How the winner mentality is modeled

"I have failed many times, so I became the best" Michael Jordan

American psychologist Carol Dweck said that not possessing a special talent makes a sportsman reach his full potential and implicitly his goals, but the way he interprets his own talent as fixed or cultivable. The mindset of fixed talent takes into account the fact that with the talent you inherit, you also receive a "guarantee certificate" of success, the athlete having no reason to work as hard because by comparison with other athletes he is unique and complete. The mentality of the talent cultivated by the effort takes into account the fact that focusing the attention on the process of personal development continues on the basis of effort, conscious training, sacrifices and total dedication can transform the talent from a high level to a higher level.

Why in some cultures this mentality of cultivated effort is a social cultural value and in others not? Sociologically speaking, Hofstede (a Swedish sociologist who studied the sociology of values) believes that at world, community or organizational level, the world is divided according to the basic values ​​and principles. Value is represented by the ultimate purpose of the actions of individuals as defining elements for social life. Human values ​​(as principles) have the necessary force to transfer these abstract concepts into attitudes towards themselves, towards others, towards work and towards life in general. Values ​​as principles cannot be directly observed, they are constituted in conceptions of what is socially desirable, and can be assimilated in our process of aspiration to a reference group. Hofstede identified five dimensions of values ​​as follows: a) distance to power (small distance implies continuous legitimation of power-identified in highly democratic cultures and great distance to power-identified in totalitarian cultures), b) avoidance of uncertainty or insecurity (totalitarian cultures control social relations and freedom of expression to avoid uncertainty), c) individualism versus collectivism, d) cultural masculinity versus cultural feminization and e) long-term versus short-term orientation. Hofstede considers, based on his longitudinal researches, that a high performance culture in any field bears the characteristics of the values ​​of small distance to power (you must constantly come up with the best arguments to justify your authority), accepting uncertainty (accept that you should not to be concerned about the opinions of others towards you but continue to take risks related to growth), individualism (to learn how to learn to grow, along with assuming growth responsibilities), acceptance of diversity and long-term orientation (ability to postpone the gratification or reward as a force of self-control). The mentality of cultivated effort is gaining ground in the cultural context of these values.

What does it represent and how can we cultivate such a mentality?

The growth mindset implies an orientation of personal values ​​towards the effort, towards the postponement of the gratification, towards the constant tendency to go beyond the personal limits and the talent beyond the current situation. It involves identifying the athlete with his ideal and the constant pursuit of reaching this ideal through the tolerance of uncertainty (taking risks of failing, laughing or not reaching your proposed goal). In the vision of this mentality, the effort is what makes you a good athlete, the effort makes you remember that you can overcome the challenges. Success is reaching and exceeding your limits, learning and developing new skills. The success goes beyond reaching performance goals, and is focused especially on the continuous process of climbing the athlete, through responsibility, on the scale of his self-departure.

As for the ideal colleague or ideal coach, they aim to take personal limitations and personal failures and continually challenge them to overcome them. I remember the Champions League final in Istanbul when Milan paused to lead Liverpool 3-0. Any team on the face of the Earth would have said: "it's not our day", "today they are better than us", "they have more dedicated players". But not the players of Liverpool or Middlesborough (in the semi-final with Star).

These players have found in their consciousness this value of the effort that leads to psychic resilience. In this mentality, failure (any result still unfinished) translates only to "Not yet, more effort!", "Believe in your chance! Follow your goal!", My attitude is my only obstacle! ". Where did the athletes with this effort mentality find value? The workout. In those situations of maximum difficulty when they were appreciated especially for the effort. Why effort and not talent? Because talent is innate, you have no merit for it and being appreciated for something that has nothing to do with your choices or your character is useless. But the appreciation of sacrifice, decisions, convictions, character shows on the one hand that the one who appreciates the effort knows and shares the valences of the character and at the same time wants to cultivate them. Also, appreciating the effort shows that focusing on what you can control, and focusing on what you can control, will track how talent (which was initially fixed) begins to discover new valences (becomes cultivated). The competitive character (winner's mentality) is a new concept consisting of 4 dimensions: self-control, dedication, challenge and trust. Self-control involves the ability to control your impulses, emotions, thoughts, and to delay gratification (reward, self-gratification, appreciation of talent). Dedication means you have a dream that you have not given up yet. You have an ambition and an objective that become personal passions, which removes other transient passions from the field of priorities and you dedicate yourself completely to this mission. The challenge is that you can do more and you want more, that your project is not finished, that you have not said the last word and you still believe in your growth. That change is better than stability, that uncertainty can be tolerated, that they can postpone gratification for an even greater reward. Confidence is a consequence of these three characteristic attitudes related to performance and comes with the belief that dedication, self-control and challenge (self-sacrifice) will give the expected result (victory or achievement of personal goals). Growth minded athletes will play as intensely as weak teams or weak opponents and with good teams or good opponents. Why? They will look for new challenges and will try to cultivate or maintain the winning mentality. They are not defined by a result from the table, but the definition of their identity is given by this continuous process of perfectibility through trainability. It is not the situations that define them as athletes, but they are the ones that define the situations. They have this belief that they constantly have a choice, and that their success in sports will be given by the choices they make. This trainability can be conceptualized by Michael Jordan's words: "I have failed countless times, so I became the best." Its conceptualization converts failure or error into a new challenge.

Sports psychologist Dr Ioan Popoviciu