Ballroom State of Mind

Where did you get the idea about how much it would take to accomplish a certain goal? Sometimes we look around and make a guess based on what we see, but often we are also REALLY wrong. It often takes a lot more than we thought to accomplish things we set out to do.

There are a lot of reasons that you might feel behind in your dance journey. Most of the time, that feeling is based in fear and scarcity and is largely unproductive for us to dwell on.

But there is one type of feeling behind that I think makes sense and will probably always be with you.

Listen in to see what I mean. This quick episode might bend your mind a little but I think you are ready for it.

Ah, the extremes. Our brains just love the extremes. Good or bad, hot or cold, perfect or a failure. Two options is what a lazy brain likes because then we don't have to sift through other options.

But if you experience a lot of all or nothing thinking, you also likely have some depression, anxiety, or a whole host of other negative experiences.

In this episode, I introduce you to all or nothing thinking so that you can identify it in yourself, and then give you 5 steps to overcome it.

I think you'll find a more reasonable, 80% gets it done attitude can not only help you feel better and more motivated, but actually still lead to a lot of accomplishment and success.

While we all know that life is sometimes not fair and we will all face a certain amount of struggle and negativity, we will act confused when we actually go through it. We say things like, "Why is this happening to me? What is going on? What is going wrong?"

The reality is that life is what I call, 50/50. It's good and bad, hard and easy, fun and not fun, etc. Everything has it's opposite and duality is a fact of life. When we resist what is and think that the negative things shouldn't happen, we actually increase the percentage of negativity that we experience.

Your are actually the one giving meaning to your experiences and deeming them negative or positive in the first place. If we can learn that hard things are a part of life, and not resist them, the power they have over us decreases. If can then take it a step further and even embrace the hard things that happen and learn from them, believing that everything that happens in our life is for our good, we actually can increase the positive percent.

The 50/50 is what makes life what it is. It's what makes us human. My recommendation is that you embrace it instead of fight it. In this episode I give an example from my most recent competition to illustrate the 50/50.

In episode 92 we imagined situations going perfectly in order to get solid, confidence building mental reps. No mistakes allowed!

But we all know mistakes and unexpected things can happen, and it's it best to prepare for them?

The answer is yes.

There is a time and place for perfect reps and there is a time and place for contingency plans. In this episode, I give guidance on how to do this constructively rather than catastrophize and hope for the best.

We incorporate the power of visualization into this as well to further strengthen our ability to carry it out in the moment.

You'll feel more confident than ever that you can handle whatever might come up. This means that we don't need to enter performances with so much fear of the unknown. We can rely more on ourselves and trust our ability to come through on the other side, proud of what we accomplish.

Some people call it mental rehearsal, some visualization and others envisioning. Whatever you call it, high performers know it is a powerful tool to increase your level of preparation and even your skills.

Since the brain doesn't distinguish between someone happening in real life or if it's imagined, it's your chance to program your mind and body for what you want to execute. In this episode, we talk about what it is but also tips on how to make it more powerful. Then I give an example of what it might look like.

The main tips shared are the following:

1. You are in complete control--the director, nothing happens unless you approve it.

2. Make it positive--everything will go well and as planned.

3. Take your time--use pauses to fill in more details to make it more real.

4. Include all your senses-see, hear, smell, touch, taste

5. Include genuine emotion--rehearse your emotions like any other sense.

6. Use the first person or internal perspective--look out your own eyes rather than watching yourself from a distance.

Good grief! Politics in dance! Is there anything in this world that doesn't involve some type of politics?

This episode was prompted by a comment on social media where a dancer was lamenting that they could not be successful because of the politics in dance. What a powerless place to be, right?

The short answer is to let it go and focus on the things that you can control. But many of us need a little more help letting it go. So in this episode, we bring up some points that will help you come to terms with it and focus on what will really help you...be so freaking good that no one can deny your dominance!

Words are powerful. The way you use them can determine how you feel and the energy with with you operate in the world.

As one example, when your brain offers you a lot of thoughts that start with, "what if..." it leads to feelings of uncertainty, doubt, defensiveness, etc. But if you switch "what if" with "even if" then something shifts. Even if...then I can...(or I will..., or I know...).

"Even if..." is more empowering and leads to us thinking of a contingency plan.

Thinking..."I can't..." could be replaced with "What if I could..." or "I am getting better at..." or "I am working on...."

What wording could you switch out to generate more feelings of confidence, calm, strategy, self trust, etc?

In this episode, we visit some of the ways we hold ourselves back. The primary reason for that is ultimately our brain trying to keep us safe so we can survive the best we can. To do that, we need to avoid pain...even emotional pain. Most of what we try to accomplish today is going to probably lead to some pain, so don't be surprised that you're holding back in those instances.

To overcome this, consider that the worst thing that can happen is a feeling. So what if we could just get better at tolerating uncomfortable emotions? Then maybe we wouldn't have to fear or avoid them.

In order to put ourselves out there, we have to be willing to feel uncomfortable stuff. And to do that, I think we need a healthy dose of courage. In the last half of the episode we talk about how to get courage and then 7 steps for getting past holding yourself back!

In this episode, I bring you a life coaching tool called Emotional Adulthood. Listeners love the podcasts that they can apply to the rest of their lives outside of dance, so this one is for YOU!

When we are in Emotional Childhood, we are operating more like children in our emotional lives. It is characterized by a relinquishing of responsibility for how we feel and act. In this state, you would find yourself making other people responsible for how you feel. You are unhappy because your spouse doesn't text you enough during the day. You are angry because your children don't listen. You are fearful because of your parents or your childhood or something else outside of you.

It's not that these things don't contribute, they do, but in this episode I teach you how to be an emotional adult, take responsibility for how you feel and act so that you can be the person that you want to be more of the time. In emotional adulthood, we don't have to wait for others to behave in the ways we prefer in order for us to be happy. We take out the middle man.

I should warn you though...emotional adulthood isn't easy. But it's worth it and this tool can change your life. Enjoy!

This episode is all about how to actually settle yourself down when your nervous system has been triggered. Often when we stop and try to "take some deep breaths" to help bring ourselves back to reality, it doesn't seem to work very well. Sometimes this is because when we take this approach, we might actually be resisting our emotions rather than processing them.

In this episode I give you 4 steps (and an informal 5th step) to give you a framework to help inform your brain that you are actually just fine.

Here are the steps:

1. Ask yourself if you are literally safe. (yes)

2. Ask yourself if you FEEL safe (likely not, which is why you were triggered in the first place.

3. Figure out why not (validate why you feel vulnerable)

4. Actively relax tension away in your body (this is where breathwork fits in)

The informal step 5 is to check in to see if what we are asking of our self is actually too much. Likely, you are totally capable of it, but once in a while we need to know we have the out if we want it. But really, if you can take courage, you can get through it.

Taking these steps before you try to do breathwork makes it far more effective. Listen in for a short-cut to this strategy I offer near the end.

It can't be avoided. At some point, you will have a performance that just doesn't go well. You will have days where your dancing is just...off. Even if you do everything that you can to plan, prepare and mitigate issues, there will be times you just walk away knowing it just wasn't your best dancing.

And we have to live with that.

In this episode, I tell the story of my recent Nightclub night at a competition and how I just didn't dance well.

Then I offer some Dos and Don'ts to help you deal with it and get past it.

Many of my clients do what they do with their dancing because, "they just want to be a good dancer." But what does that even mean? Often they aren't really sure, they just know it's not what they are right now.

Why are we so resistant to believing we are a good dancer? What is the danger in believing that? Maybe it's not even a good idea to wish for this for ourselves, at least not in the way we do it now.

In this episode, we talk about why we might not believe we are a good dancer, why we are resistant to changing our mind about that, and take the time to define for ourselves what a good dancer is to us as individuals.

While we all say we want to feel more confident, we spend a lot of mental energy proving to ourselves why we are lacking and not good enough. We rehearse our shortcomings and remind ourselves of the mistakes we have made in the past. I'm not sure why we think it's a mystery that we feel doubtful and lack confidence.

In this episode, I teach you what a confidence bank is and how to build it. In short, rather than rehearsing and reminding yourself why you aren't good enough, you need to start taking an accounting of why you are.

Mining your life for all the efforts, successes and progress, and then keeping a literal record of it all, is how you get your confidence bank started. Then, as you go through your life and dance journey, teach your brain how to look for and filter out the positive experiences so you can use them in the future to remind yourself how capable, experienced and effective you are.

These kinds of experiences generate confidence, energy, optimism and enthusiasm, rather than the negative experiences that we usually catalog.

Have you ever stopped to realize that nothing is really a problem unless you think it is a problem? This is why some things can really bother someone else but not bother you.

As I work with clients in my private practice, so many things that we think are a problem are actually just normal development. We just don't like how it's going. But it IS totally normal actually. If we can make peace with things not being a problem, we can reduce the negativity and judgment by at least half. And then all that we are left with is something that we want to improve upon. But the part where we make it a problem, is optional.

Plateaus are one of those things that are a normal part of development, that no one can escape, and yet we think we are especially deficient just because we are in one. But plateaus are normal. In fact, while it may seem like nothing is happening in our plateaus, nothing could be further from the truth.

The spurts of progress that we experience from time to time are only the evidence of all the work that happened in the plateaus. The spurts aren't the progress...they are the evidence that spilled out when that progress finally hit a tipping point where forward movement and integration can be seen in our efforts.

Listen in to hear what is happening in the plateaus that is so important. Let's make peace with plateaus.

Enjoy this interview with Irene Wong: mom of 3, entrepreneur, and 16 year pro-am competitor! She shares her journey on her YouTube channel, "Everything Ballroom, and co-owns Dancewear Works, a designer dress company supplying dresses and menswear to ballroom competitors. In her words, "I'm on a mission to make dancewear accessible to all."

In addition to her love for dance, she is also a proud distributor of Nu Skin products, which we talk a little bit about in this episode.

We talk in this episode about choosing a dress, creating a character that can help draw out your Alter Ego, and mindset shifts that can change everything.

Few people understand what it really means to pursue dancing. We go through a lot of things and it changes us. I can't find the words to describe this episode, so just go listen and enjoy! Merry Christmas!

We want to be confident, right? But not too confident. Not arrogant. Not cocky. But also I want feel powerful and celebrate my success, but also still be humble.

Have you taken the time to sift through all these? You should because if you want to be confident and maximize your potential, you might be holding yourself back in the name of preventing arrogance or trying to remain humble.

Listen in for some ideas on this that mostly come from Craig Manning, Mental Strength Coach for BYU athletics.

Here are the 5 ideas we bring up in this episode:

Arrogance

Cockiness

Confidence

Passiveness

Pessimism

And then I guess there is one more thing you need to iron out: where Humility fits in with confidence. Let's unpack it in this episode.

This episode outlines one way to narrow your focus. It is a continuation of episode 77 and gives you a 3-part framework to narrow your focus---and WHAT to focus on--in situations like practice, lessons and competitions.

Before you get to the framework, you must do some data collection, also called evaluation. Evaluating will help you know where to apply your attention.

After you have the data you need, apply it to the following framework:

1. Objectives--overarching things we want to accomplish/goals

2. Skillsets--what skillsets are needed to accomplish said objectives?

3. Cues-what 2-3 word phrases can you use to describe the skillsets you are working on?

Applying this framework is going to help you feel more productive, deliberate and empowered. You'll also get the added benefit of your progress getting supercharged!

There are some things that are relevant to your dancing and other things that just aren't. We tend to spend a lot of energy, time and attention on things that aren't relevant and it holds us back, delays progress, exhausts us and distracts from our performance.

In this episode we talk about focusing on what is relevant and NOT focusing on what is NOT relevant.

A quick list of what is not relevant might include:

--the past

--the future

--other people's actions

--other people's thoughts and feelings

A quick list of what is relevant to your dance might include:

--YOU

That's pretty much it. Your thoughts, feelings actions, what you are good at, your emotional regulation, goals, objectives, tasks, skills, self care, preparation, etc.

This episode helps you sort them out. The next one will tell you what to do to improve your focus.

I also fill you in on my Ohio Star Ball 2023 results, which, spoiler alert, were wildly successful!

"Ugh! Why am I still so nervous?! Why won't those go away?!" Ummmm, well, because you are human and you care about what you are doing so they will probably never go away.

But I have good news: You don't need them to go away! If fact, with the right perspective you will see they are actually good and meant to help you!

At some point you associated the nervous feeling with something bad. But what if it doesn't mean that at all? What if it just means your body is helping you be energized for whatever come next? Because if it's a roller coaster, you don't wish those nerves away or make it mean bad things are coming. But if it's a dance competition, suddenly we make it mean we are in some kind of danger and our fight or flight system gets activated.

The reality is that you WILL feel it, but then you get to decide for yourself what it means.

In this episode I help you out by giving you a positive association for the sensations you feel so you need not fear your own system. Ain't nobody got time to fight or resist yourself, so let's teach those butterflies how to fly in formation!

It can be super hard to cope when you are without a ballroom dance partner. After all, this is partner dancing. We don't really want to do it alone!

In this episode I give you some ideas on how to cope, but taking any of those actions is going to be 10x harder if we are doing it from a defeated mindset. So first things first, be mindful (pun intended) of your perspective. The thoughts you think are largely responsible for the experience you are having rather that the situation itself. Thinking "my progress is stalled," "I can't do what I planned anymore," "I'm getting behind," is all going to create discouragement, hopelessness and powerlessness. Makes sense, but also don't want to get stuck here.

So try on some more useful thoughts, which I offer toward the end of this episode. But in terms of actions, here's a quick rundown of things you can do to help you stay motivated and plugged-in until you have a partner again.

1. Stay involved in the community
2. Keep setting goals
3. Keep learning
4. Let it be light and fun

Your progress has always been up to you. There is still a lot you CAN DO. You are not behind and somehow this is all happening in your favor. No matter what, you are becoming a better, stronger dancer through this process and taking personal ownership over your dancing will make you an even more effective partner!

Coachability is probably one of the traits that will 10x your progress. After all, if you hire a teacher or coach to help you and then you push back, question and resist their expertise, what are we even doing here?

Yet I see it often...dancers in a lesson, questions semantics or the way they are teaching a certain figure or concept. A lot of time and energy is wasted on these kinds of interactions and it sows seeds of disrespect in the dynamic. No one likes to be hired for their expertise and then be told how to do their job. But this isn't just about how your teacher or coach feels. It's possibly slowing you down as well.

So for your sake, I'd like to tell you what it means to be coachable, what that would look like and what it looks like if you aren't coachable. Then I want you to test out letting down your guard and releasing control and see how your next lesson goes. Hear all about it in this episode!

It's hard to put a lot of time, effort and money towards our dancing and then have a competition yield poor results and feel like an utter failure. It's not uncommon to ask the question, "Why are we doing this again?"

When this comes up with clients, I like to draw a pie chart and fill it up with all the reasons we are dancing and/or competing. If results is the biggest piece that takes up most of the chart, and there is but a small sliver for everything else, you will perpetually be jerked around by your results.

Instead, the goal is to fill the pie chart with all the reasons we do this so that the results is just one small sliver of the story. I walk you through some of the reasons I do this that have nothing to do with results to get you started.

After you listen, pop over to our Joyful Ballroom Facebook Group to share what fills your pie chart.

You may not realize that you have a past, present and future self. Your past self makes plans, then your present self carries them out (or not) and then your future self gets to enjoy the results. At least, it's really interesting to think about it this way.

Consider that if all three are in alignment, you get a lot of results! But somehow, that's not how it works out. We often look back with regret with what our past self did or didn't do. When our past self doesn't eat the sugar, we get to lose weight. Wahoo!! But when our past self doesn't do what we planned, we are stuck without the great result and sometimes left with a crappy one.

The truth is there is only PRESENT you. Present you carries everything out. Present self is the key to everything. Every thing you plan out hinges on present self actually doing it when the time comes.

And present self is very subject to the primitive brain which very much prefers what is easiest and most comfortable, and has an immediate reward. They key to getting results is training the present self to use their prefrontal cortex to override the primitive brain more of the time in favor of what we want most for what we want now.

To unwind this, I give you three tools to consider.

Get conscious.

Tell the truth.

Hook up your future self.

Listen in to the episode to learn how to apply this in real time so you can get what you want more of the time...without sacrificing fun and enjoyment along the way.

Recently in Hawaii for the Hawaii Star Ball, my daughter and I went snorkeling. As I started snorkeling, I felt my nervous system being activated and it took longer than I expected for it to settle down. I started to notice how similar it is to dancing when you have an activated nervous system.

Listen in to see what I mean and for a simple process to start to settle yourself down if you are freaking out just a little.

Breaking up is hard to do. Breaking up a dance partnership is no different. While the nature of a teacher/student dance relationship is business related and transactional, it can still be difficult and emotional.

In this episode, we talk about the reasons people choose to leave their dance teacher, why it's so hard and how to approach the conversation for the best outcome we can hope for.

In this episode, we discuss 3 kinds of dance burnout that you might be experiencing. They go hand in hand, overlap and influence each other of course, but listen in to find insight and tips for overcoming your dance burnout.

Physical burnout is pretty self explanatory...but it might surprise you to learn that it's the least likely to be the problem.

Mental burnout is due to how you are thinking, or more importantly what you are thinking about and how you are spending your brain juice. Spinning on stuff that doesn't matter is sure to exhaust you in short order.

Emotional burnout has to do with how you feel. Have you lost motivation? Lack passion? Can't remember your purpose or why you are dancing at all?

Let's get cracking at overcoming burnout!

I get asked this question all the time! All we want to do is just let go and dance, buy why must our brains think so much and get in the way? While I would love to give you a quick and dirty solution, the truth isn't so simple. The solution happens in a process and that process happens between comps over time. It might not be what you want to hear, but solving for the REASONS for the overthinking means you won't have to deal with it quite so much.

I see two big reasons people overthink.

1. You have shortfalls in your preparation. There's no mincing words. If you haven't prepared thoroughly, you will be trying to make things happen in your body with your thinking. It just doesn't work as well as you want. You have to do the prep thoroughly enough that it is just in your body--automatic--so that you don't have to think about making it happen.

Keep in mind that while this is true, you won't be that prepared all of the time! You will always be in varying degrees of learning and automaticity so plan on it happening from time to time. That is what is appropriate and expected during certain times of your development.

2. Some people overthink because we are trying very hard to control an outcome. We are trying to make a result happen and holding very tightly. It is laced with fear, anxiety, perfectionism and feels stressful. It's almost as if we are trying to prevent some catastrophe...that catastrophe being a poor result, losing, not making finals, someone being disappointed with us, our own embarrassment etc. We are trying to prevent some future negative emotion or outcome. And we just can't control that. But we sure try.

The long term solution to overthinking is two fold--

1. Prepare more thoroughly. End of story.

2. Stop trying to control the uncontrollables

In the short term, you have a tips to consider.

1. Make peace with your prep. What you have is enough. Let go of trying to make it all happen with your brain. What you have committed to your muscle memory will be there without you haven't to make it happen. The rest you can drop for now and just dance. It's really fine.

2. Generate a single focus to occupy your busy brain. Focus is different than thinking. Pick a cue word or two to keep your brain focused on. Choose a cue that incorporates some of the technical aspects you want to embody...like "shine bright," "smooth elegance," or "calm confidence." They help create an emotion but also will spread throughout your body to showcase some of what you are trying to do.

3. Lastly, get into your body. Actually feel. Empty your mind and notice where your body connects with the floor and your partner. What is the connection like? How do your feet feel in the floor? Don't THINK about what your body is doing. Just feel. Just be.

The reality is that to stop overthinking and just dance, there really isn't much for you to DO about it. It's more about NOT doing, or doing less. It's about letting go and trusting. And you can totally do it.

Have you ever had the experience of standing in front of 11 ballroom judges at a ballroom competition and having them hold up paddles with the number of placing they are giving you? In front of all the spectators and dancers and cameras and everything? No? Well I can tell you it makes you want to barf.

In this podcast I tell you about my experience at the NV Ball and qualifying for the Grand Prix and all I endured in making it happen. I'll spoil the ending and tell you we didn't win (shocker) but that isn't even the most important point.

Listen in for what I put myself through, how I got through it and what I learned about myself. I have a vulnerability hangover just from publishing this podcast but I'll just add to the list of hard things I am enduring lately. I'm here for it! Let's go!

In this quickie of an episode, I encourage you to believe in your ability to feel negative emotion. Our society has made it easy to escape your feelings and so perhaps you have not seen enough evidence that you can totally handle yourself. Rather than fear your feelings, believe in your ability to feel them. Everything you want is on the other side of being willing to feel uncomfortable emotions. Let's go!

If you are dancing and practicing and feeling like you suck, congratulations! This means that you are living at your leading edge. If you were only willing to stay with what you know and be in your comfort zone, you wouldn't grow into the magnificent dancer you are capable of being. If you feel uncomfortable it means you are willing to do what it takes to get better.

When you are working at this leading edge, you will need to shift into new gears. In this episode, I use this metaphor to teach you what it feels like to ask more of yourself and that you should feel so good if this is where you are finding yourself most of the time. Listen in and share it with a friend who also likes to live at their leading edge!

Dancers can really struggle with results. I certainly know dancers who have told me they quit because they simply couldn't mentally handle poor results. There are a couple of reasons that I have encountered that I think make us uncomfortable with our results.

1. You think results are objective, or at least they should be. In your mind you keep trying to make sense of it and make it concrete.

Your results are subjective. They just are. If for no other reason, they are Stop wanting them to be objective. Here are just some of the ways your results are subjective:

Who is in the round with you? How are you or them dancing that comp, that day, that round? Who is on the judging panel? Did the panel change? What are the preferences of those judges? When did they see you? Did they see you in a good moment or a mistake? Did they see you at all?

2. You try to find deeper meaning in the results. You tie your worth to the results. If it goes well, you are good. If it goes poorly, you are not good. So the results are going to determine how you feel about yourself. That means there is a lot on the line.

Your value and worthiness as a human being is not dependent on your achievements. Your worth is set. It is not conditional on anything. It just is. Your achievements are just how you get to grow and expand and challenge yourself. They aren't what determines your value. Period. You don't have to earn it.

When it comes to your results...here are some ways you can use them for your good instead of using them against yourself.

Look for patterns. What is generally happening now in your placements, and are you moving into slightly higher placements more of the time? Are you making more finals? Are you getting a few more better marks? Are your marks somewhat consistent across the judging panel? What data can you extract and put to good use?

How is your competing going? Is your partnering getting better? Are you feeling better, more in control, and having more fun? Are you able to tell which of your dances are stronger?

Use your marks constructively. Don't beat yourself up with them. Don't look for deeper meaning. Extract some data and get back to work. Elizabeth Gilbert said, "Measure your worth by your dedication to your path, not by your successes and failures." Whether you succeed or fail, you will wake up the next day and go at it again. So focus on your craft and the results will take care of themselves.

Being physically injured is hard enough without also having all the emotional fallout. In this episode we give voice to some of what we might experience emotionally with a dance injury, but then we also talk about coping strategies to help you get through it.

Here are the 6 points that you can consider to help you in your recovery from a dance injury.

1. Acceptance. Accept that you are injured and that you have to slow down. Resistance to what is will slow your recovery. Stress, tension, impatience are all understandable but detrimental to your ability to recover. Accept what is and move forward.

2. Partner WITH your body. Don’t go to war with yourself. Be careful how you treat yourself. Don’t be mad at your body or believe it is against you in some way. Take care of it. Do the self care. Do the active recovery like it’s your training plan. Rest, do Physical Therapy if you have it. The body heals when it heals so do everything you can do help it along. This includes loving it. Don’t overdo it. Speaking preventatively, don’t push through pain. The instant I feel like I tweaked something, I sub out my fitness classes and rest. I don’t mess around anymore. Don’t be a hero and try to push through pain. Preserve your health by being proactive when things are off. 

3. Sometimes you have to go slow to go fast. When I had shoulder issues, I tried to come back prematurely a time or two but kept getting sidelined. Finally, I gave up my classes, scaled back and settled in for the long haul. It took 18 months, including nearly a full year of PT to get my shoulders back to a good place. Remember recovery is hard work. It can seem like you aren’t doing anything, but your body is hard at work. Healing is a hard job. You will feel lazy and tired at times not doing much, but your body is working all along. 

4. Do what you can. With dancing there are some things you can modify. With my shoulders, we would practice with lower hand positions so I wouldn’t flare up my shoulders. You might only be able to watch videos or performances. You can decrease practice, avoid injured areas, or learn by watching. For some people still being a part of the dance world helps, for others it doesn’t. 

5. Do other things. Take this time to pursue other things you care about that allow your body to rest. Be a whole person. What else to do you like? When dance is your only thing, and it becomes your identity, when we have a setback it can feel like we have nothing left. Don’t let that happen to you. No one things can define who we are. Embrace the time off if it comes to that. Find a way to keep your brain busy so it doesn’t ruminate on the injury. Find another outlet. Cross train.

6. Tend to your mindset. Focus on wellness. I realized at one time I was focused on my illness. I was thinking about the pain I was in or that my shoulders or neck “still weren’t better.” At some point I read something that talked about the mind body connection and how powerful it is. So I decided to stop thinking about my illness and focus on wellness. I started talking about how much better things were getting. I would try to celebrate small milestones. I can’t turn my head but at least it doesn’t hurt anymore! I would speak gratitude for what was working well or what I could still do. I would say to myself over and over again in my mind that my body was doing just a good job of healing. I would visualize myself dancing or teaching my classes again with my full abilities. Imagine yourself coming back stronger than before. Tending to your mindset might include talking about it as well. Talk to a therapist or a coach (ahem). Explore relaxation techniques. A mind and body that is at peace heals much better and faster than one in a stress response. Watch that part of your brain that wants to tell a fatalistic, scare story, and don’t let it get carried away.

Nurture peace, wellness and gratitude to speed your healing. 

Ugh! Insecurity! It feels terrible. How can we make it go away?!

In this episode, I talk about what it's about, how to loosen it up for you and finally how to work through it. Here are the seven "steps" to work through it.

1. Be aware it's happening. Be aware that there is a moment where your insecurity comes up and things shift in you. The knee-jerk response is to avoid or get away from it or blame it on something or someone outside of you. Awareness is where we begin. Do you know when it happens for you?

2. Keep the ownership. Insecurity is often triggered by something or someone outside of us and so we want to give them the credit. But if it weren't that thing outside of us, it would be a different thing. If it wasn't that dancer, it would be another one. It's not them. It's us. It's our baggage. It's what we feel or believe about ourselves that is the problem and taking ownership of that fact is the way out. To fix this, you gotta look inside, not outside.

3. Stop running away. Insecurity feels terrible and makes us shy away from the situations that trigger it. But the way over it is through. You gotta look it in the face. What is it about? What are we insecure about? Look deeper. What you'll probably find is that you don't feel like you are enough. Now what?

4. Make peace with the fact that you are NOT enough sometimes. You fall short. You don't prepare. You say the wrong thing. You disappoint people or yourself. and believe it or not, this is good news. Pretending you are perfect and never make mistakes is what makes you feel insecure. When you make peace with the fact that you ARE less than sometimes, and everyone is that way, you won't mind so much if other people see it too. There will always be someone better, faster, younger, etc. This is FINE.

5. Realize YOU are the one who determines if you are enough anyway. Surely someone has told you that you are enough or that you did a good job and you deflected it. You are not enough but you also ARE enough. Enough is 50/50. It's good and bad. It's a work in progress. And you are the one who decides enough is enough. It's not outside you. It won't come from anyone else. This is your work to do on yourself and your relationship with yourself.

6. Be willing to run into the storm. Stop shying away from the moments that you feel insecure. Lean in. Get comfortable being uncomfortable. Let it come up and then soothe yourself. Pat yourself on the back. Double up on self-compassion and move forward, insecurity and all. Commit to taking care of yourself through it and then tell yourself how proud you are of doing the hard work. Mess up and let people see it so you can see the world doesn't end. This is desensitization. It's exposure therapy. Tread carefully, but definitely tread. You can do it.

7. Care what you think more than what other people think. It's okay that you care what people think and it's okay that you want their approval. But just care MORE what YOU think than what others think. Practice getting out of their head and tending to what is in your own. If what you think about you isn't good, that's where you need to give your attention...not trying to get other people to convince you of it.

This work is tough to do. It's uncomfortable. But it's life changing. You've got it!

Some people are really uncomfortable with competition. It seems divisive and creates a hierarchy where someone has to end up feeling bad about themselves. 

Some people avoid competition for this reason. Others compete even though they agree with his model, but are stressed and anxious the whole time because their self worth is on the line.

Another group competes but rebels against this model by not trying to their fullest. That way if they lose, it didn't count because they didn't try anyway.

But I wonder if there is a way to compete without the ego trip, but still maintain the intensity and passion of a good competition. There is a way. And once you hear about it, you will jump right on the bandwagon because it makes competing SO MUCH FUN!

In this episode we ask the question, "Are you a player or a victim?"

We talk about what that means, why you might be stuck in victim mode, and some strategies to get yourself out.

Referenced in this podcast:

Watching yourself dance on video can be excruciating! But it's a skill I think you should develop. In this podcast, I offer the reasons I think we hate it so much, why you should do it anyway, and how to approach the process to make it easier on yourself.

Reasons we don't like watching ourselves dance on video:

1. Our negatively biased brain makes is a negative experience

Your brain is great at pointing out what is wrong, where the flaws and imperfections are, and it does it in a disproportionate amount compared to the positive things you might see.

2. Video doesn't match perception

The video simply does not look like it felt. A 2-dimensional representation on a device is nothing like a living, breathing, 3-dimensional real world experience. Plus, you never really see yourself from the outside.

3. You aren't used to it

Going along with the previous point, you aren't used to watching yourself or seeing yourself in this way. And you make efforts to avoid it, so you never let yourself get desensitized to it. You watch your videos with critical or judgemental eyes, get uncomfortable, stop and then avoid in the future.

4. Comparing yourself to more skilled dancers

If you are like me, the videos that you watch on the regular are the ones that come through a social media feed or I find on Youtube. Those dancers are usually pros or dancers who are much further along than me. So I get this idea of how a video should look. Then I see my own videos. OOF! Yikes! If you are comparing yourself to them, you are going to come up short for sure!

While it is an uncomfortable experience for you right now, I want to encourage you to do it anyway. Here are some reasons why:

1. Can't fix what you don't see. Video gives you a concrete picture of what is working and what is not.

2. Increases the rate at which you improve. Because you can see what needs work, you can get to work on it. Turning a blind eye certainly slows down your progress.

3. You can track your progress over time. This can serve as great motivation when you can look back at old videos and see all your improvement.

4. Having videos makes it easier to recall for practicing. See point 2! You don't have to remember what you needed to work on and you have videos that you can reference and learn from.

5. You get more comfortable watching yourself dance. Simply watching yourself dance on video desensitizes you and you settle in. You become more objective and aren't as derailed if you have things you see you want to fix. It also means that you are more comfortable with other people watching you.

6. You learn to have a more realistic and balanced view of yourself and your dancing. You learn to look at the positive things as well as what needs work. You settle down emotionally and are able to get to work on what is next.

So how can you approach it so it is more tolerable?

--Watch with someone who is more objective than you

--Remind yourself that something is just lost in translation when it comes to video

--You are not alone. Most people don't like it. Let that be okay.

--Give yourself some distance. Don't watch the videos immediately after a performance. Let yourself settle down emotionally first.

--Do it more frequently to get used to it.

--Watch your videos several times. First to get your cringing out of the way, second to watch overall, third to look for what is working, and lastly to find 1-2 things to work on in the coming weeks.

--Approach your videos with purpose and intention. Use them as a tool and be prepared to have an action plan when you are done watching.

--Allow equal air time for the positive and negative aspects

--Get neutral. This is math. There are skills and tasks you are developing. Leave your ego out of it.

--A video is one snapshot of a moment in time. You are already different. Don't get stuck on that moment in the past.

This is such good work to do. It's worth it.

"Why am I so negative all the time?!"

Ever noticed how you are being negative about your negativity? This episode addresses negativity so you can make peace with it, get over it, and move on with an intentional, more forward moving mindset.

The stages you might go through as you work on this are the following:

Stage 1: Unintentional or unconscious negativity--You get swept up in it and it carries you away. You don't even notice it has happened. But you probably feel drained a lot of the time. You are your negativity are ONE.

Stage 2: Aware but judgmental--You see it. You become aware of your negativity, but then you judge yourself for it. You wish you didn't do it. You blame circumstances for it. Notice how you're still negative? Your just aware AND negative.

Stage 3: Non-judgmental Awareness-- You notice it but stop judging it. You might feel curious about it. You are more an observer of it. You stop resisting it but you don't indulge it either. No getting carried away. More neutral feeling.

Stage 4: Intentional Thinking--This is where you decide intentionally how to respond. You get to decide who you want to be, how you want to think, feel and act in the situation. You will still experience negativity, but it won't be driving the car. You will be in control of it more of the time.

Listen in for real world examples of what it looks like to put this into practice.

A small competition might seem like a waste of time and/or money because you might not have a lot of competitors to compete against. But not so fast! In this episode I want to share just 4 reasons I love small competitions.

While I wouldn't do exclusively small competitions or make that the main gig that I do, there is a lot of value to be had in a small comp and you can totally leverage it and use it as a tool to benefit you.

In the book The Inner Game of Tennis, we learn about the concept of Self One and Self Two. Anyone who has tried to get themselves to do anything can relate to this concept. There is a Self One who instructs and a Self Two who carries out the action. The relationship between these two matters a lot. This is especially because Self Two is actually VERY capable of learning and applying things very quickly so long as Self One doesn't slow it down by micromanaging it. Which Self One really likes to do.

Listen in to find out why this is important and how to improve the relationship with yourself so you can progress MUCH faster.

The River of Misery is what I call that transition place between where you are now and where you want to get to in your life.

Becoming a new version of yourself, or even just a better dancer, requires some hard work. Your brain has to work harder to break old habits and patterns and create new ones. So it tries to stop you and keep you where you are.

The River of Misery feels like work.

And there’s a lot of back-and-forth. There will be good days, and successes, but also times where old habits and patterns reappear. If you don’t know that you are in the River of Misery, you might think you are backsliding or doing it wrong, or not committed. You might beat yourself up for not doing it perfectly 100% of the time. But that’s all part of the process. That’s how it goes. And if you know that, then you can be proud of your successes, and discount your failures. You can forgive yourself sooner and continue to move forward

That River of Misery, that process, is the refiners fire that creates the new you. It’s the reason growth is so satisfying. It’s the reason you feel accomplished and gain confidence. You can’t skip over it. So embrace it. Because when you get there, you’ve earned it.

And that doesn’t feel like misery.

It feels AMAZING! And it’s totally worth it.

Not to worry, I’ve got your back. I know how to handle it because I’m working through it too.

My first interview! Yay! I'm thrilled to bring you this chat with Forrest Vance, an icon in the Ballroom Dancesport industry.

Forrest Vance is a highly accomplished dancer, teacher, coach, consultant, choreographer, and adjudicator with a career spanning over four decades. He holds all levels of certification and examinations in American and International styles in multiple dance instruction organizations like FADS, NDCA and more. His extensive experience in the industry has made him a valuable resource for top professionals, prom-am and amateur couples.

Forrest's impressive dance career includes numerous championships in American Rhythm and  Latin categories, including five-time undefeated USA American Rhythm Champion, Fred Astaire seven-time American Rhythm Champion and 2 time international Latin Champion. 4 time Canadian American Rhythm Champion, and many others. He has also been recognized with several awards, including the 2010 Hanlon Ford Award and the 2012 Professional Hall of Fame Award.

Apart from his dance career, Forrest is the successful producer of "Not Strictly Ballroom" instructional dance videos in Ballroom, Latin, and Country Dancing, and organizes and hosts The People's Choice Dancesport Competition in Scottsdale, Arizona.

In this episode, we talk about his history in the industry, what he likes most about it, and the importance of staying positive in your dance journey.

Perfectionism seems so useful. It seems good. It's all about excellence and being the best we can be at something, right? Kind of. There are good parts of perfectionism--the hard work, attention to detail, concientiousness, and high motivation. When perfectionists do accomplish things, it is pretty impressive, right?

But the parts of perfectionism that are NOT good are the ones that differentiate perfectionism from simply healthy striving. In this episode I give seven hallmarks of perfectionism. It's not an exhaustive list, but some of the things I see a lot in my perfectionist ballroom dance clients.

1. Procrastination-While it seems like perfectionists are high performers and that they would get a lot done, often the opposite is true. Needing the product to be exact and perfect leads to procrastination because it's never quite up to our standards. That, or we get overwhelmed by what needs to be done to make it perfect and we delay or don't do it in order to feel relief from the pressure and overwhelm.

2. When is enough, enough? Perfectionists don't know when to stop. We can always improve things and make it better, but when does that end? Others may see what we have done as awesome and great, but we can still see it as flawed and not good enough. We don't have a realistic sense of what "good" is. Constantly trying to make it better can lead to overworking and exhaustion...aka burnout.

3. Burnout is common in perfectionists. We do a lot of work and then possibly don't put it out into the world. Or when we finally do, it has gone through so many drafts that we are just plain exhausted. Also, perfectionists are slim on praise for themselves. They don't offer the congratulatory pat on the back for a job well done very often. It's really hard to keep up the good work when the rewards are few and far between. So we kind of have to quit for a while, recharge, and then try again. This happens much less often when someone can feel good about their work and move on quickly from setbacks.

4. Low self-esteem is a hallmark of perfectionism that is sometimes hard to spot. But all perfectionism stems from a need to prove oneself as worthy, either to oneself or to others. But when the voice in your head is mostly critical and unyielding, it makes sense that you wouldn't feel very good about yourself and persistently see yourself as less.

5. Perfectionism can lead to an emotional roller coaster. Lots of stress, pressure and anxiety up front and depression on the back end. When this keeps up chronically, it can lead to mental, emotional and physical ailments as well.

6. Hindered creativity and innovation–Just ask a dancer who is trying to dance perfectly and also be creative and expressive and you will see why perfectionism gets in the way. Fearing failure means we are less wiling to take risks, less willing to try new things.

7. Strained relationships. Perfectionists hold themselves to high standards and often those around them. In dancing this can be especially apparent in partnerships. The perfectionist may view the other person as lazy or like they don’t care as much. This lead to frustration, resentment (on both parts) poor communication and problem solving, and more conflict when a perfectionist is unyielding.

The good news is that high performance can exist without the dark side of perfectionism. You get to keep the healthy striving, high motivation, attention to detail and lots of success--without the fog of negativity and criticism.

Perfectionism feels noble but it's a pair of handcuffs preventing you from becoming all that you could be. It's not making you perfect. It's making you small and scared. Let it go and see what happens.

Saying you have so much potential seems like such a nice thing to say. But have you noticed how it can also mean that you aren't good enough now? That if you could just be better then we could be satisfied?

Dancers spend way too much time focusing on what they lack. They look to the future and what could be and then feel bad about where they are now. This is a huge disservice that you are doing to yourself because it puts you in such a weak position. It puts you in a one-down position and one of deficiency. Not a very powerful or confident place to operate from.

You will always have growth you want to accomplish. There will always be things you are striving toward. But that doesn't mean where you are now is lacking or deficient. In fact, if you were to look back and see where you have come from, you would see just how "enough" you are. You would see all that you have gained and all that you have to offer now in this moment already. This is the whole premise of the the book The Gap and the Gain by Dan Sullivan and Benjamin Hardy.

When you focus on the gap between where you are now and were you could be, you may feel more frustrated, insecure, resentful and hopeless. Giving attention to the gain helps you see just how valuable and skilled you are now, which is great emotional fuel to launch forward with.

Listen in to hear how this applies to a dance partner search, competition mindset and other areas in your life where you are seeing yourself as less when you could see that if you just owned and embraced who you are how you could start taking the world by storm.

When dancers are thinking about how to train, I think it's pretty obvious what the standard methods are. Take lessons, practice on your own, participate in outside coaching, do some group lessons, workshops, social dancing, and perform or compete regularly. Not a mystery.

What I want to talk about today are ways you can train that you might not have thought of. These are ways that you can use your regular life experiences to help change you as a person from the inside out. They can make you stronger, more resilient, and give you an edge over the dancers around you.

1) Get in great shape--there are lots of ways to do this. Listen in for the ways in which I think apply to dancing specifically.

2) Get under pressure--find ways in which you can be put under pressure and have eyes on you while you do it. It might surprise you to hear that I don't want you to do this and succeed all the time. One key to this is to have eyes on you while you mess up and make mistakes. Why would you want to do that?! Listen in to find out.

3) Be bad, a lot--in connection with point #2, finding ways to be bad and make lots of errors will make your progress exponentially faster. You won't be bad all the time. In fact, you will be fantastic a lot of the time. But fear of making mistakes is holding you back. To overcome it, you have to normalize it. I teach you how.

4) Do your inner work--you must learn to disconnect your value from your results. Not just in dancing, but in life. Your value has nothing to do with your job, how productive you are, your accomplishments, how your family and friends view you...none of it. You can sit on the couch eating donuts and you are not less valuable. Do the work of knowing your worth and your value so that you don't have to use dancing to prove it. You have nothing to prove. Listen in to hear how this work affects your dancing in positive ways.

In this episode, I introduce the tool known as the Alter Ego. This concept came from the book The Alter Ego Effect by Todd Herman.

This is a useful tool if you have limiting beliefs about what is possible for you, if you have a story about yourself that you just can't shake, or if you have tried and tried to show up differently at competitions but you just can't seem to do it.

Many high performers, famous people, etc, have used an alter ego to help them reach new levels by tapping into parts of themselves and creating a version of themselves that is far more effective at doing what is required in a high pressure moment like a ballroom dance competition. Listen in to learn about this tool and how to apply it.