When I was five years old, my ballet teacher taught me a very important lesson. Although I am fuzzy on the exact encounter of which I learned the lesson, I know I did because I have witnessed her teach the same lesson many a time since. When my teacher shows a new move, pose, or phrase, and a student utters the words, “I can’t” as part of their sentence, she all but refuses to listen.

You see, my dance teacher HATES the words “I can’t.” She says that eventually, you are going to get the dance move down, so there is no reason for words to hold you back. Why should two little words hold anyone back from whatever they might be able to accomplish?

I have carried that lesson with me my entire life. I have never told myself “I can’t” do this or that, and I never let anyone tell me the same. Whether it was teachers, friends, or doctors, I ignored the negative words. In fact, when I heard “can’t,” I was only encouraged to push harder.

When I was in middle school, I was diagnosed with a condition that caused muscle tightness. Through years of doctors, consultations, medications, surgeries, and appointments, the end result is that my left foot looks slightly different then my right, and is a little weaker. I had two elective surgeries in the span of three months, and spent several more months working my way back to dancing full time. I only had the surgeries because I was starting to feel pain when I was in dance class, and figured a small corrective surgery would help. In a way, they did.

However, even a few years later, my brain still has some trouble connecting to that left foot. Generally, dancers have high body awareness and have great control of their bodies - I just take a little more time to get phrases of movement that are left-foot dominant into my muscle memory. My instincts want to protect the left side of my body, the weaker side. It is something that I have come to understand, knowing that eventually, with time and the help of videos, I will be able to accomplish exactly what the choreographer wants.

I connected all of this recently while I was watching a video of myself dancing en pointe, trying to work out a new combination my teacher had given me the week before. I remembered soon after my first surgery, before I ever thought that pointe was in my future, a doctor commented that putting on pointe shoes would be a terrible idea; my foot probably could never take the weight of my body. I remembered feeling angry at the doctor, frustrated with my body, and sad about my situation. I also remembered that just over a year after surgery, I was able to get my first pair of pointe shoes.

So, here is my challenge for all of you. Take a negative word or phrase that you hear or say fairly often and attempt to eliminate if from your vocabulary. Furthermore, fight them.