When progress seems invisible
Do you celebrate successes in the moment?
My daughter has a dance recital this weekend. I love dance recital weekend! I loved it when I was a kid, performing in multiple shows myself, and I love it now, as a “Dance Mom” to a proud performer. There’s something so magical about putting months of hard work onstage for an audience—about showing off what you’ve learned, about overcoming nerves, about smiling into the bright lights and experiencing well-earned applause.
But before the show comes all of the prep and practice.
On Wednesday, after her last regular jazz class of the year, I had a chat with my daughter that stuck with me. I complimented her on a particularly clean single pirouette I’d happened to glimpse from the waiting room. In response, my kid basically said, “Yeah, I’m good at pirouettes.” As casual as that! When I reminded her that a few months ago, she couldn’t do a pirouette at all, she shrugged. All she cared about, in that moment, was that she felt good at them now.
Maybe it’s just me, but I think it’s a lot harder to feel that casual certainty as an adult.
To experience pure, unadulterated confidence in your own abilities.
Because it’s so much easier to get stuck in the difficulty of it all. Progress often seems incremental—or even invisible—for ages and ages, which can make it hard to recognize it when it actually manifests. Also, there may be a tendency to mentally leap ahead to the next difficult thing, without pausing to acknowledge a moment of success as it happens. There’s the tough past and the possibly-even-more-challenging future—but what about what’s working in the here and now?
Yeah, I’m good at pirouettes.
I want to feel that.
Of course, there is a ton of value in looking back at the winding path you took to get to the present, confident moment. The pirouette conversation reminded me of when my daughter was learning to swim the backstroke—how hard she fought and flailed before, one day, it all finally clicked, and she could do it. I still bring that swim-class journey up when she’s struggling with learning something new (cartwheels, correct punctuation, division with remainders…).
But there’s also plenty of value in simply recognizing what you’re doing well, as you’re doing it. Feeling good about yourself now, regardless of how hard (or easy!) the skill was to come by, and no matter what further challenges lie ahead.
I’ll keep it short and sweet this week, because I want to hear from you! What are you sure you’re doing well right now? What are you feeling confident about? Hype yourself up in the comments!
I’ll start: I really do like the project I’m working on these days, converting a chapter book into a graphic novel script. I think the story, even in first-draft form, is clever and fun, and I’m proud that I came up with the idea.
How about you?
~Kathryn