I am taking a class that I never aspired to or dreamed of: flamenco dancing! As I was flipping through classes offered at Princeton Arts Council, I was mesmerized by a photo of women in long skirts with layers of ruffles, black dancing shoes, and clapping hands. Honestly, I was unfamiliar with flamenco. But I love dancing. Intrigued, I investigated further on YouTube. I discovered flamenco is all about intricate hand movements, emphatic shoe tapping, dramatic clapping, and graceful skirt shifting. So, me!
Hesitantly, I reached out to the instructor. She invited me to join in a free session. If I was interested, I’d be part of a class of women who’d been practicing flamenco since September. How would I keep up? Was this just a whim? Would it be worth making the investment in the clothing?
The longer days, flowers blooming, inviting sunshine—swept me up! After all its spring!
Spring is a Time for New Beginnings
Just like the new year, spring is a time of new beginnings. We see it in nature all around us—the bright daffodils, pink magnolia blossoms, the yellow forsythias exploding on their stems. It’s an opportunity for us too, to grow and try something new. I hadn’t realized the convergence of my new class and spring until my friend Lynnie made the association.
For so many of us, our lives are the same day in and day out. We do our work. We have our routines. We watch our TV shows. And world news frightens and overwhelms us.
And don’t we all yearn for something more? Maybe it’s building a new habit: yoga, daily walking, meditation, golf, tennis, eating healthy, working out at the gym, reading a book. Maybe it’s about relationships—finding your just right person, keeping closer with friends and loved ones, enjoying more fun, quality time with your kids, joining a meetup group with others who enjoy your hobby. Maybe it’s a project that’s been on the backburner: creating a garden, painting a room, reorganizing a closet, taking that trip you’ve dreamed of. Or maybe it’s expressing yourself creatively: writing your dreamed of book, taking an art class, singing lessons, or dance; learning a new language, enrolling in a cooking class.
Why not go for your something more?
We Hold Ourselves Back
That’s right! We get in our own way from springing forward and acting on our dreams. Oh, there can be so many reasons. Time, money, faith in ourselves, feeling lacking in ability. But I would say the biggie is the stories we tell ourselves. Our minds tend to go towards negative previous experiences when we consider doing something new.
One coaching client of mine wanted to develop healthier eating and exercise habits. She said, “That’s going to be hard because I never follow through.”
I know that never doesn’t exist. It’s our self-disappointments overshadowing our successes. So I asked, “Can you think of a time you did follow through on something that mattered to you?”
In about 5 seconds she responded, “Well, I did cycle from the World Trade Center to Washington DC as part of an effort to raise money for police officers’ families.”
“That sounds huge! Tell me about it.” She described all the training and preparation she had to do to cycle up to 60 miles/day. Accessing a positive empowering memory of herself following through to reach a goal, opened a small window of light. We began talking about how she might actually have what it takes to start building the healthy habits she craved.
I find it so exciting to recognize that it’s within our power to go beyond our negative self-stories. And one way is to remember times we have been successful. We realize we can unleash our positive possibilities when we voice our strengths and successes.
Spring Forward – Your Takeaways
1. I’m seeing the process of beginning something wonderful and new like tending a garden. First we need to weed out the uninvited guests. Those negative things we say to ourselves that hold us back.
2. Next, we choose the flowers we hope to bloom. Remembering what’s bloomed beautifully before is a starting point. That’s our previous successes related in any small way to our dreams and goals.
3. Rich loamy soil gives us the foundation to support our new spring beauties. We strengthen our soil by envisioning the person we wish to show up as: our identity. James Clear, author of Atomic Habits, and the person I call “the habit guru,” says our power in doing or learning something new is in focusing on who we wish to become, not what we want to achieve.
For me, my identity as a flamenco dancer is, I am a person who does things she loves that are out of her comfort zone. And, I am a person who practices dance every day. (This is the part where I have to overcome past stories, and I will because I’m writing to you about it!)
My client who wants to develop both healthy exercise and eating habits says the identity she wants to develop is, I am a person who makes my health a priority.
Some Inspiration from This Is Us
My husband Gus and I are huge This Is Us fans. In a recent episode, the mother, Rebecca, sat down at a table in their family getaway cabin with her three 40-year-old children. With early-onset Alzheimer’s she implored them to live boldly. “Take risks, make the big moves, even if they’re small moves. Forge ahead with your lives in any and every direction that moves you. I’m asking you to be FEARLESS. And if that sounds like a tall order it is. And the only acceptable response is, ‘Yes, ma’am.’”
WOW!
So, I say to you, the same thing. It’s spring, an opportunity for a new beginning that will give life to your life. Why not take a risk, big or small? You have it in you to be FEARLESS!
Gail is the award-winning author of The Affirming Way of Life: See the Good, Speak the Good, Spread the Good, a speaker, and life coach. She is happy to offer you a free 1-hour introductory coaching session to help you make a move and spring forward on a dream/goal. Contact her at gail@uppcoach.com Check out her website for more info at www.uppcoach.com
You can order Gail’s book, The Affirming Way of Life: See the Good, Speak the Good, Spread the Good at Amazon. It’s a great way to support yourself in living with heart fearlessly.
