Happy New Year and welcome to Dance Connection’s brand new blog, In Step With DC! The arrival of a new year has always been about improvement on the prior year. People vow to become healthier, to spend more time with those they love, to achieve in their given profession, or any number of personal goals and at Dance Connection we love when we are able to accomplish our goals. Getting our new blog up and running was one of my goals for 2017.

I call them goals, not resolutions, and it seems to help me accomplish more of them. I always start out by making sure I have a clear idea of what I want to accomplish, and then I write out the steps I’ll need to take to complete them. I usually have a set of goals for different aspects of my life. Goals for work, financial goals, personal goals, and I only pick a few for each so I don’t get overwhelmed.

Dance offers tons of opportunities for setting goals, but before you do, here are some tips for hitting those benchmarks that you set for yourself in 2017:

•   Choose goals that are challenging, but achievable. Mastering one difficult step is a lot easier to achieve than trying to become the best dancer in your class by recital.
•   Set realistic time frames to achieve your goals. You may not have a split by February, but if you give yourself until the end of the year and work at it consistently, you may surprise yourself by achieving your goal early!
•   Figure out what steps you need to take in order to accomplish your goal: Do you need a tutoring to pick up that step or combination? A practice session with a classmate? Write them down and check them off as you go along.
•   Don’t be afraid to ask for guidance from your teachers, or to enlist a classmate, teacher, or parent to keep you on track.
•   Make sure to give yourself wiggle room to take a day (or week) off, and don’t be hard on yourself if you get a bit off track.
•   Progress is cause for celebration, so don’t forget to pat yourself on the back when you get closer to achieving your goals!Do you set goals for yourself at the beginning of each year or each “dance year”?

Let us know which dance goals you’ve set for 2017 in the comments below and you’ll be entered to win a $10 Dance Connection Gift Certificate to help you get there!

Here’s to a fabulous 2017!

Yours in Dance,
Erin

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