Progress Over Perfection
4 Ways to Embrace a ‘Growth Mindset’
Practice Makes Perfect: A phrase we have all heard a million times (especially in the dance studio). This is one of the oldest mottos used in studio culture but when you really think about it, is perfection even possible? We are placing unattainable expectations on ourselves, our dancers, and our children. At The 360 we focus on creating an environment where progress is valued over perfection.
What is progress?
Progress is small incremental wins that don’t seem significant at the time and only when looking back on where you started can you see the improvements. I think back to when I was learning time steps in tap class; you have to learn the basic steps (hop, flap, step) before you can string them together to perform something more difficult. The more progress you make, the greater the improvements you can experience. This progress or growth mindset is especially important to dancers because it is how we can grow without the unattainable perfectionist end goal.
4 Tools To Embrace a ‘Growth Mindset’
Every step forward matters:
No matter how big or small, each step you take towards improving deserves to be celebrated. By celebrating every step forward, you are reframing your mindset away from success or failure and towards positive growth in your art. For example, imagine that you have competed your solo at the first competition of the year and it didn’t go as well as planned. To move forward and work on the growth you need to leave the scores behind and focus on the critiques from the judges. Pick one critique and focus on improving that singular element of your dance. At the next competition, your score begins to increase because that element was performed at a higher quality than before. If you utilize your judges' critiques in this way each competition, imagine the improvement you could see over a whole competition season!
Perfection isn’t interesting:
This is a phrase that I’ve heard from my father my whole life. I have taken this mantra into my professional career as a dancer and found my perfectionist mentality has no space on the stage. In live theatre, you can plan and rehearse until you are blue in the face but when you get out on stage in front of thousands of people, you just don’t know what is going to happen. For a long time, this was terrifying to me. I wanted everything to be absolutely perfect but as I let go of that feeling I began to enjoy performing more. When something goes wrong and you can overcome it, it shows how strong your team is and gives you something special to celebrate together.
Just because something isn’t perfect doesn’t mean it isn’t good enough:
Getting a dance from the mind of a choreographer to the stage is an incredibly challenging task. Now imagine putting perfectionist limitations on the process. The choreographer would never be able to set the piece because the choreography wouldn’t be perfect in their mind or wouldn’t fit perfectly on the dancers. The teacher would never register the dance for a competition or add it to the recital lineup because it wasn’t perfectly clean. The dancers would never perform the dance because they could never achieve perfect technique with every move. It is easy to become frustrated at any step of this process and give up or come to the conclusion that you are not good enough. But when you are focusing on a growth mindset, you are able to release some of the control over the situation and know that over time, if you are putting in the work, it will improve. In the studio, there comes a point when you have to let go of the perfectionist mindset and trust that your hard work and improvements are enough to give you a stellar performance.
Reframe being perfect with doing better next time:
Growing up, I was taught in my studio that we were competing against all of the other dancers that were entered that weekend at a competition. Technically, that is a true statement but you aren’t competing against the exact same dances every weekend so there is no way to measure success or improvement. As a dance teacher, I now strive to teach my competitive students that the only person you can truly compete against weekend to weekend is yourself. When you are competing against yourself, you get to define success. This is an extremely freeing principle when you really think about it. You no longer need to work for other people’s expectations or judgments, you have a clear sense of what winning means to you. Did you fall out of your final turn sequence in the group dance last week? This week you are going to work on the skills to nail it at comp next weekend. Once you nail that specific step, you can go away feeling like a winner even if you didn’t walk away with the first-place trophy.
When preparing to compete at The 360 Competition, strive to embrace a growth mindset and leave the perfectionist behind. Dance is a beautiful art form that is completely subjective. If you danced the same dance on a different day for different judges, your scores would be completely different. Know that the scores don’t matter as much as your growth from year to year at The 360.
We are excited to introduce a “Progress Over Perfection Scholarship” in our 2025 season. These scholarships will be awarded to dancers in each city who have shown the most growth from year to year. Will this be you? Sign up for a regional event near you to show us how much you’ve grown.