The glimmer of fresh snow always reminds us of the sparkle in a dancer’s eye just before mastering a new skill. Something about that light fosters that all-encompassing feeling of belief and purpose that nothing can refute. It makes us feel like we can do anything, and when we feel that way, everything just seems to go our way.
Don’t you wish we could bottle it up and sprinkle that feeling wherever it’s needed? That for every time that self-doubt came sliding in, or a new challenge pranced its way toward us, we could just un-stopper that bottle and sprinkle that little glimmer of belief in ourselves? What if we could bring the magic of this season with us on the murkier days, when the sparkling snow is mixed with mud, and that self-belief turns to self-doubt?
What’s amazing is that, while maybe we can’t exactly bottle it up or sprinkle it, we definitely can work to train our brains, and our dancers, to create it. And it’s not just wishful thinking or magic; it’s science.
Neuroscientists have shown that we can essentially rewire our brains to believe in ourselves, and this belief actually improves our outcomes, whether it is dance, school, work, or goals beyond those areas of our lives.
Something that we love about the science of neural rewiring is that it uses these three tools that are standard practice in our dance classes at Prestige Dance Academy:
1 – Celebrating the Small Wins
Sure, there is a plethora of incredible, large achievements that our dancers conquer every day, but they all come from first starting with the progressions. Each big, tricky move has a ton of smaller skills leading up to them—and we celebrate all of them. From learning the difference between right and left, to learning to spot our head, to that fabulous triple pirouette, you can bet that everyone has heard the dance-teacher-cheer, “you did it!”
You may have heard it so many times that the cheers may seem insignificant from the outside, especially if the skill seems “easy” to someone else, but research shows that they are doing big work in training our brain for success.
The celebration of the skill floods that new brain pathway with dopamine and serotonin because of the joy and sense of accomplishment, and these neurotransmitters strengthen that new connection. On top of that, when we have these smaller steps that are easier to accomplish to work our way up to the larger skills, we essentially train our brain to know that we can overcome obstacles simply because we have overcome all of the ones thus far.
2 – Practicing Positive Self-Talk
It may seem simple, but when your dance teachers help you reword your struggles, it can change the way your brain makes connections. How we word things in our minds when speaking to ourselves can change our outlook from something solid, heavy, and unmovable to something more fluid that can be approached from different angles. This is the shift between a “fixed” mindset and a “growth” mindset.
In dance classes, we see this all the time. Sometimes students can get discouraged and say that they “can’t do it,” and their teachers will encourage them to instead say that they are “still learning it.” This shift allows the dancers’ brains to keep those attempted neural pathways building, rather than allowing the negative talk to pinch it off as a foregone conclusion. Studies have shown that thinking even one positive word on repeat while attempting a strenuous task can increase your strength drastically, and at Prestige, we work hard to bring those positive words out into the open so that they become our dancers’ inner default.
3 – Working as a Team
At Prestige, our community is like family. We work together and we celebrate together and we challenge each other to new heights. Our dancers and our staff are for each other, not in competition with each other. Science shows that wiring your brain for success comes more easily within a community, and this is a dance studio that puts community at the heart of everything. From each first toe tap to international awards, we work as one, side-by-side, to support our dance community’s dreams.
So, keep that fresh-snow sparkle in your eye, and as our hearts fill with the joyful belief this season inspires, remember the power that your belief has when it comes to training your brain for success. Whatever that looks like for you, know that we will be with you every step of the way.
Happy holidays.
The Prestige Team