“In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.” —Albert Einstein

A growth mindset is where an individual believes that they can improve and talents can be learned and developed through hard work, effort and persistence. A fixed mindset is someone who believes that their talent and skill are innate and something they are born with. Fixed mindset children tend to stick to what they already know as it feels comfortable, and they don’t like to work hard at things they are not good at. This might be because they don’t like the feelings associated with failure and don’t like to look like they can’t do it. A big problem with a fixed mindset is that children who believe that they are not naturally talented, as they believe talent is natural, is that they don’t really see the point in trying and are eventually likely to give up. This is compounded if children compare themselves to others, either in reality or on social media.

So many actions and decisions can be put into one or the other of the two categories. Unfortunately, a lot of the time, the default pathway seems to be heading towards a fixed mindset. A lot of the actions and the things we say actually help develop a fixed mindset. As you will see in some upcoming chapters, many of these actions are done with the best intentions, making awareness of the subject vital. Awareness means you can start to make some simple changes to keep your child along the path of a growth mindset.

Fixed – They don’t see a direct link between hard work, training and improvement. They think talent and ability are a given thing and are natural. “Either you have it, or you don’t.”

Growth – They understand that hard work, purposeful practice, challenges and making mistakes will help them improve, learn and grow.

I am not a scientist, but it’s my belief that we are all born with a certain amount of potential, and I think it’s almost impossible to fulfil that potential with a fixed mindset. I have included a table of children’s beliefs on page 452 that I use at my soccer school. Be aware of the warning signs in red and take every opportunity possible to encourage, develop, nurture and reinforce the attributes and behaviours in yellow. This whole book is really about staying out of the red and in the yellow to create the right foundations and environment for your child to fulfil their individual potential. If a child stays in the yellow, loves the game, and practices correctly as an individual as well as part of a team, then they have every chance of fulfilling their potential. The trouble is a lot of parental behaviours, and actions inadvertently push children towards the red.

Even the title of this book, Did You Win, Did You Score…? was chosen as it’s an example of enforcing a fixed mindset. Picture the scene: your child comes home from football, and most often, the first questions they are asked are, “Did you win, and did you score?” Your child now subconsciously believes that these are the two most (or the only) important things. It doesn’t matter if they played well or if they put lots of effort in, only if they won or if they scored. This message can eventually lead a child to try to cut corners. They desperately want to say that they won and scored, so they might only want to play as an attacking player and only want to play in teams that win. If they do not do these things regularly, their enjoyment can suffer. Over time it might develop into egocentric behaviour, with the child actually preferring to play in a poor standard league just to win matches and have more chance of scoring or, worse still, quitting the game altogether.

Please get out of the habit of asking these types of questions. I know they are innocent, and we have all done it, but try a different approach based on positive behaviours rather than outcomes beyond their control. For instance, ask if they enjoyed playing, if they tried hard, and even how many chances they created for their friends. Always enforce the behaviour rather than the outcome. So, if they scored, acknowledge the effort, such as, “All that hard work is paying off.” If things haven’t gone well, asking how they think they can improve is much more helpful than a “better luck next time” approach. Luck probably had nothing to do with it, and being unlucky is an easy excuse and a bad habit to get into.

If you really want what’s best for your child, teach them to love challenges, enjoy effort (as anything you achieve is only rewarding if it took effort to achieve it) and accept mistakes as how we learn and improve. Otherwise, they will just become slaves to the praise and seek shortcuts and the path of least resistance to get it. If you get this bit right, your child will get more out of the sport, play longer, have more fun and be far likelier to develop confidence.

At the professional club I’m currently working at, we have found that one of our biggest challenges is players who don’t cope very well with or avoid challenges. Many players have developed a fear of making mistakes and prefer to stay in their comfort zone and not take risks. Taking risks and making mistakes are vital components of the learning process.

Do not overly protect your child from stressful situations and challenges; teach them to embrace them as part of the journey and an important part of growing. Humans grow under stress. In the same way our muscles grow when subjected to stress, our minds do too.

High performance in football, like most sports, is not about making the least mistakes but how a player reacts to the ones they do make. Mistakes are inevitable. Adversity is unavoidable. What separates the also-rans from the champions is how they deal with that adversity in the long run and how they react to the emotion in the moment. If a player lacks resilience, they are likely to not take risks and react badly to the emotion of making mistakes. Players like this are very likely to make more mistakes immediately after the first one in a snowball-type situation and go hiding, either metaphorically or literally! I remember a goalkeeper of mine once, only about nine years of age, making a mistake and conceding a goal in a semi-final. He simply couldn’t handle the emotion and stood by his post, refusing to play. We kicked off, and the other team won the ball back and shot into an empty unguarded net with the keeper refusing to move! Please allow your kids to fail, to make mistakes and to take responsibility for them to build resilience or, on occasions like this, when there is nobody else to blame, they can really struggle to cope with failure. One of the biggest gifts we can give our children is the opportunity to develop resilience.

Success at anything pretty much depends on how long we’re prepared to be rubbish or average. Certainly, to master something, you have to have the courage to be rubbish at it at first, and, as parents, we need to also have the courage and patience to have a child who’s rubbish for a while. Unfortunately, a lot of children tend not to want to work at anything for very long. They want instant gratification and instant success. Most parents and coaches do as well, unfortunately, so it’s something you really need to be aware of and take action to help develop a growth mindset, as fixed mindset people only really seek validation and not personal growth. Help your child to improve themselves and not have to prove themselves.

If your child says they can’t do something, then help them to reframe it into something that they can’t do yet. There’s always a messy middle bit between starting something and achieving it. It’s not that they can’t do it, it’s just that they are caught up in the messy middle bit at that moment, the bit where they struggle. Struggle is good because that’s where the learning is done. If they keep going through the struggle, then they will succeed. This is why children who have passion for the game, work hard and embrace challenges will always develop the furthest given the right guidance and direction. Hard work without passion is just hard work. Passion without hard work is just passion. The two need to entwine to be successful at anything.

Children with a fixed mindset will often not risk anything that doesn’t guarantee success as they judge themselves solely on achievement and external validation. You must not praise children solely for their talent or for being good players. You must praise them for their process-based behaviours, such as hard work, preparation, training, practice, perseverance, commitment and dedication, if you want them to develop a growth mindset. This could well be the most important takeaway from this entire book! I strongly urge you to read Dr Carol Dweck’s book – Mindset; it might just change your (and your child’s) life.

Failure is part of the process and should be viewed with curiosity rather than something to be avoided. In fact, if it wasn’t for failure, this very book wouldn’t exist. I’m not just talking about the chapters I’ve written on failure, possible failures, and how to embrace them, but for myself personally. If I hadn’t failed in other career pathways, then I would have been doing something completely different right now. Things that at the time seemed catastrophic I am now grateful for.

Average is a common disease. It’s the default option for most of us. Most of us settle for average. The mind will seek out the comfortable route in life, the easy option. It tries to protect us from discomfort and steer us away from any struggle. Unfortunately, it is through being uncomfortable and struggling that most growth and learning are done. It is how resilience is built, and it is the resilience we all need to be able to achieve anything worthwhile—whether that be in sport, business or any other walk of life. Look at any successful person in life and they will have had to have got there through struggle. In fact, if it wasn’t for the struggle, then they wouldn’t have got very far at all. It’s hard to build resilience in our children as we all want to make things easy for them and give them everything they need. The one thing they really need is the one thing we cannot give them, resilience. We can help facilitate it, though, by making our children earn things and teaching them the values of hard work, effort, and, to quote a word from a previous manager I worked with at Charlton Athletic, Iain Dowie, “bouncebackability”.

Getting the balance right between creating pressure-free environments to facilitate creativity, and applying a bit of pressure to help children grow, is a difficult one for coaches. As children get older, they should be subjected to more pressure situations. Not particularly pressure to win, but pressure to do their best and work hard. It is a skill in itself for a coach to know when to put some pressure on a player and when to take pressure off them. This should be done with the individual in mind and not the team. Life is full of pressures, and sport is a good opportunity to apply some to help build resilience. They will be under pressure soon enough to choose their education options and sit exams. If they have experienced performing under pressure through sport, then they could well be more likely to perform well under pressure in other areas of life. Too much pressure, though, and the fun could go out of it, leading them to quit the game. It’s not easy, but as a parent, be aware of situations where you can explore a bit of pressure without ruining the fun. Being a professional footballer is full of pressure. It is often the ones who can perform the best under pressure that are successful. But this goes for other areas of life too. The person who performs best under pressure in a job interview will probably get the job, and whoever performs best under pressure in a presentation is more likely to seal the business deal.

I know many of you might be thinking that it can’t be that important, as players were fulfilling their potential long before anyone had ever heard of a growth mindset. In previous generations, a lack of a growth mindset awareness didn’t matter as much as today because children invariably played in the streets and playgrounds without adult interference. They could express themselves, make mistakes and overcome challenges naturally. Nowadays, in an ever-changing world, these unorganised pick-up games are becoming a thing of the past. Now children are at the mercy of one or two coaches that they will see for just one or two hours a week and the influence of their parents.

People often ask me what the one piece of advice I would give if I could only give one is. Or, what’s the one golden rule or best piece of advice I can give? The answer is that the only golden rule is that there are no golden rules! However, if I had to choose one aspect for parents to look into, then it would be the growth mindset. Concentrate on the process of personal development rather than the outcomes of matches and help them to develop a growth mindset. Know your child’s reasons for playing and their end game vision, and match your actions to it. Also, make sure they are matching their own actions to it and that their club is the right place to facilitate it. There are lots more on this throughout the book.

Not everyone can be a professional, and not everyone can be the next Messi or Ronaldo, but with a growth mindset, a child can fulfil their own potential and have a very meaningful and enjoyable journey. In my mind, the most important aspect of all is mindset. And the greatest thing about mindset is that it doesn’t cost you a penny to help develop and nurture it. It takes thought and a bit of time to learn how to do it, but it’s totally free, and anyone can do it! A child’s mindset is the single biggest determining factor in not only success on the pitch but a happy and fulfilled life away from it. The following three chapters will help you further to facilitate the development of a growth mindset.

“In the beginner’s mind, there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s mind, there are few.” —Shunryu Suzuki

This blog was taken from my book, Did You Win, Did You Score…? How to Help Your Child Succeed at Football and Life.

Available to purchase on Amazon:

http://tinyurl.com/NewBookDetails

Listen to the audio version of this blog (and others) along with my thoughts on the topic here:

Apple Podcasts

Spotify