“I’ve been kicked off every team before I even got a chance to prove myself,” laments Eddie Edwards in Eddie the Eagle.
Not that it stops him pursuing his unlikely dream of becoming an Olympian. Quite the opposite.
Though blessed with little natural athletic ability, Eddie won hearts through his never-say-die attitude and sheer determination to pursue his dream. And he did it by role-modelling a growth mindset.
Mindset
In Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, Stanford University professor Carol Dweck shows how belief in your abilities has a strong impact on your success.
With a fixed mindset, you believe your qualities are set in stone, and there’s little you can do to improve them.
But with a growth mindset, you believe the natural talent life deals you is just a starting point: everyone can change and grow their abilities through application and experience.
Dweck’s research shows that people who adopt a growth mindset have more positive outcomes in life.
In the illustration you can see how people with different mindsets approach key performance criteria like challenges, obstacles and effort.
So how does Eddie role model a growth mindset in each of these areas?
Challenges
For a boy with little athletic talent, there are few more daunting challenges than becoming an Olympian. But that doesn’t put Eddie off. He recognises that doing your best is the only option, even if it results in failure.
His desire to take on new challenges and prove himself leads him to attempt the dangerous 90-metre jump at the Olympics, despite never having jumped from that height before.
Obstacles
Eddie faces a barrage of obstacles in pursuing his dream, many of which look insurmountable. But he persists regardless.
When bluntly told by the wonderfully-named selector Dustin Target that he’ll never become an Olympic downhill skier, Eddie refocuses on a new sport: ski jumping.
When the selectors change the Olympic qualification rules in a bid to deter him, he borrows his parents’ camper van and joins the European ski jumping circuit in a bid to achieve the minimum distance required.
Effort
To his elite ski jumping competitors, Eddie is a dangerously naive interloper. But he wins them over with his sheer effort to develop his abilities and become a competent jumper. He’s not afraid to look silly by trying.
Eddie’s attitude contrasts sharply with his mentor, former Olympian Bronson Peary (played by Hugh Jackman). Peary has abundant natural talent, enough to execute a flawless night jump while drunk. Yet according to his coach, he never understood that natural talent was not enough without hard work.
Criticism
Eddie laps up useful feedback, reading whatever he can get his hands on, pestering fellow jumpers for tips and relentlessly hounding Peary to train him.
He also uses unhelpful criticism – such as being constantly reminded that he’s 16 years too late to start ski jumping – as a motivator. He has an innate desire to prove people wrong. It’s this desire that gives him the courage to take on his first 90-metre jump, with the eyes of the world watching.
Success of others
Eddie takes inspiration from other ski jumpers, not least the ‘flying Finn’ Matti Nykanen. He’s genuinely supportive of the other jumpers – a feeling often not reciprocated. While that may be because Eddie isn’t threatened by his competitors, you get the feeling that he’d encourage and learn from his fellow jumpers even if he was a genuine medal contender.
Of course, adopting a growth mindset doesn’t imply that anyone can achieve any goal. We’re all limited to some extent by our natural abilities and circumstances. Eddie recognised he would never become Olympic champion, but a growth mindset led him to truly inspiring achievements.
The great thing about our mindset is that we can change it. So think about your own challenges: are there any areas of your life where you’re stuck in a fixed mindset?
Adopt a growth mindset and perhaps you too can soar like an eagle…
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very nice movie its real story so i love it. my ratting for this movie 8/10