3 Things Every Dancer Should Know About Setting And Achieving Their Dance Goals - Part 3
By Kimberly Kjersten, Dance Instructor and Life Coach
PART 3 OF 3 – this is a 3 part series; check out parts 1 & 2 at the links below!
Welcome back to the final part of this series, and maybe even the most important! To recap, in part 1 of this three part series you picked your goal, and in part 2 you made your action plan and scheduled the steps. Be sure to check out parts 1 & 2 at the following links if you haven’t already!
All caught up? If so, let’s move on to part 3!
The third thing you need to know about setting and achieving your dance goals: You need to get your brain on board! Mindset is often the BIGGEST part of success with your goals.
The three most important mindset tools to have in regard to setting and achieving your dance goals are: commitment, determination, and a belief in yourself and your ability to set and achieve your goals.
People are not just born with or without these tools, which is awesome because that means we can learn how to use them and build them up as habits!
Commitment
You should be committed to the results you chose and not to the goals or action steps you created to reach those results.
That means, if you notice that you achieved a goal, but you aren’t any closer to the results you were hoping for, then you will find another way to achieve those results! Or, if you notice in your evaluations that you have not made any progress toward your goal, then you will adjust your action steps in order to reach the goal.
When you are committed, you don’t have to go back and forth with yourself like, “Should I do the action steps I had planned today? I’m kind of tired, so maybe I’ll just skip it…” Nope. You already decided. You made all the decisions ahead of time. You already made a plan for the obstacle of feeling tired and not wanting to take action, so there is no decision to be made in that moment. This planning ahead makes it much easier to stay committed!
Finally, if you’re struggling to stay committed, remember WHY you decided to start working toward the results you want and why you wanted to become a better dancer. This always helps remind us that the action steps are actually leading us to something we really want!
Determination
Determination means you will not quit no matter what. Our brains like to tell us to only do things that feel good or are fun, to not do anything different or scary and to not work hard. That is our brain’s way of trying to keep us safe, but that also keeps us from growing and improving!
If we want to do things that are out of our comfort zone like setting and achieving big goals, then we have to do the hard work even when our brains are telling us not to. We can simply say, “Thank you brain for coming up with all these excuses for why I shouldn’t work toward my goal today. I know you’re only trying to keep me comfy and safe, but I really want this, so I’m going to do it anyway.”
If you still try to talk yourself out of following through with your goal and are finding it very hard to stay determined, then maybe the goal needs to be smaller for now while you build trust in yourself that you can commit and follow through. If you feel like this is what you need, then re-work the plan you made in the first 2 parts of this series, make your goal smaller and easier for now, and as always, ask for help if you need it!
Belief in Yourself and Your Abilities
We do not always believe that we can become better dancers or that we can make a plan and follow through with it. Sometimes we have the thoughts, “I am just not good at this,” or “I will never be as good of a dancer as I want to be.”
These thoughts are simply not true! They are only stories your mind has made up about you, and the good thing about thinking like this is that it is OPTIONAL. We simply get to decide the stories we want to tell about ourselves and we get to believe them, even if we don’t have the results to prove them yet!
I call this “believing forward.” The belief in yourself comes before you have the result, and that belief pulls you forward to getting the result. It’s so cool!
One thing you can do to help yourself learn how to believe in yourself more is by doing some “belief work.” Write down all the beliefs you have about yourself achieving this goal (good and bad, anything that comes to mind). Next, write all the thoughts you need to think in order to believe you can achieve your goal. When you do this, you might notice that you begin to feel motivated and feel like you WILL be able to achieve your goal. Then, pick one of the thoughts you wrote that feels the most inspiring and write it down somewhere that you will see it regularly. You can even put reminders in your phone (if you have a phone) to pop up every day to remind you. Cling to that thought, and anytime another negative thought comes up that makes you feel badly, come back to this new thought!
Now What?
As soon as you achieve the first goal you set for yourself in this process, then you will move on to the next goal you picked in part 1 and repeat the process over again. You will continue doing this with each goal until you get the result you wanted!
So, remember:
Decide first what result you want
Set 2 or 3 goals that lead to that result
Focus on 1 goal at a time
Measure your current progress
Make a list of the action steps to achieve your goal
Add actions to calendar
Account for obstacles that will get in the way
Evaluate progress regularly
Commit to your results
Be determined to follow through
Always work on believing you can achieve anything you set out to achieve
You now have everything you need in order to set and achieve your dance goals. You will not only be nailing all your favorite tricks in no time, but now you also know exactly how to set and achieve goals in any area of your life! Much luck, my friend; you’ve got this. ️
Kimberly Kjersten
Dance Instructor – 18 years
Retired Professional Dancer – 6 years
Goal & Results Life Coach – 3 years
www.instagram.com/theabundantedge
