Ballroom State of Mind

Comparison is the thief of joy. This is a well known saying, that while it may be trite, it's true. Comparing yourself to others is a quick way to kill your confidence and stall your motivation.

In this episode, I give you a metaphor to convince you to keep your eyes on your own journey. When you really, truly, deeply understand that another person's journey is irrelevant to yours, your progress will take a big jump forward.

This is the metaphor of the mountain. I know you'll love it.

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One of the most important aspects of yourself that you can address to get the most out of yourself and achieve what you want to achieve is to address your self talk. One of the most insidious and destructive types of self talk is self criticism.

If you are a perfectionist-type, your inner critic comes on loud and proud before you can know what is happening.

In this episode we unpack self criticism, why it's so easy to go there so quickly, and why it is actually a terrible way to go even though it works much of the time.

We introduce self coaching as an alternative to self criticism because we can still maintain knowledge of what needs to be improved, but serve it up with a much more balanced and confidence preserving strategy.

Finally we discuss the steps to take to shift from self criticism to self coaching. Let's go!!

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Humans are very good at identifying what they don't want and how they don't want to feel. As a coach, I try to help my clients point their attention to what they DO want.

In this episode I introduce optimism as just one attitude or approach and is instrumental to success and high performance. I don't think we can be successful unless we have some amount of optimism to help fuel us.

Listen in for how you might be letting pessimism sneak into your attitude and cut you off at the knees, and 4 ways to help cultivate more optimism in your life and in your dancing.

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Boundary work is some of the best work that you can do. It will change your life! Listen in for what a boundary even is. We often get this wrong and it results in trying to control other people, which doesn't work! We also reveal the sneaky ways in which you may be the reason you aren't getting what you want in life. 

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Are you like most humans, who believe in Murphy's Law? Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong? And anything bad happens in threes? Bad things happening is contagious and will continue. Do you also believe that when things are going well that the other shoe is about to drop? That your luck will run out?

That kind of thinking is very human of us, but unfortunately isn't going to help us much when it comes to doing our best and wanting to be confident on the dance floor. When things are going poorly, what if we had the belief that all that means is that we are about to have a big turnaround? And that when things are going well, that we can't lose? That we are on fire! On a hot streak! We can't miss!

That is called the Shooter's Mentality and while we can't ensure the outcome that we want, adopting this mentality definitely puts us in the best possible position for success!  Listen in to find out more so you can adopt this mindset for yourself.

This concept was first introduced to me in the book The Confident Mind by Dr. Nate Zinsser.

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Why don't you want to mess up? What is so bad about making mistakes? Why do you work so hard for a perfect performance?

"I don't want to feel embarrassed!"

Embarrassment DOES feel pretty terrible. But what if we weren't afraid of it? What if we didn't let that hold us back?

What if feeling embarrassed was actually a signal that you were doing something great? That you were actually in the arena making things happen? What if you could make peace with it and even decide that you didn't have to feel it if you didn't want to?

Find out more by listening to this episode and getting the upper hand on feeling embarrassed!

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Listen in on the 4 questions you might ask yourself before a comp, and what went down for me at the Volunteer State Dance Challenge 2024.

Our brain offers up a lot of nonsense. Negative self-talk can be a common experience in the human condition. But it can also undermine our confidence. Listen in for an easy strategy to overcome the negative thinking and get back on track!

I forgot to mention that much of this content was based on concepts from the book The Confident Mind by Dr. Nate Zinsser

Book a Dance Strategy Call ⁠HERE for more help

Join my free Facebook group, Joyful Ballroom HERE for more great ballroom content.

If you have ever been in the middle of a dance performance and suddenly felt your mind go blank, you might know the feeling of utter panic. You might feel lost, confused...horrified. And here you are in the moment and need to do something about it but your brain can't connect two neurons for some reason. You might find your way or finish the round clumsily and get past it.

But then you might proceed to beat yourself up and worry that something is horribly wrong with your memory, and everyone hates you and maybe you don't belong. Well, that escalated quickly. Brains do that.

Maybe we don't need to go digging for the reason or give it any more attention than necessary. Let's just call it...a glitch. We can't explain it. There's no real reason for it other than your brain is under some pressure and brains do weird things when they are under pressure sometimes.

Everyone gets glitches and the best thing to do is what my Mac Guy did when my computer got corrupted. Wipe the slate clean and move on as soon as p0ssible so you can give yourself fully to the next moment. Find out more in this episode!

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There is a secret ingredient, that if you add to your dancing, will uplevel it in ways you never imagined. Plus, it's just more fun that way.

That ingredient is PLAY. In this episode, share with you the 4 main reasons dancers say they want mental strength coaching and how I think play is an underutilized tool.

Taking cues from the book, Play, How it Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul, but Stuart Brown, MD, we share how play can enhance those 4 areas, plus as a bonus, share his 8 play personalities. Maybe you think you just aren't a playful person or that play means we aren't working hard enough. Well I'd like to change your mind about that. Listen in!

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Books referenced in the podcast:

Play, How it Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul, but Stuart Brown, MD