As west coast swing competitions begin to come back, I want to share my outlook on goal setting as it is related to dancing.
The most effective goals meet 5 criteria. They are within your control, specific, measurable, achievable and time bound.
We tend to set goals around the outcomes of competitions because they are the easiest to measure and they are time-bound. You know if you hit your goal as soon as the results are announced. Made it to finals? Boom. Goal satisfied. Placed at least third? Boom. Goal satisfied. Qualified to dance as intermediate or advanced? Boom. Goal satisfied. And you rely on this outcome to prove that your skills are improving. The problem with this outlook is that, sure, you made finals at this competition but if you don’t make finals at the next competition, the conclusion is that you now getting WORSE!! And while that’s possible, it’s extremely unlikely. What is more likely is that one or several of the many factors outside of your control ultimately affected BOTH outcomes. If something is outside of your control it isn’t a reliable source of validation of your skill level.
Here are some examples that explain why the results at competitions are out of your control.
Song choice – Song choice affects your dance and you don’t get to pick the songs. What if all of the songs they play remind you of a traumatic experience in your life? What if they remind you of an ex? What if the beat just annoys you? What if you’ve heard the song a million times already and now it irritates you? Sure you can mitigate some of the effects a bad song may have on you with practice but you’re still probably never going to perform at your best during a song that you hate.
Partner – Since it’s jack and jill, your partners are completely random and their skill level, attitude and everything else in between is going to affect your dance. They could hate the song choice and dance grumpy. Maybe they are overall a good dancer but they do that one thing that just drives you crazy! Or maybe you two just don’t communicate well? What if you think your partner is hot and you spend the whole song being distracted!? Their skill level could be way above yours or way below causing a distinct disconnect in the dance. They could be from a completely different location and do even the basics slightly different than what you’re used to. They could not even speak the same language as the song you two are dancing too, and while you’re hitting all the lyrical things in the song with gusto and enthusiasm, they are just staring at you looking confused.
Judges – The most obvious determining factor as to whether you will succeed in a competition is, the judges. In the lower levels they are often overwhelmed with a large number of people that they are expected to judge fairly. They may be simply looking for people who stand out to pass on or they are looking for people who look like they are noticeably struggling. And they catch you in those two seconds that you almost tripped and fell on your face. They might not even get to see you and if they do it’s so fast that they forget whether they liked your dancing or not. Maybe you do stand out and then you get looked at too much, long enough for them to be convinced that you shouldn’t move on. Maybe the judge is looking for something specific that you haven’t had time to work on yet so you don’t qualify. Maybe the judges don’t like what you’re wearing. Obviously, getting lost in the crowd is more of a lower level problem, but no matter what level they are judging they will always have a bias. And the higher up you go, the more this bias gets revealed because the differences between the dancers is actually so small technically that who places and who doesn’t gets decided based on musicality decisions. The point is that the judges are human too and they are doing their best to be fair but you can’t control when they see you, when they don’t and who they see you nor can you mind read to know exactly what they are looking for.
And all of these factors outside of your control were important before the pandemic. Now that we have all gone a year and a half without competing the factors have only increased. In the past year and half, your main competitor could have moved next door to a champion and spent the last 8 months in solitary practicing with a champion. But since there haven’t been any competitions they haven’t moved up like they should have!! Meanwhile, you were prepccupied with taking care of a newborn or your dad who just got sick and you haven’t had as much time to self practice. There are a ton of other factors that I could list but I’m hoping you see the point by now. Setting a goal that depends on the outcome of a competition is out of your control and is only setting yourself up for disappointment and a shoddy night of social dancing.
I’m not saying you shouldn’t want to make finals or semi-finals but they shouldn’t be your goals.
And you should have goals if you want to improve over time. They are the most organized and effective way to get better. All we have to do is structure our goals so that they meet the four criteria I listed earlier.
Be within our control
Be specific
Be measurable
Be achievable
Be time bound
It is still a good idea to place the culmination of your goal with compeitions because even though you will not be placing the weight on the outcome of the competition, it does satisfy the time-bound criteria of goal setting because there will be some time between competitions where you can practice and ramp up the performance where you test your ability using the goal you set. Essentially, goals need due dates. And the more expensive or the more negative the consequences of not meeting your goal by the due date, the more likely you will be motivated to achieve your goal. Also, because of the hormones and endorphins that are released when you compete, competing is just fun as it is.
Ok so you’ve picked your due date for your goal, maybe it’s Saturday at Wild Wild Westie or Desert City Swing in Phoenix in September, but we still have four more criteria to satisfy.
Think about your dance as it is right now, what have you been working on lately?
Musicality? Basics? Timing? Patterns? Anchor variations? Rolling through your foot? Engaging your muscles? Smiling? The list goes on and on of things to frustrate yourself over while you’re dancing. If you aren’t sure where to start, have a lesson with at least one pro a couple weeks before the competition and ask them what you might be missing that could prevent you from doing well. (again winning isn’t the goal but what it takes to win can help focus your daily dance grind)
For an example, let’s say you are working on your musicality. If you’re goal is to ‘be musically relevant’ during your dance at the competition, you are only setting yourself up to be disappointed because it is way too broad. There will be gray areas of whether something was musically relevant or not and then there will just be the moments where you realize your dancing resembles a scarecrow. You won’t be able to satisfy the criteria of ‘being musically relevant’ the entire dance. Your goal needs to be more specific.
As a follow, you could narrow the goal to hitting the 1 at the beginning of every 8 count. While it is specific, depending on your skill level, this goal might be too high of an expectation. It’s important that we set goals that will challenge us but not be unachievable. Give yourself the opportunity to exceed your own expectations within your goals. If your goal is to hit EVERY SINGLE 1 then you can only meet your goal, you can’t do better and that can cause a feeling of apathy even if you do meet your goal of hitting every single 1.
So let’s get more specific, but make the goal achievable and surpass-able. (Disclaimer: This goal could be really easy or difficult depending on your skill level, so just use it as an idea on how to construct your own.) Instead of trying to hit every single 1 at the beginning of every 8 count; you aim to accent a single 1 at the beginning of an 8 count using your head, then you accent another 1 using your shoulders and finally you aim to accent a 1 using some footwork. That’s only three times. During the competition, it creates a much more managable and focused mindset. Instead of thinking, “I need to win. I need to win” or ‘Hit every 1″ and then scrambling right before to think of what to do with your body. All you have to focus on is “do something with your head” and then wait for the moment. Maybe it takes you 3 more 8 counts before you have an opening but you nail the shoulder hit too. And then 2 more 8 counts later, you hit something with your feet!! Mission accomplished!! And now if you still have time, maybe you add a body roll on the last 8 count and you have managed to even surpass your goal. This goal is specific, achievable, within your control, measurable and timebound.
I could go on for awhile on how to break down each category into something manageable but I’ll give you only one more. I have been working lately on anchor variations. So my goal for the weekend competition is to get at least 3 anchor variations with each partner I dance with in the preliminaries. When I do a variation, is mostly within my control as I will just be waiting on my lead to lead me into an anchor, It’s specific because for the last 3 weeks I have been working on five variations and drilling them into my feets muscle memory so during the competition I should be able to focus on doing one variation, then the next and then the next. It’s measurable because I will be able to watch the video later to confirm whether I did them or not. And I’m challenging myself but I’m also giving myself room to get that blue light rush of exceeding my own expectations and getting maybe 4 or 5 variations in. And I can be proud of myself no matter what the outcome of the competition is. But let’s say my anchor variations get me into semifinals, then I can up my goal to 5 or 6 anchor variations with my partner. It might take some tweaking in later competitions to make sure that I’m challenged but not overwhelming myself but the point is that these goals are within our control, they are specific as possible, they are measurable and they are achievable!
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