How to set dance goals for the new year

New Year signifies a new beginning and a time to reflect and set new goals for the next year. Sometimes setting goals can be difficult and even daunting, but having goals focuses your energy and encourages success.

Here 6 Tips on setting dance goals for the new year:

1. Write Your Goals Down
2. Divide Based on Time
3. Have Diverse Goals
4. Be Realistic
5. Reflect Often
6. Be Proud

Let's get to it.

Write Your Goals Down

One of the most important parts of goal setting is writing your goals down. Having them written down makes you more accountable for your aspirations. We suggest writing them in a place that you will see often such as on your bulletin board or the screensaver on your phone. You could even print multiple copies and place them throughout your house.

Divide Based on Time

A necessity to goal setting is having a timeline or a time frame. For example, if you have a goal of accomplishing a triple pirouette, you should consider how long it will take you to accomplish this goal. By setting a timeline or having a deadline for a goal really helps encourage planning on how to accomplish the goal within the timeline. We suggest having three short-term goals (can be accomplished in under three months) and three long-term goals (will take a year or more to accomplish).

Have Diverse Goals

While most people have many goals, it is important to focus your attention on a few diverse goals. We suggest having six or fewer goals but make sure that you have a variety of goals. For example, do not focus all of your goals on flexibility. Instead, have one goal dedicated to a specific flexibility movement and have the other goals dedicated to other parts of your dance life such as building new relationships with fellow dancers.

Be Realistic

Writing goals can be humbling because we recognize how much we have already achieved and how much more we desire to achieve. It is important in this process that you be honest and realistic with yourself. For example, if you have a goal of doing an aerial in one month but you don’t know how to do a cartwheel yet that would be an unrealistic and unhealthy goal. A more realistic goal would be learning how to do a cartwheel over the course of a month and then learning to do an aerial over the course of a year or more.

Reflect Often

Life is full of little “bumps in the road” or “hiccups.” For this reason, it is important that you reflect on your goals often and consider if you are on track to achieve your goals or if you need to alter your timeline. Sometimes we also may realize that our goals are no longer our goals, it is completely okay to change your goals over time. We suggest that you review your goals at least once a week to reflect.

Be Proud

The most important thing about setting goals is to be proud of yourself. Be proud of how much you have already achieved in your life. Be proud that you are taking a new step in achieving new goals. Even when you don’t reach your goal, be proud that you at least acknowledged you had a goal. You can never “fail” at reaching a goal because the process alone teaches you lessons that will lead to success in areas that you least expect.