215. Season Reflections: How Dancers Get Mentally Stronger in the Off-Season

[00:00:00] Hello and welcome to Passion for Dance. I'm your host, Dr. Chelsea, and I'm on a mission to create happier, more successful dancers through positive mental skills and one of the most valuable mental skills. It's the skill at the root of all others is developing your sense of awareness. It's about awareness of yourself, your thoughts, your body, your emotions.

And one great way to do that is to take time for reflection. As we enter the summer season, I wanna talk about reflection and why it's such a critical skill for athletes. I'm gonna cover why reflection matters and give you four science-backed tools that you can use today to start to increase your own awareness and mental toughness.

This is how dancers get stronger in the off season.

Welcome to Passion for Dance. I'm Dr. Chelsea, a former professional dancer, turn sport psychologist, and this podcast is for everyone in the dance industry who want to learn actionable strategies and new mindsets to build happier, more successful dancers. I. I know what it feels like to push through the pain, take [00:01:00] on all the criticism, and do whatever it takes to make sure the show will go on.

But I also know that we understand more about mental health and resilience than ever before, and it's time to change the industry for the better. This podcast is for all of us to connect, learn, and share our passion for dance with the world.

I first want to acknowledge that while I'm talking about reflection in the off season, I know dance doesn't often have an off season. We never really stop, but that's actually why this is even more important to stop and find time between seasons. My friend Katie Groven is a strength trainer for dancers, and she likes to call the summer the improvement season, and I think that's my favorite.

We're here for the mental improvement as well. We may not stop training entirely, but we can take time for intentional rest and improvement and not just stay on that hamster wheel 365. So here's some of what science tells us about why reflection makes such a difference in a dancer's growth journey.

First [00:02:00] reflection improves key mental skills like mental toughness and resilience. And it improves your motivation. It helps you notice how you are really feeling and notice your growth to keep you motivated. I know in the summer a lot of dancers are also receiving placements for next season, and that can be a very emotional and challenging time reflection helps you build the resilience to stick with it, even if you're disappointed and it helps you get unstuck if you find yourself constantly comparing your outcome to everyone else.

Secondly, we know that reflection can help dancers stay connected to their personal goals and not just results. Whether those results are summer placements or how your competition season ended. Reflection is a skill that you can train and integrate into your whole season so that you are more clear about your personal goals and that sense of success that's rooted in your own growth and progress.

That's really how you maintain motivation and resilience when you hit a roadblock. You stay focused on your own growth and not the end [00:03:00] result. And the last point I wanna make here is that positive coaching relationships enhance the effectiveness of reflection. When athletes feel supported and are training with coaches who value personal growth over replacement and outcomes, it's easier for dancers to build their own mental toughness and be more resilient.

But dancers listening. Whether you are part of a positive environment or not, you can still take control of your journey and build your own resilience. You can focus on your own growth and success regardless of negative messaging you might receive from someone else. The tool to help you get there is reflection.

Okay, let's get practical. End of season reflection when supported with these specific tools and strategies, and a focus on personal development will help you grow mentally and emotionally this summer. It can even help you be a happier dancer all year. Reflection isn't about reliving mistakes and the hardest parts of the past season.

It's about recognizing your own growth and staying connected to your love of dance. [00:04:00] So here are four tools you can use if you're ready to try personal reflection this summer.

The first is the post-event reflection tool. This tool builds your own motivation and can help you maintain a positive focus. It's a simple three question prompt that you use after an event. For example, you use it after a competition, a performance, or an audition. Ask yourself, what went well, what could be better, and what did I learn?

Especially during summer when we are placed in our new companies levels or teams for next year. It's important to reflect after the audition, no matter the outcome. Recognize what went well and what you'd like to improve and try to be objective about behaviors here. You're not reflecting on other people's thoughts and actions, but your own. For example, I was prepared and I didn't give up when the combination was hard. I can improve on my ability to pick up choreography quickly. So you're thinking about what went well and what could be better. And then think about what you learned about [00:05:00] yourself or about that event or that company that will help you in the future. Maybe in that example, you learn, the team you're trying out for really cares about picking up choreography quickly, so you know you need more classes that will challenge you in that way. So you are more comfortable picking up choreography next time.

The simple three question reflection will help you stay motivated after a disappointment, and also take accountability for how you can improve next time and reach your goals. But it's not just about disappointment. It's still really valuable, even when the outcome of the audition is exactly what you were hoping for because you still have goals.

So consider what went well, what could be better, and what did I learn?

I wanna pause for just a second and say hello to any new listeners and thank you for being a part of the community. If you're [00:06:00] new to the show today or found us recently, I have a special resource for you. It's simply the new listener resource, and it has my best recommendations for other podcasts or books to inspire you, as well as all my current free resources that you can download, which includes things like the competition confidence checklist, or journal prompts that might help you today.

It's actually a simple Google Doc because I'm constantly updating it and sharing new things for dancers and dance educators, and I wanted a way to give you all the links in one place so you can grab your copy today and it will always update as new things are happening this year. You can get it at passion for dance podcast.com.

You'll see it right on the homepage. That's passion for dance podcast.com. Welcome to the community. I'm so happy to have you. Okay, let's get back to the show.

The second tool is a personal growth journal. This is a specific type of journaling that you use all season and continue during the off [00:07:00] season reading back over what you've written all year.

The goal here is to intentionally pause and reflect regularly all season. Then over the summer, you stop and take a bigger view of what happened all year. In this personal growth journal, you can write once a week and answer, what was my biggest challenge this week? What am I most proud of? How have I grown? It's similar to the post event structure, but the idea is to consistently look at each week, consider what was challenging, what you're proud of, and what you learned. Doing it regularly helps increase your awareness and motivation, so you are focused on your goals for the next week. You get outta the rut.

Dancers who use a regular personal growth journal, often progress faster all year because of the focus and awareness. So I encourage you to try it with a summer intensive or camp this year and see if you notice a difference within just a few weeks. I bet you get more out of your summer training this year if you give it a try.

A third reflection tool is the SWOT [00:08:00] analysis. This comes from business strategies and it's usually used for companies, but I've found it helpful with athletes as well. I utilize the tool specifically in the summer when you are in between seasons, because the goal is more of a big picture of last year type reflection.

You start with the major prompt or idea. What's one opportunity I want to explore in this off season? So a big picture. What do you want this season? Do you want to take a class in a different style? Do you wanna see a professional performance? Do you want to read something or find inspiration in an unusual place? Once you have that goal or prompt, this is how the SWOT analysis works.

S is for strengths. So you list your current personal strengths as a dancer and the gains you made this season. Technical improvements, mental and physical skills you've learned any growth. The W is for weak areas or setbacks. List any goals that are weaker in your training or setbacks you experienced this season.[00:09:00] 

O is for opportunities. List any ideas for growth in the off season that might give you that larger prompt of what you wanna focus on. And finally, the T is for threats and you list any potential barriers to your progress. This process of going through all four strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, encourages you to focus on setting an off season goal with focus that will benefit you most this summer.

So there's truly two ways you can do this. You can consider the SWOT analysis over your whole season and then use that to make a specific goal for the summer. Then you can go again and think about a SWOT analysis for that specific goal. So for example, let's say one focus of growth for you was to take a few classes in a style outside your comfort zone.

So you might consider your strengths. I can adapt to new people pretty easily and stay focused in class. It's a strength of mine as a dancer. A weakness is I feel extra anxious about taking a new class. I know I'll feel [00:10:00] behind the other dancers and be uncomfortable. Opportunities. I found three classes that are a good fit close by that allow drop-ins this summer. The threats would be my own nervousness, but I know I can do it. And you can see how if you take that goal and you have a big picture focus, you consider your strengths and weaknesses, opportunities and what will get in the way, it's then easier to go ahead and sign up for those classes and make your goals happen. If you didn't go through this process and at the beginning of the summer you just said, I need to try a new class that usually doesn't have the traction you need to see it through the SWOT analysis does.

Finally, a great summer reflection tool is to reflect with your coach or your teacher or your fellow dancers if that's available to you. It's answering the basic question, how can we work better together next season? I really encourage dancers to use this with anyone in leadership. Check in with captains, assistants, teachers and peers.

You can talk about your favorite moments of [00:11:00] the season, challenges you both experienced. Then talk it out so you can answer the question, how can I better support you next season? This can build communication and trust between teachers and students and between peers on a team. And sure, this is not the right type of reflection for every situation, but if it fits your circumstances, it can be really valuable for many dancers.

Okay, one last note before I wrap this up. Getting into a reflection practice is hard. It's hard to make it stick. So if you tried the SWOT analysis and now you have a goal for the summer, I hope you try a weekly reflection to track that goal's progress. But I will be the first to say that sticking to reflection goal can be hard.

So if you find it hard, two ideas I wanna share with you. One is to pair it with something else you already do every week. So if you're trying to do a weekly reflection journal, but you find hard to remember or find time, pairing it with another habit is one great strategy [00:12:00] to try. This advice comes from James Clear and he talks about it in his book Atomic Habits, and there's certainly science to back it up.

If you want a new habit, attach it to an old one. If you always do your meal prep on Sunday, then sit down and do your 10 minute reflection before the meal prep starts. You find something you already do every week and see if you can attach the journaling to that habit.

The other thing that gets in the way for a lot of people is some just don't like writing, and that's okay if the actual writing is what's tripping you up. Use voice notes on your phone if you'd rather and talk it out, you can easily get transcriptions of that now, use technology to your advantage. The important thing is that you find something that works for you. If that's talking into your phone while you walk your dog, great.

If that's pretty pens on a new notebook on your nightstand, that works too. There's no right way to get into a habit of reflection, but the right way is the one that works for you.

Okay. I hope I've inspired you to do at least one off [00:13:00] season reflection and a SWOT analysis this summer, and even better if you're willing to try it , for the entire summer improvement season.

Remember that reflection will boost your motivation and your resilience, both of which help when things pick up again this fall. And even more importantly, it can help you keep your joy for dance. I challenge you to pick one thing to try this week, and if you do, I'd love to see what you're working on. Take a picture, tag me on Instagram, I wanna see what you're doing and cheer you on.

I'm gonna take some time for my own improvement season and take a few weeks off from the podcast, something I haven't done in four years, but it's time. So I'm gonna do my own reflection and take some time for a little reset, and I hope you do the same.

Thanks for listening. Cheers to an amazing off season or improvement season, and keep sharing your passion for dance with the world.

Thank you for listening to Passion for Dance. You can find all episode resources at passion for dance podcast.com and be [00:14:00] sure to follow me on Instagram for more high performance tips at Doctor Chelsea dot Otti. That's P-I-E-R-O-T-T-I. This podcast is for passionate dancers and dance educators who are ready to change our industry by creating happier, more successful dancers.

I'm Dr. Chelsea and keep sharing your passion for dance with the world.