Beata Verkhavets, Period 2, 11/30/2020, Day A

Beata Verkhavets

Period 2

11/30/2020

Day A

Goal Setting & Growth

At this current point in time, what specific goal(s) do you have for yourself? Why?

With the hectic nature of our lives today, I feel that it is important to set certain goals for ourselves. These can be more short-term goals that can be focused on in the moment, or long-term goals that can be worked towards. I tend to set a lot of different goals for myself at once, which makes accomplishing these goals extremely difficult for me, seeing as it can get pretty overwhelming to keep up with such a large amount of them. Thus, recently I’ve decided to put my body and physical health first. A specific goal that I have for myself during this time is to expand my dance ability, as dance is one of my biggest passions. I want to be more experienced in my field of dance (hip-hop), and feel more confident in my movements; confident enough to freely take videos of myself dancing and not feel the need to scrutinize my every move! I’ve been dancing with my team for around 2 years, and I still find myself not being able to confidently show off my ability. A serious goal of mine is to be able to learn how to take choreography and apply it to my own body, instead of mirroring what I see. I feel that once I am able to do this, I will be able to work towards complete confidence in my dance ability, and see a significant improvement! Besides just dancing, I’m striving towards improving my overall physical health, because feeling good in my own body is extremely important towards the aspect of confidence. Seeing as dance is my creative outlet, safe space, and freedom, my goal is to be able to feel that freedom without limiting myself to my insecurities, and I feel that the ultimate way to achieve this would be to work on my physical health as well as my mental health/confidence!

How do you demonstrate resilience towards achieving this goal? (or these goals?)

Working towards goals that intertwine both physical health and mental health can be extremely challenging. The drive to improve on myself physically (consistently improving my dance ability, increasing my skill level) has always come from the drive to improve on myself mentally. I realized that without building on my mental health, I would not be able to consistently strive towards my physical goals. Thus, lately I've been working on the mental aspect of achieving my goals: I've been actively trying to avoid undermining myself and my abilities, and rather building up my confidence in how I look when dancing. With the slow progression of the mental aspect of my goals, I've found myself getting better at the physical aspect. No matter how difficult things get for me, or how stressed/overwhelmed I get, I'm always at the studio whenever I need to be. I've actively been working on my skills both in-studio and at home, constantly increasing my flexibility and strength. Through the consistent efforts that I put towards dance, I've formed extremely close bonds with my teammates and coach. In fact, my efforts paid off greatly! A while back, I was selected for the position of captain of my own competitive dance team, and I was beyond ecstatic. So you can imagine my excitement when just a few months later, I was asked by my coach to be the assistant coach of the younger competitive dance team at our studio! Nevertheless, I continue to work towards improving my dance ability, expanding the range of styles that I'm able to do, and building my confidence to eliminate that self-doubt. 

How does the world around you affect your perception of this goal? (or these goals?)

To me, it seems that the world around me is stuck in a continuous loop of gaining motivation, and then losing it again. Many people around me tell me how they want to achieve certain goals and how they plan on doing it, then take on way too much for their own good, and months later tell me how they gave up. In the midst of all this, I saw certain people who did not let the lack of motivation stop them from achieving their goals. For example, seeing my coach consistently work to get better at new dance styles, new stretches, and gain strength has always inspired me to work on myself in the same way. Seeing how other people are confident in their dance ability, radiating that self-assurance in their movements and taking control of dance inspired me to work towards doing the same. Watching others' performances on YouTube or other social media platforms also has pushed me towards achieving this goal. Before observing others, I always perceived my goal as a physical goal. I'd work myself to exhaustion in order to learn how to do choreography better. However, observing how others dance and display that confidence through their movements has taught me that a big portion of this goal lies within my mindset. I can learn how to do a choreography perfectly, but without being in the right mindset, I cannot make that choreography mine (my own style). I've made significantly more progress towards achieving my goals when I implemented my mindset and realized how important it is!