I danced ballroom for about a year and learnt so many lessons from my journey. I want to share a few of my takeaways with you, which I otherwise might not have if I had not taken the leap to step out of my comfort zone and fulfill my childhood dream of being a dancer (if only for a year).

Why I Wanted to Dance Ballroom

I will never forget the times when I watched dance videos every day and tried to learn the routines by mirroring. I have always wanted to join a dance CCA or club, especially modern dance. In fact, I made it to the final round of auditions in my secondary school’s modern dance club. Unfortunately, I didn’t manage to get through it. After that, I didn’t dance as often as I liked to.

My longing for dance returned when I entered university. Although there were many dance clubs I could join, I was mesmerized by the elegance and grace that the standard ballroom dancers had. I also secretly wanted to wear beautiful ballgowns and look like a Disney princess!

Challenges I Faced

Once I was an active member, I treated each dance practice as another method to get my body moving – in a fun way with music and dance routines. I enjoyed moving my body to the music, as well as pretending to be a graceful princess.

A month later, things started to ‘get in the way’. For instance, I was tired of having my feet hurt after every dance lesson. A few of my friends also did not come for the lessons anymore. My school work started to pile up and I found it increasingly difficult to carve out precious time for dance. The challenges were not only physical, but also emotional ones. For example, no matter how many hours I practiced, I still felt like I was not ‘good enough’. There were many conflicting thoughts and emotions, as well as drama that happened.

Eventually, I decided to persist to see how far I can go. I also wanted to win a medal.

Preparing For Competitions

I was excited and nervous for my first dance competition. Although my dress was not the ballgown I was dreaming of, it was still pretty and it hugged my body in the right places. After weeks of preparation, it finally came down to that 1 minute and 30 seconds on the dance floor. I danced my heart out, but I was one point shy of making it to the finals. I was devastated.

However, that didn’t stop me from continuing to try harder for my next competition. I practiced harder and enjoyed learning new routines and dances. It paid off when I got into the final round of the competition. Unfortunately, I might have become complacent because I remembered not being in perfect form when I danced for the final round. In the end, I finished in 4th place. Still no medal.

It was really difficult then to continue dancing, especially when I had so many other commitments. I also made my lack of medals mean that I was a ‘bad’ dancer. Eventually, I did some mindset work as I was listening to The Life Coach School Podcast and got back into the routine. I viewed the dance sessions as a way for me to de-stress from school and a way to workout.

Taking A Different Approach

Here is what changed. In preparing for my third competition, I decided to take a different approach. After reading about affirmations and knowing how powerful it can be in achieving goals, I created one for the competition as an experiment to see if it really works.

My affirmation was: “I am joyfully walking across the stage to receive my first place medal for <insert dance name>.” I repeated this 4 times for each of the dance I competed in. It seemed so crazy to recite this each morning after waking up and each night before I went to sleep, but I did it anyway.

Now, I didn’t think that simply repeating my affirmations in my head did some ‘magic’ or led to ‘miracles’ happening. However, I realized it actually spurred me to take action and work towards my goal through my belief.

Repeating affirmations is like talking to your sub-conscious mind. Once your mind ‘gets’ it, you will naturally do things that align with it. I did this for about a month before my competition date.

I trained hard because I believed my goal was attainable. If I didn’t believe it would happen, I would not have been fully committed. If I believe that first place was possible, I would take action to ensure that it comes true. In other words, my success was inevitable. Thus, I invested time and took each practice session seriously so I ensured that I am always one step closer to my goal.

A Different Result

I worked hard and practiced a lot, especially the weeks leading up to the competition. The result? I won 3 medals, and 1 of them was a gold medal. I was ecstatic. Even though I fell a bit short of my goal, I think the whole experiment was still a success. Why? Because I tried my best, put in the effort, and enjoyed the process to get as close to the goal as possible. And I did.

Takeaways From My Journey

I admit that I didn’t think it was possible at first, seeing how I didn’t win a single medal/trophy for the past 2 competitions. However failure doesn’t mean stop trying – it just means to try a different approach.

Manifestation and affirmations work to a certain extent. It helped me to believe that my success was inevitable. I used them as an aid to take the action required for me to prepare and achieve my goal. This can be applied to any goal.

When you know you’ve worked hard for a goal, the reward is 10x sweeter. It is similar to climbing up a mountain vs taking a bus up to see the view. Despite it being the same view, which one do you think will look more amazing? The view you see after you’ve worked hard for it.

Looking back, I think not winning a medal in my first 2 competitions was a blessing in disguise. When I finally won a medal, the ‘taste’ of success was so much sweeter.

Learning to enjoy the process is much more important than achieving the goal. There is no guarantee that you will get the results you want, but you can control how you feel during the journey there, so why not make it fun?

Although I don’t dance as often anymore, I have taken the lessons I’ve learnt in this journey and applied it to other areas of my life. Hard work and practice goes a long way – with the help of the right mindset (combined with affirmations). If you are struggling to reach your goals, keep going but with a different approach.

I want to know – have you tried to use affirmations to reach your goal? Tell me in the comments below!