Have you ever noticed how some people always seem to get things done? Achieving success is simple and straightforward for them, and mastering ballroom dancing is no exception - once they decide where they want to go, they stop at nothing to get there.
Then there are others who go in with good intentions, but never seem to reach the dance goals they set for themselves. They hit a patch where the learning becomes frustrating, their motivation goes down, and before long, they decide ballroom dance just isn't for them.
This isn't about blame or fault - In my experience, a certain mindset is needed to become the dancer you've always wanted to be. Let me explain:
Transcript
Hi guys my name is Ian Crewe. I'm an instructor at the joy of Dance Centre in Toronto, Ontario, and the creator of Social Ballroom Dance where you can learn your dance, at your place, on your schedule.
We're starting into a theme this month! Something that's near and dear to my heart: Motivation and inspiration in ballroom dancing.
Specifically, we're looking at the mindset for a successful ballroom dancer, what causes dancers to succeed and continue with their craft for years, while others might give up after only a few weeks or months.
I'm not talking about people who consciously decide to put their energy into another pursuit - there is going to be of course people who try ballroom dancing and decide "you know what? Ballroom dancing music; not my thing. I'd rather do something else."
Or maybe they decide they'd rather dance by themselves, and they end up going into ballet, or hip-hop, or contemporary, or just dancing alone in their living room - and power to them. That's beautiful.
We're looking at the people who believe that ballroom dancing has something to offer them, but for some reason they stop themselves. So why is it that some people are able to continue and others seem to just give up?
Now, in my experience I've seen that there's five essential ingredients that every ballroom dancer absolutely needs, if they're going to succeed and get what they want from dancing, and I'd like to introduce you to two different mindsets on this. A static mindset versus the active mindset.
Now, these are broad definitions, but just to give you a way of comparing two different approaches. We'll start with the first ingredient, which is self-knowledge.
The static mindset makes a lot of their actions on impulse: they haven't taken the time to really think about why they do what they do, so it's very difficult for them to reliably devote themselves to an unfamiliar cause.
I say unfamiliar because when we are trying to do something that's out of our comfort zone, it often brings up parts of ourselves that we don't know very well, and that can be a scary experience for some people. But we'll talk more about that in a couple of weeks.
On the other hand the active mindset has taken that time to look through or explore that mental landscape. They have taken time to reflect on why they do the things they do, and they have a strong emotional connection to the principles that guide them.
This allows them to be much more consistent when they decide to pursue something, because they already know whatever internal demons they're going to have to face, and how to overcome them.
Then we have motivation. The static mindset will approach motivation from the standpoint of "well, I've seen ballroom dancing, and there's something in there that I like."
Maybe they saw Dancing with the Stars, or they went to a dance club and they saw this really cool dancer, and there was this sense of "there's something here that I want", and they want to explore it.
But they haven't thought very deeply about what's specifically that thing is, so they go into the lessons with more of a vague sense of what they want, rather than a specific idea.
Meanwhile, the more active mindset have taken that time to reflect on what exactly about ballroom dancing moves them. And when they go in for their lessons, they're going to be able to convey that; which will help guide the lessons towards that goal.
Then we have persistence, which the first two help build into. The static mindset encounters something that's difficult for them and they say "well, maybe I'm just not cut out for this", and they don't really have a lot of reason to keep pushing through.
The active mindset, because they've taken that time to reflect on why they dance; they have a drive to continue that is stronger than the temptation to quit.
These are closely connected with belief, which is the fourth ingredient. If the static mindset tends to not put in a hundred percent of their effort, because there's this underlying feeling that "well I don't know if I'm going to ever be the dancer that I want to be, so I'm not going to waste 100% of my energy trying to get there. Because why would I bother if I'm not going to succeed?"
Meanwhile, the active mindset believes that they can have their dancing dream, so they're going to push themselves that much harder; they're going to give a 100% of their energy in order to achieve that.
This all feeds into the final and fifth agreement, which is inspiration. See, a static mindset will look at a fabulous dancer and they will say, "wow! I wish I could do something like that... but I know I can't."
An active mindset looks at a fabulous dancer and says "wow! What are they doing and how can I learn that and incorporate it into my own dancing, so I can look just as good or better??" They let the vision of what's to come inspire them rather than discourage them.
So broadly speaking, the static mind tends to be more safety-based; it's found this comfortable area that it wants to stay in and because it wants to stay there, it comes up with excuses that validate its inaction.
Meanwhile the active mindset takes a more growth-based approach; it believes that there is something better out there, and that that it can have it. So it's looking to stretch, and expand, and take new skills in order to achieve that thing that it wants.
Now this isn't to say that if you have a static mindset on one of these ingredients that you MUST be static throughout your whole life. We can often have a static mindset on one ingredients but be very active on another.
Maybe I believe that I can be a great dancer but on a subconscious level, because I don't have that self-knowledge, I haven't taken that time to understand how my past experiences have affected me - I have these other beliefs deep down inside that are pulling in the opposite direction.
Or you might have somebody who has the motivation - they really want to have this thing, but they find it's hard for them to develop the persistence. They try, but it's very difficult for them to push through these more difficult periods because there's there's something there that's blocking them.
We can spot the ingredients that give us the most trouble, and we can train our mind to change from a static to an active mindset. We're not stuck in any one place - I have always believed that and I always will.
A big part of getting there is learning to love the process of improving ourselves. Because we get so often focused on a destination, and we forget to appreciate and enjoy all the growth that's required to get there. And THEN we get there and often we end up reaching for the next thing and the next thing.
We keep thinking "well, once I have that, I'm going to be happy." But we've trained ourselves to be constantly looking for the next thing, and the next thing, and the next thing.
We're going to go deeper into that for next week. So I look forward to seeing you then! If you have any questions or comments, please don't hesitate to message me on my Facebook fan page, Ballroom Dancers Anonymous, or you can email me at ian@socialballroom.dance.
I look forward to seeing you next week and until then, happy dancing!