Ballroom State of Mind

You might be tempted to think of uncontested rounds as a waste. You might think they don't count and that the first place win isn't real. I want to push back on that. There are ways to think about uncontested rounds that will serve you much better. First, consider that if you are dancing uncontested that it means no one else you age, at your level was willing to show up and do the hard thing of co...

In this episode, we share 3 mental skills you can develop to be more resilient and mentally strong at competitions. 1. Attentional Control-- You are responsible for directing your attention and then holding it. Whatever you give your attention, you give power. Additionally, whatever you allow into your attention, you will have to manage your mind around. Constraining your attention, then, is proba...

If all you needed was talent and training to execute your highest performance, we would all be wildly successful. But something is getting in the way. That something being us. We create interference.  In this episode, we explore two categories of interference, internal and external. Internal is initiated from us, and external involves other people and other things outside of us.  Interna...

When you are headed home from a ballroom competition and everything went pretty well, and yet you feel down, I have some ideas about what might be happening. In this episode I give you three reasons this might be the case. 1. Biological Pain In her book, Dopamine Nation , Anna Lembke, MD, describes a mechanism where after the brain releases dopamine and other pleasure related neurotransmitters, it...

A dance crush is a real thing. There are many reasons this can happen and for the most part it is harmless and doesn't have to be a problem. In this episode we discuss some reasons why it happens and why it's totally normal and even expected.  1. The dance teacher is the professional and shows up as such. They have an investment in you staying on as a client and will treat you well to ma...

Anxiety is a common topic as I coach ballroom dancers, but also in society as a whole. In this episode, I bring up 6 ways we inadvertently increase anxiety in the dance world, along with a remedy for each one.  1. Having anxiety about your anxiety This introduces a fight or flight response and doubles your anxiety. Making anxiety a problem and focusing upon it also distracts you from your tas...

Sometimes getting started and simply taking action is the best way to get unstuck. Seems like a no brainer but it can be hard to overcome the part of our brain that just likes us to stay the same and stay right where we are.  In this episode, we talk about 2 reasons you aren't getting started/are procrastinating. The first is the Motivational Triad, and the second (related) is our reluctance...

Feeling behind is a normal and common feeling for dancers. Unfortunately for most of us, it isn't useful. When we feel like we are behind, we tend to feel self-pity and disappointment. These kinds of emotions aren't motivating. So ultimately, believing you are behind can lead to you dedicating yourself less and eventually quitting. We don't want that! When you are feeling behind it's because you a...

Making decisions is a powerful skill you need to change your life in short order. It's the quickest way to get unstuck. In this episode, we talk about the problems with being indecisive, why we don't make decisions, and why we should get better at this starting today! Problems with being indecisive: –energy suck –give brain power to the back and forth instead of action –open-ended to do list of de...

An unsupervised brain will cause lots of problems for you if you don't tell it what to do. So before every ballroom competition, it's wise to get your head on strait. Just take a little time to set yourself up for success by setting your intentions ahead of time. In this podcast I give you 4 prompts to help you do some pre-competition self coaching. Each competition will look a little different, b...

I'm all about setting goals and trying to achieve them. But for some reason, when I start on a new goal, sometimes I set rules around it that make it even harder than necessary to accomplish. In this episode, I offer a work of warning to look out for when you are sabotaging yourself by making your goals harder. I give some examples from my own life so you can avoid making the same mistakes. When I...

Comparison is the thief of joy. Whenever we compare ourselves to another person, have you noticed that you rarely come out on top? When you decide you are one-down, you feel negatively about yourself and it creates negative results for you. There is really no upside to doing this.  I think it's normal to compare ourselves to others since we are a tribal, social species and we care about our s...

There are many ways to evaluate after a competition, but here is a simple 3 step, easy to remember way to evaluate. Evaluation is key to getting better. The more you evaluate your dancing, the quicker you can figure out what you need to address next and the quicker you will progress. Don't skip evaluating your comps! First, look at what went well. Do this FIRST. Be profuse, don't hold back, be as...

Imagine you are the driver of a chariot pulled by 4 horses. If you do not train those horses, and if you don't pick up the reins and guide them, you would be pulled in different directions and experience a chaotic nightmare. Now imagine those horses are your mind. Are you driving the chariot or is your mind driving you?  This analogy is meant to show you how learning to train and manage the "...

If you don't like practice, you won't want to do it; it's that simple. This episode offers three ways we make practice undesirable and how to approach it instead. 1. Judgment --If you punish yourself, judge your dancing and focus on what's not going well, you will not like practicing. 2. Impatience--Thinking you are supposed to be further along than you are, waiting until the finish line to be hap...

Practicing dance can feel so hard sometimes. We know how important practicing is to ballroom and technique development, but when our growth slows down, practicing seems less fruitful. But this isn't the reason you have backed off. It's because of how you are THINKING about practicing. In this episode, we examine what you might be thinking that is holding you back and how to let go of those limitin...

You can expect your dance journey to go through the following stages: 1. Rapid Growth--new, fun, low pressure, focused on improvement and learning 2. Growth Slows--becomes more formalized, start competing, become outcome focused, more pressure 3. Growth Stops--we perceive less success, gradually give less effort and commit mini quits until we really quit. The sweet spot is right between stages one...

It's important to know your "why" for dancing and return to it often. When the going gets tough in your dance journey, zoom out, get perspective and reset yourself in alignment with your why.  Go here for more info on ballroom mental strength coaching with me, get on my email list or find my social media handles! Go here to access my general life coaching website.