and one of the things I had to do was breaststroke. And the guy just, he tried a few things and then just went, yeah, don’t do that one. So the teacher was telling me I couldn’t do that particular stroke of swimming.

Tom: Even though diving is more about sinking than swimming.

Helen: Yeah. Yeah. But I still had to pass the swim test.

Tom: And you did pass the swim test.

Helen: Yes. And that’s what’s really interesting, isn’t it? I still say I’m not a good swimmer and yet I passed the swim test in order to do my PADI open water and I can do front and back crawl.

Tom: So what do you think the reasons are that you give yourself for not being good at swimming?

Helen: That I can’t do breaststroke, I can’t do the kick, that I struggle to float, which is ridiculous, isn’t it? It’s a ridiculous thing. When I was doing my PADI, I was in a wetsuit. And so in my head I can only float if I’m wearing a wetsuit. Because it gives you buoyancy, right. So I say that I can’t float. And I suppose it’s just been confirmed by a teacher, hasn’t it? Someone in authority has gone yeah, ‘give up on that one’.

Tom: Okay, so it sounds like you’ve got two very different narratives going on. One for yoga and one for swimming.

So if you were to take the mindset that you have around yoga and your exploration of that and were to apply it to swimming, and let’s say you had to write an instruction manual for someone who was learning to swim, let’s say they were going to take part in a triathlon and they needed to swim in order to do that, it’s not really a great passion of theirs, but they need to do it for something. What would you be telling them in that instruction manual?

Helen: Well, that’s really interesting because a few years ago I, I decided that I might do a triathlon.

And I knew I could run because I’d done a half marathon. I knew I could cycle because I trained my body to do mountain biking. I just knew I couldn’t swim, which again, that is what I told myself, which is ridiculous. In a triathlon you do front crawl, I can do front crawl. So, I was looking for one-to-one swimming lessons because my experience of a group swimming lesson was not good. So, if I was telling someone my first step would be find a one to one swimming coach.

Tom: And let’s say they found a one to one swimming coach and we’re still struggling with it. And again, using your growth mindset from your yoga, what would you be telling them about that feeling at the beginning of not being good at it?

Helen: Practise, practise, practise, practise. Because that is the thing that you have to do to get good at it. And we’re always, when we’re at the start of something, we’re always learning but also adapt. And I think that’s one of the things you get from yoga is it’s okay to allow adaptations. Now what this swimming teacher kind of did when I had the group lesson was saying, yeah, don’t do that. But what he was actually saying was to do the breaststroke with a front crawl kick. And I thought that was ridiculous and it felt really uncomfortable and I just sank, in my head. So he was talking about adaptations and in my head, I’ve translated that as ‘Just don’t do breaststroke’. So I think get a one to one tutor. Practise, practise, practise. Be prepared to be bad and be prepared to adapt.

Tom: Good, excellent.

And if you think about your swimming, if we were to ask you, on a scale of 1 to 10, where 1 is I can’t swim and 10 is I’m an excellent swimmer, where would you put yourself on that scale? What would you say?

Helen: Well, do you know, it’d probably be about 6.

Tom: Okay. So that mindset of ‘I can’t swim’ is not. It’s not real.

Helen: No, it is a mindset. 

In this example, Tom took a skill that Helen has elsewhere and explored how she could apply it to this situation. A very Solution Focussed Coaching technique.

Often people coming to the coaching room have developed a mindset of, ‘It’s Too late, because I didn’t do it when I was younger. I couldn’t possibly do it now’.

As an example, Tom had a lovely experience with a lady who was an academic who wanted to be a professor.

She was an associate professor, but there were a couple of levels to get to. She needed to become a reader before she became a professor. And she just kept saying in the coaching room, that she’d just left it too late. She’d had children, taken a career break. She said, ‘I’ve just left it too late. I’ve got all these obstacles in my way’. So that was her mindset about being a professor and we explored that:

 

I asked her “What would you need to do in order to become a professor?”

And she said, “Well, I’d have to become a reader.”

I said, “What would you need to do to become a reader?”

And she said, “I’d have to write a paper that was approved.”

And I said, “How capable are you writing a paper?”

And she said, “Yeah, I could do that.”

 

And suddenly all that fell away, all the leaving it too late fell away and she wrote a paper. She’s now a reader.

We talked about limiting beliefs when we looked at the cognitive behavioural approach to coaching. And it’s the same thing, taking away that mindset of ‘I can’t do that because I’ve left it too late’. It’s a mindset and a limiting belief.

If we talk about who people are and their identity, that can become problematic and add to a fixed mindset. If they believe:

‘I’m not’

‘I’m rubbish’

That shapes their reality.

Whereas if we talk work on increasing self efficacy, mindset can shift. Look at taking those small steps that are going to allow you to reach the place you want to get to. So, How could you do this? What steps could you take? how can you take that first step?

The first step is all you need to do. Because then you’re no longer in a place of ‘I can’t do that’. It’s ‘I can’t do that yet’. But if I carry on doing all the right things, then eventually I’ll be able to do it.

Think About Your Thinking

We will probably all have a fixed mindset about some things and we’ll all have a growth mindset about other things, even if we not thinking in those terms. But what the evidence from the research has shown is that if we teach people about growth mindsets and fixed mindsets, and explore their thinking in the way that we’ve done, people will become aware that it is just a mindset, and that awareness can move taking some action.

Growth Mindset and Imposter syndrome

A lot of people that we see who say they have imposter syndrome are in the position of coming into a new role and feeling a bit like an imposter and wanting to be better, but they’re not there yet. And it’s that word ‘yet’ that we need to focus on. That word ‘yet’ is really powerful when we think about mindset.

If you’re not there yet, there will be steps that you need to take in order to be able where you want to be. We can work on this in the coaching room, and we can do some really good work with our clients around this

If you’re a fan of Hancock’s half hour, you might be familiar with this exchange from The Blood Donor.

Are you a doctor then?

Well, no, not really. I never really bothered

Which brings us on to an important point.

It’s okay to have a mindset of ‘I’m not going to bother with that. It’s not important enough’.

Perhaps you would love to be able to play the piano, but don’t want to go through the effort of learning to play the piano. It’s going to take a long time. It’s going to be hard. So maybe you just decide that you’re not prepared to invest the time and energy.

That’s okay. If you decide you don’t want to pursue an activity, if it’s not important enough to warrant the effort, that’s okay. That might in fact be an outcome of a coaching conversation.

Is it one or the other?

Most people aren’t one or the other. It depends on the circumstances. You might have a child who has a fixed mindset about maths, but actually when they’re gaming, they will have different levels that they’re trying to get to. They will keep working at it to get to the different levels. So they’ll definitely have a growth mindset about gaming. They might never think about it. They’re not doing that metacognition, but they would definitely be working towards getting better at gaming. Every gamer wants to be better at gaming and they will have a growth mindset about it without thinking about it.

If you do come across certain individuals that seem very shut down in their thinking about all sorts of different things it might have become a bit of a pattern of thinking. But it would be very unusual to have someone that was totally fixed in their mindset about everything. And I think that if. If you have that type of person, it’s unlikely that you’d get them in the coaching room.

All the evidence is there that we can change our mindset, and we can do things that we might previously have thought we couldn’t. In the earlier exchange, Helen could see that she has both a growth mindset when it comes to yoga and most things and a fixed mindset when it comes to swimming. We think this is a really useful subject to talk about with our coachees.

Find out more about our Doctors’ Transformational Coaching Diploma  and get in touch if you have any questions about either.