Setting your goals

[chica latina]

I've been told having short-term/realistic goals is very important for your dancing career; but I find it very difficult to come up with them. At the end, everyone would like to win ... so what other kind of goals can you set that will fulfill you in the meantime?

Is it really important to have them stated early on?

Should you start with very easy ones, to make sure you achieve something? or that will be kidding yourself...

[NielsenE]

I personally don't find sitting placement goals to be particularly useful -- I want goals to be something I can track on my own -- not something I need to wait for a competition for, or something that's as "random" as who else shows up to an event.

That said, here's some types of goals that I've used in the past;
Compete at N competitions over the next Y months
Smile through an entire song (or keep shoulders down, or ...)
Get my new routines by some date
Spend n hours practicing a week (or spend n minutes practice a certain
concept a week)

I avoid goals like "master X", "learn XYS's technique" as goals of that nature are hard to quantify/objectively measure progress towards -- they've things that you will always be improving, etc... My short term goals are almost always very measurable. Longer term goals can become more subjective, but when broken down I try to make sure they are bite-size and objective.

[Laura]

Very good advice here, I very much agree with what you have said.

When I came back to dancing this year (recall that I quit for about six weeks starting in February), I had to come up with a new set of goals. My first one was to get ready to dance in a competition that was exactly four months away from when I came back. I just wanted to participate in the competition, and not embarass myself or my teacher. (Mission accomplished.)

Sometime while working on that goal, we started thinking about a longer-term goal, and I realized that to reach that one I would need to be doing a lot more competitions. So, I set the goal to do one competition per month. (Mission accomplished.)

My next goal is fitness-oriented, and it's to re-introduce a consistent cardio workout program into my weekly regimen.

All of these little goals are things that need to be met along the road toward my long-term goals.

So if you want/need to set goals, one way to get started is to start small, and get some success under your belt. Another way is to look several years out, and imagine where you would like to be, and work backwards setting intermediate goals that will help you achieve your longer-term goal.

[Chris Stratton]

I'm not worried about specifically stated goals, so much as generally what you feel you are trying to do. My concern with the timeframe is that if you view everything as taking a long time to accomplish, it won't happen any faster than you imagined, and the chances are extremely high that something unpredictable will knock you off track before you get there. But if you concentrate on what you can accomplish incrementally (but of course in long-term-viable directions) over the course of the more immediate future, you have a much greater chance of accomplishing it without interference. Looking forward to the future is important, but don't settle for delaying all gratification. It really will happen sooner if you have a healthy degree of impatience.

Provided of course that its impatience to do the right things... flash and trash is not productive, but if you can get into a determination about developing key skills, you can make progress at a rate that will make most around you, with their multi-year plans, seem to be standing still. You know the stereoptypical movie training montage? Well, you actually can live that for a while if you throw yourself into it with a good aim.

[Laura]

Chris, I completely fail to understand how having long-term goals can slow someone down or delay gratification. Obviously goals can be revised and changed as things -- good or bad -- happen. If one finds themself easily meeting their objectives, or progressing faster than planned, or whatever, then one can simply re-plan around this happy development. Goals, even when written down, are not set in stone. Just because one has a long-term plan, it doesn't mean one has to plod along with it if one is moving faster.

For instance, when I started with one particular partner, we had a goal of dancing our first competiton about four months after we got together (our long-term goal was to eventually participate at Blackpool). After about a month together, we realized that things were progressing really well, so we entered an earlier competition for our first time out (did great in it, too). We didn't "delay" any gratification by sticking mindlessly to our plan, we simply changed the plan in light of how things were going for us.

We never did get to Blackpool, but I must say that sometimes we would stare at a picture in our studio of the inside of the Winter Gardens for inspiration, so the goal did have some kind of motivational value even though it was not achieved.

[dgcasey]

Chris, I completely fail to understand how having long-term goals can slow someone down or delay gratification. Obviously goals can be revised and changed as things -- good or bad

That's because Chris doesn't understand the art of goal setting.

Me, being a devotee of Tony Robbins, I've been through his Goal Workshop a number of times and can truthfully say that setting goals is important in any endeavor of any importance, whether it be dance or career or whatever.

Tony will have you setting goals that are short term, medium term and long term. He will also stress the need to revisit your goals as time goes on and make any adjustments that are necessary. Jim Rohn will tell you the same thing and so will Zig Ziglar.

You can't set your goals, short, medium or long term, and then go on your merry way without checking your course against the flight plan along the way. If jet airliner autopilot did that, a flight to Honolulu would end up landing in Tokyo.

One of my medium range goals at the beginning of this year was to finish the Bronze level in the DVIDA Smooth category at the studio I go to. But, not being able to find a partner to practice with and having a few money issues has set me back, so a couple of months ago I revised the goal to finish the Waltz and Foxtrot portions and get through the first two levels of Tango. Then, a month ago I met a lady at the studio who is just as interested in completing the Bronze program and so we are now practicing 2-3 times a week at the studio and starting in a week or two will split a weekly private lesson together. My "new" goal, after considering the time frame and what I have left to learn is to finish Waltz, Foxtrot and Tango. We'll get a start on V. Waltz, but will most likely not finish that until sometime in February.

Do I feel like a failure because I didn't attain my goals as I had originally planned? Absolutely not. Failure would have been just giving up on the idea of completing Bronze altogether. But, understanding the art of goal setting has enabled me to reassess the situation (a couple of times) and to make adjustments. The goal may not be attained in the original time frame desired, but it will be attained.

There is something to be said for goal setting and those that attempt to tear down the practice or set the practice in concrete, don't understand the process at all.

Oh, one other thing before I jump down off this soapbox. If your goals aren't written down and hanging on the wall somewhere, visible many times throughout the day, you haven't set your goals. All you've done is a little wishful thinking. Want to really set goals that you'll break your leg trying to accomplish? Write them down and pin them up on the bulletin board at the studio. Now your goals have an audience. And a cheering section.