Episode 180: Dancer Accountability
Dr. Chelsea: Welcome to Passion for Dance. I'm Dr. Chelsea, and I'm on a mission to create happier, more successful dancers through positive mental skills, and many coaches today struggle with accountability on their teams or in the studio. We want dancers who do the hard work, stick to it, follow through with their promises. Truly accountable dancers own up to their mistakes and do what they say they're going to do even when no one's watching. It's about being accountable to each other, and the best leaders know how to do that.
So today, I want to talk about why the very best leaders out there make mistakes and focus on personal accountability. Dancers, I'm talking to you today. I'm going to explain exactly what to do if you want to be a strong leader on your team, and that doesn't have to mean a formal leader, like a captain. It just means you want to be the dancer who is being a positive role model for everyone else.
And before I dive in, if you're new to the show, well, first welcome! I know it might be a little overwhelming to know which episode to listen to. We are getting close to 200 now, so there's a huge back catalog of advice and help that might be right for you. And you can always go back to the beginning and binge listen, of course, but I know we don't have a lot of extra time.
So to help you decide where to start, I have a short, five-question quiz. It'll tell you exactly which episodes will help you with whatever's going on right now. Think of it like a personality quiz: just a few quick questions, and you'll get a curated podcast list with the top five episodes that will help you most right now.
Maybe you need some motivation or inspiration. Maybe, dancers, you need something to listen to for help, or maybe you're looking for help with confidence. Whatever support you need, take the short quiz and find out it's at www.chelseapierotti.com/podcastquiz to get started. That's www.chelseapierotti.com/podcastquiz. You can click on the link in the show notes right now. It's below wherever you're listening. And thanks for being here! I'm happy to have you as a part of this community. Let's talk about leadership and accountability!
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Hi, I'm Dr. Chelsea, a former professional dancer and mental performance coach. I know what it feels like to be a passionate dance teacher who cares about your dancers, but you want to challenge them and help them be their best, and I also recognize that some traditions and teaching practices in the dance world are harmful. So I'm on a mission to change our dance industry by creating happier, more successful dancers using positive mental skills.
When you understand how to help your dancers with their confidence, how to find their own motivation, work together as a team and more, your dancers will unlock new levels of competitive success and happiness. And it's not just about them; you deserve the same. So we'll talk about how dance teachers can use positive mental skills to be more confident, resilient, and motivated as well.
Be sure to hit “subscribe” wherever you listen to podcasts. There are new episodes every Thursday, and each week you'll hear from me and my guests with advice and actionable tips for building mental toughness, covering topics about mindset, motivation, resilience, and building a community. Passion for Dance is a show designed to help dance educators like you have a positive impact on every dancer you teach.
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First, to any teachers listening, when we are faced with the challenge of teaching accountability, I know it can be hard to know what to do. It feels like our dancers should have learned this already at home or at school, or they're trying to get away with something in class they wouldn't push in a different situation. I know it feels really challenging to teach accountability. Well, I'm here to try to make it easier for you. I want to share my script of sorts.
So the following is something I wrote for dance team captains, seniors, any dance leaders in their environment. So this episode is for the future leaders. Teachers, I think it'll resonate with you to listen in and share it. Dancers, I hope anyone who is a leader or is aspiring to be that role model someday will take something from this.
Accountability as a Leader in The Dance World – 3:57
Accountability is a pretty simple concept to understand yet incredibly challenging to implement as a leader. It's way easier said than done. At its core, accountability is when you do what you said you were going to do to the best of your ability. It doesn't mean perfect or without mistakes. The point of accountability is if you promised you'd do something, you do it. And it's not really about being accountable to an adult. The most important thing is every dancer is accountable to yourself and each other.
The challenge for leaders in the dance world is to embody that accountability. It's your role to demonstrate what it means to your team. It's your duty to hold yourself to the highest level of accountability. When you promise that you will complete a summer workout, you do it even if no one's checking on you. When you promise to be on time to a performance and make sure everything is ready to have a great show, you hold up your responsibilities and follow through.
But being accountable doesn't stop with doing what you say you will. It's also modeling for everyone else what to do when you fall short. What happens when you make a mistake? See, I believe the most powerful leadership tool you have is your own personal example. In order to develop a dance team that holds each other accountable, that fights for their dreams, works hard every day, a good leader chooses to be a good example in every situation. And again, it's not about perfect. No one is perfect. Your job as a leader isn't to be perfect. Instead, the best thing you can do for your team is to try your best to make the right decision and always follow through on your word. But when you make a mistake, be an example of how to have a positive reaction.
How Leaders Model Accountability – 5:41
Accountability means you keep trying, even when you make mistakes, and this starts during technical skill training. If you make a mistake while practicing your routine, or you keep falling out of the turn sequence, how you handle yourself in those tough moments will show your team what accountability means to you. It means you keep fighting. It means you don't get down on yourself and give up. It means you maintain your confidence and push forward.
When a leader models that kind of behavior, the whole team will start to follow. If every dancer is accountable for his or her actions, the expectation is to keep trying, even if you made a mistake. And if everyone continues to push through and keep trying, that's where real growth happens and all the success stories begin. Don't be afraid to try a new skill in front of everyone. It's okay if you fail. You want everybody else to keep trying, don't you? So you have to do it too.
Consider what happens on your team when you make a mistake. When you miss a formation change, or when you're practicing a new section and you freeze because you forgot the choreography, how does your team react? Is your team supportive when mistakes happen? Do some people on the team put others down when they see a mistake? How you treat each other in your lowest moments is what will make the difference on your path to those high moments. So model how to handle those tough moments, because how you make a mistake when you're the leader is all in the reaction.
After a mistake, there are two stages: the immediate reaction and then the follow up. Of course you want to follow up after a mistake, figure out what happened, how you can prevent it from happening again. However, the more challenging and, often, more important part is what happens immediately after a mistake. Think about that first moment, what's going through your head? If you've ever made a big mistake during a key performance, you know it can be hard to let it go and to focus on the rest of the routine, or if you're having a difficult day in practice, it can be hard to let a mistake go and really learn anything because you get so caught up in what you're doing wrong. So in the moment, how do you let go of that mistake?
The Importance of Challenging Our Self-Talk – 7:44
Whenever you have internal dialogue going on in your head, it's called self-talk. Anytime you're talking to yourself, you have the power to make things better or worse in that moment. For many people, the self-talk after a mistake is not very nice. We'll say things like, “I can't believe I keep messing this up. What if everyone is so mad at me?” It's like, “I'm the leader. I'm supposed to get this. Why can't I turn today? This is so embarrassing.” We can be mean to ourselves, and all too often, we immediately go to that negative place after a mistake.
Here's the trick though. Your thoughts aren't always true. You don't have to believe them. It's completely up to you to release that negative thought and return your focus to the task at hand. Your job is to practice turning those negative self-statements into something different. You don't have to believe it, so turn it around.
Rather than, “What if,” we tend to say things like, “What if everyone is mad?” “What if coach pulls me from the routine?” “What if I'll never get this?” Rather than that, Try to say, “So what?” “So what if I fell? I'll try again.” “So what if I made a fool of myself? My teammates will pick me back up.” “So what if I can't do it? I can't do it now, but I will be able to with practice.” With repetition, you can learn how to recognize the negative “what if” type of statement and start to rephrase it into a “so what,” a statement that helps you throw away the mistake in the moment and know that you can keep trying.
Think about what happens when you keep making a mistake in practice. It's easy to get bogged down in the negative, and then you stop practicing at a hundred percent. You reduce your effort and often just give up. But if your team is full of accountable dancers, the goal is to keep working hard every day, no matter the obstacle, because you all want your dreams to come true that season. So rather than getting caught up in your mistake, you learn to throw away the negative self-talk (just release it; it's probably not true) and allow yourself to keep fighting. Hold up your responsibilities to your team.
Create a Gesture to Stay Accountable to Your Team – 9:44
You can even take it a step further and make a gesture to remind yourself. Have fun with this. And I mean an actual physical gesture. I've talked to some dancers about this, and we made a cute little, like, brush-it-off gesture. You know, where you bring your hand up to one shoulder, give it a little brush off. This can signal to yourself and your teammate, “Okay, saw that mistake, but love the effort. I want to brush it off. I'm going to keep going.” It's a gesture to yourself and to everyone else that you know it just happened, but it's not going to bog you down. You're going to keep going.
Another fun example that I had a dancer do was, essentially, flush it. You hold your fist up in front of you and turn it 90 degrees like you would when you flush a toilet. It's silly, but it's actually pretty powerful. If you make a mistake, you flush it. It's not going to stick with you. It's not something that's going to bog down your effort and your thoughts. You just release it.
The simple gestures can speak volumes. When we make a mistake, we brush it off. We support each other. You keep trying. You want to create a silly, simple move that means, “So what? I've got this,” to your team, and more importantly, to yourself. Then anytime you see a teammate struggling in practice, you can do that to each other. You can remind your teammate, “Let it go. Keep your eyes on the prize and keep going. Your effort is what matters.”
And, of course, you can do it to yourself when you're having a rough practice. Remember, making a mistake, falling out of a turn, forgetting the choreography, that itself isn't the problem. As long as you're working hard and going for growth, failure is how you learn. As long as you're not getting bogged down in the failure and you keep learning from it you'll continue to see growth, and a simple brush-it-off gesture will remind you to stay accountable to your team and not give up.
Bottom line: failure is part of the process. It's how you handle it that counts. As a leader on your team, it's how you show up, how you handle these mistakes. It's not about being perfect. It's being a role model for growth and effort and focus.
Thank you for listening, dancers. You are in control of how you show up as a leader. Again, whether you have a title or not, it's about showing up to be that role model. I don't care how old you are, how talented you are, how long you've been dancing, you can choose to show up as a leader. It will be noticed whether you have a formal title or you're just someone who has a lot of positive influence on the dancers around you. I hope you take this to heart and give it a try. Thank you for listening, and keep sharing your passion for dance with the world!
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Thank you for listening to Passion for Dance! You can find all episode resources at www.chelseapierotti.com/podcast, and be sure to follow me on Instagram for more high-performance tips at @dr.chelsea.pierotti. This podcast is for passionate dance teachers and coaches who are ready to change the dance industry by creating happier, more successful dancers. I'm Dr. Chelsea and keep sharing your passion for dance with the world.
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