26 - Building a Growth Mindset in Dancers

So first, I want to talk about why mindset matters.

Mindset is what impacts our performance.

It dictates behavior.

So the question is, how do we teach students to actually love challenge instead of fearing them? Because if your mindset is not in the place to be accepting of challenge and it's in the mindset of like, I can't do this or I'm never going to be good at this, it's really hard to welcome challenge and therefore it's harder to build resilience.

So today we're going to explore four key ways to help our students do that, to help them love challenge.

Number one is to expose students to challenges.

Two is to teach students to be intrigued by mistakes.

Three is teach students to enjoy effort.

And four, teach students to enjoy learning by setting the example for them.

So during the Dance Sun training, I started recognizing moments where my own teachers had actually been doing these things and were showing these habits, even though I didn't realize it at the time.

So let's dive in to how we can do this ourselves as teachers.