Point the toes, engage the knee, straighten the leg, tighten all the muscles of your legs, keep your torso up, activate all your core, stretch your arms like you are touching the wall across the room but keep the shoulders down, activate all your fingers including to your nails, don’t cover your face, don’t look down, keep yourself elongated…

Then, remember all your steps, don’t forget to follow the cues, ensure you keep up with the rhythm, remember to listen to the music, move your whole body graciously, avoid looking like a robot…

And, on top of all of that, show emotion! Make sure your face expresses the feelings of the song, let the feelings come through you, use your eyes, connect deeply with the audience, remember to breath and don’t let your lips get dry and stuck to your teeth or you’ll be smiling all the time…

Do you like a challenge? Take up dancing classes!!! 

It requires you to engage physically, mentally and emotionally! 

Learning how to dance is practicing for real life…

You need to keep your energy up.

You need to be physically fit.

You need to be flexible.

You need to be adaptable. 

You need to have balance.

You need to be mentally alert.

You need to exercise your memory.

You need to keep up with the challenging coordination required. 

You need to let yourself feel all your emotions. 

You need to let others see you fully and be ok with being vulnerable. 

You need to be courageous to step up in front of others and be judged. 

You need to be ok with failure and learn from it. 

You need to be humble and realize that you know nothing.

You need to learn how to ask for directions.

You need to acknowledge the progress you are making and how far you’ve come. 

And you need to be ok with the hard work required. 

All of these requirements are the same whether you are taking dancing lessons, or you are living your life. 

Life is beautiful, in the same way that a dancing performance can be. 

But to live a beautiful life or achieve a beautiful performance you have to be willing to work hard.

And that’s where the beauty lies; in all the preparation and hard work that it is required for those few minutes of the show. 

If you don’t enjoy the process, you are missing the whole point…

If every time you go for practice you dread it, you feel sorry for yourself, you are unhappy…then what is the point? Should you continue doing something if you don’t appreciate the process? 

And don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that it will always be hard work and you will struggle every time to reach your goals…

But for those big goals, the ones that make you get out of your comfort and grow and become a new version of you…those goals will require you to toughen up and be ok with the pain because they will push you into levels that you’ve never experienced before and that is uncomfortable… 

Then, if you are not ok with the hard work that you will have to do in order to be great, if you are not ok with the struggle that you’ll have to go through in order to get out of your own comfort zone, then maybe you should rethink what is it that you are doing…

It could be that you are not targeting the right goal. 

Maybe, you are not aiming at what you truly want to reach. 

Because when you are aiming at something that you sincerely want, you will be ok with the hard work required to get there. 

When the vision of your future you is so compelling and clear then you will be ok with the effort that it will require you to achieve it. 

The promise of that future will be the fuel that gives you the energy to keep up when things get hard during the journey to get there. 

The vision of your goal will keep you centered and aligned and let you savor the process of what you are going through. 

Friedrich Nietzsche said it in this way “He who has a why to live can bear almost any how”.

If you have a vision of what you want to reach, you will be ok with all the hard work required to achieve it.

But if you don’t have a clear vision, a reason why, then, all the struggle is meaningless. 

If you don't have the motivation behind all the effort, all the hard work, there will be a point when you will be despising it so much that you would want to quit. 

Let’s go back to the dancing example; dancing is my hobby. I always wanted to learn how to dance, I always loved music and I just can’t stop myself from moving whenever I hear a song I like. 

So, a couple of years ago I decided to start taking private lessons with a professional dancer.

But, there is a difference when you are dancing just for fun without any agenda and when you are taking dancing lessons. 

When you have a goal to achieve, whether it is a showcase or a competition you approach your practice differently. 

If you care about your performance, if you want to do your best the day of the show, then you’d better make sure you spend the hours required to practice. You’ll wake up early to make time for practice, you’ll get over the pain on your feet, the blisters, the muscle screaming at you and the soreness in the whole body… 

You’ll be ok with the hard work, because you have a clear goal in mind. 

And that’s where the fun happens, that’s where you learn how much you can push yourself, how much you can get our of your comfort and improve. You learn that you can do much more than you gave yourself credit for. You grow.

But if you don't aim at the goal, or it is not a strong enough one, then you will not feel like practicing, you will not wake up early or make time to practice. Because you don't really care about the final result.

So, when you set up a goal that you want to accomplish, why don't you ask yourself, am I willing to do the hard work required to achieve it? Am I willing to spend the time and sacrifice needed to get to where I want to go? Is this important enough for me to make time for it? 

If you are ok with the sacrifices required, then you’ll increase your chances of success. Because you will be ok spending the time learning and practicing and failing and struggling…and that is what at the end transform you into a new version of you…

Now, what goals have you achieved in your life that required you to struggle, grow and transform? Have you ever find yourself dreading the hard work required to achieve your goal? How did you push yourself through the struggle? Share your thoughts below, I’d love to hear from you!!

xoxo,

Sofia