Why your ____ problem might be a mindset problem💪🔥

As always I am neck deep in another coaching course. This one comes with some required reading and I am reading Carol Dweck’s Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. 

It’s an amazing book and definitely worth the read if you’re looking for a paradigm shifting book. 

Dweck has dedicated most of her life to researching why some people tend to use adversity as a reason to quit and others use it as fuel to their fire. 

Reading this book also coincides at a time where I am working with a lot of clients who experience chronic pain. 

There are a lot of parallels. 

Did you know that often times those that have chronic pain may (pain lasting longer than 3 months) still experience a pain signal even in the absence of tissue damage? 

The conventional advice that we are often given by well meaning physicians is that “if it hurts” we shouldn’t use the affected area. 

This advice is great for an acute injury (sudden injury that occurs due to a traumatic event) but is horrible advice in the long term because it often stops people from doing activities that they love. 

Activities that they identify with. 

Suddenly they have a “bad back”, “bad knee”, “bad shoulder” and can’t do “X,Y, Z” less use of the “bad area” results in weakening of the muscles and supporting structures which leads to further confirmation of their inability to use XYZ along with new injuries from compensations and a loss of sense of self from having to stop and activity that they love. 

So then what am I saying? 

If you have a “bad back” should you throw caution to the wind and start doing heavy deadlifts like a crazy person with reckless abandon? Should you keep doing what you love and hope the injury magically gets better? 

Not necessarily because part of “getting out of” chronic pain is learning your individual tolerance and capacity in certain movements and also resting for a period (but not forever!)

Then you have to find the right combination of exercises and do them consistently for the right period and progress them to build resilience.

Your journey to having a strong back again from a “bad” back might look like starting off with stretching/ feeling safe with gentle stretches and core exercises, progressing into being comfortable  with bodyweight hip hinging then gradual progressive loading. 

Every one has a different starting point. Lifestyle factors matter as well. If you spend 1 hour in the gym working on things to make your back feel good then 12 hours in a chair where everything gets tight again then that hour won’t do a lot. 

The point in all of this is that we can have a growth mindset in certain areas of our life and a fixed mindset in others. 

A growth mindset says that with effort and opportunity we can improve our situation. 

A fixed mindset says there is nothing we can do about it 

A fixed mindset may be the single biggest problem we face today in the world as it impacts so many facets of everyday life. From politics to chronic pain and our nations health issues. 

A fixed mindset blames others for our lack of ability.

A growth mindset uses effort to improve our ability. 

In life there are many things outside of our control, but there are many that are within. 

In my own life I struggle with a fixed mindset around my ability to navigate conflict, certain business aspects, and other things. 

I am pretty growth minded regarding education and physical abilities. 

What about you? 

Where do you have a growth mindset? 

What about a fixed one? 


-Michael