The importance of mindset

One of the positives that I’ve been able to take out of this pandemic is that it finally pushed me to start teaching myself how to play guitar. Our friend left his guitar at our house three years ago and it has sat in its case staring at me while collecting dust. I’ve always been a huge music fan but somehow over the years I’d convinced myself that I wasn’t musical. I grew up with an extremely musically talented group of friends, most of which started playing in bands in junior high school or earlier. As we grew up, I spent a lot of nights at bonfires drinking beer and singing along while my buddies passed the guitar around until FAR too early in the morning. With a million and one opportunities to learn from them, all I really gathered were plenty of headaches from the beer. My singing voice didn’t seem to improve much either.

It wasn’t until I started reading Mindset by Dr. Carol S. Dweck that I started to realize why I kept putting off learning the guitar. I was stuck in a “fixed” mindset. This is exactly the type of mindset I described when saying that I simply wasn’t musical. It implies that skills and traits are inherent rather than learned. In my friend group I was more on the athletic side while most of my friends were more musical. Were we born that way? Was it simply genetic? That’s an easy explanation for someone who doesn’t want to put the work in to get better at something, but it certainly isn’t the truth. Sure, to a certain extent your biology determines your starting point and your ceiling for many skills and activities. It would be foolish to think that if I worked as hard as Lebron I’d be in the NBA by now. I’m 5’9”. It would take a miracle. But with the right amount of practice I could have a much better jumpshot than I do now.

What I learned from Dr. Dweck is that most people who have longstanding success in life have adopted a “growth” mindset rather than a fixed one. They see skills as something to be honed, nurtured, and grown rather than something you were born with. And most importantly, they see failure as an opportunity to improve rather than a fault of your own. These are the people you see shooting pucks for hours after a tough loss, practicing their scales until their neighbors complain, and taking feedback in stride rather than taking offence. Why do we hail the successful as being born talented rather than driven, committed, and hard working? To me, their stories are even more impressive once you hear the years of work behind them.

I preach the growth mindset to patients as often as possible. I constantly hear them make statements like “I’ve got a bad back”, “My core is weak”, or “I'll never be flexible” as if they are unchangeable facts of life. All these things can be improved with a bit of work, but if we give up on the structure itself how will we ever get better?

I’ve been playing guitar five days a week for three months now. Even on the days I don’t feel like playing I’ll pick it up and noodle around for a few minutes to maintain the habit. Last week one of my friends and I played together for the first time. We played FAR too early into the morning, and I woke up with a headache that MAY have been beer related. The big difference this time around? My fingers hurt like crazy and I'd learned five new songs!

If you’d like to learn more about the growth mindset, I’d highly recommend picking up Mindset by Dr. Carol S. Dweck. It’s a great springboard into changing your thinking and starting some new habits!

#growth #inspiration #mustread