If you stumble, make it part of the dance
I read something this morning and it made me want to write this article.
It said;
"Forget the past but never forget the lesson." ...
I do dance cardio as part of my morning cardio workouts.
For those that may not be familiar with dance cardio, it's freestyle dancing and movements which are as fun as they are a healthy form of exercise. It's a high-energy workout.
So my morning cardio is usually one that has me jumping around the house to some uplifting music.
I often imagine that I am performing on stage and everyone is watching. Sometimes I learn new dance moves.
So the story begins ...
It was one of those mornings.
I was so immersed into the blaring music with a laser sharp focus on my new dance moves.
By the way dancing is a bit like focused meditation.
While this is not an article about the benefits of dancing and movement, I feel compelled to share this piece of useful information.
Focused meditation involves focusing on something intently as a way of staying in the present moment and slowing down the inner dialogue. When you dance, you focus on the music you hear and the movements of your body.
Nothing else.
And not to mention when we dance, our brains produce more serotonin. This is often called the happy hormone and coincidently dancing makes my heart happy.
Back to "it was one of those mornings." ...
Steve walks in, while all this is going on. You may or may not know, Steve is my business partner who is also my husband, hence why we live together. I don't know why, but I was laughing as I wrote this.
Because I couldn't hear him walk in, I jumped.
This happens a lot and almost every time he says, 'It's just you and me in the house sweetheart. No need to be scared."
True, but not when you appear like a Star Trek-style transporter that teleported you into the living room. Perhaps that is a discussion for another day.
He stood to watch me, as he sometimes does. It's heart warming and entertaining to watch him pretending to copy me actually. I laugh so much. (Here's a double doze of serotonin.)
And I, wanting to take advantage of my audience, felt I needed to really perform. After all, someone was watching.
So as I was giving it my all, I stumbled and nearly fell. I started laughing but he didn’t flinch.
I said, "Did you see that"? He said, "What"?
I said, "I stuffed it up". And he said, "Oh. I thought it was part of the dance".
Maybe he was being kind. But it made me think. And I didn't think more about it until this morning when I read,
"Forget the past but never forget the lesson." ...
Over the years, I've learned that the key to success, (whatever success means to you) is the ability to keep your long-term goal in mind at all times. It's about having belief in yourself and your abilities. When we feel confident in our abilities, we can control what happens to us in life. We can handle big challenges and make the changes we need to make, to respond to those challenges.
On the other hand, being confident in our abilities is not only about succeeding. It's also about learning from our mistakes. Mistakes and imperfections are all part of life.
Life is probably our 'biggest dance'.
So when you make mistakes and stumble along the way, just embrace them.
Make them all part of the dance. Because without those we wouldn’t grow and mature and become better people.
Learning that failure is a part of success is just like stumbling is a part of learning to dance. Sore ankles, sore knees, sore feet, sore arms are all part of it. So each time you are faced with an obstacle think of it as being a new dance you're learning and that there will be some 'stuff-up's' along the way.
Keep reminding yourself that failure is a part of success. And so is learning to be resilient in the face of failure.
Keep going, even while the voice in your head is saying
'why are you even doing this'?
'don’t bother'.
'it won’t eventuate to anything anyway'.
'you can’t do it'.
'you are not as good as them'.
Keep learning to diffuse those unhelpful thoughts. Keep learning to say "I am doing it anyway".
And there is something called grit. Grit is passion and perseverance.
Yes talent is important but it’s passion and perseverance that matters.
I'm good at falling but I am even better at getting back up.
Grit makes you wipe the sweat off your face to push through and make every stumble part of your dance.
And practice makes perfect.
Keep going.
Keep growing.
Ozge McAree