CONCLUSION

Knowledge is only valuable when it is applied. Reading this book is a good first step along the path to developing the talent and skills of your athletes. Now it is time to apply it in practice on the field, in the gym, on the track or in the water.

It is impossible to instantly understand, remember and apply all the information in this book. If you want to succeed over the next few weeks in understanding exactly what a growth mindset is and which athletes display which behavioural indicators, then you have made a good start. When you want to get down to it, you can also influence their behaviour with the help of the behavioural indicators of Chapter 2. With the teaching principles in Chapter 3, you can create a learning culture within your environment by encouraging a growth mindset in a sustainable way.

During that process, keep this book close by. We have discussed the theory of why it is important to encourage a growth mindset, and also deliberately included a lot of practical advices. By coming back and searching a few pages now and again for a specific behavioural indicator or teaching principle, you will find once again what was important and what you need to think about.

We have done our best to present in this book as fully as possible what happens when you try to encourage a growth mindset. We are, however, aware that ‘as fully as possible’ is not the same thing as ‘completely’. We have described eleven behavioural indicators and twelve teaching principles, but there are probably (many) more. So please use this book as a starting point and be creative yourself in expanding the belief in the ability of your athletes to develop. Let us know how you managed to succeed in doing this! But we are also interested in the mistakes and the anecdotes while trying/implementing. Because mistakes are not the opposite of success, they are part of it.