Highly Sensitive People

How ‘Strictly’ and ‘Dancing’ Enhances Your Greatness!

strictly come dancingHave you seen the celebrity show ‘Strictly Come Dancing’ (or the American ‘Dancing With the Stars’)?  It pairs celebrities with professional ballroom dancers for the ultimate competition for the glitter ball and the best celebrity dancer.  It think it’s one reality show that can inspire you to tap (get the pun) into the greatness of you!

Okay, I am NOT one for reality shows.  I have not watched one season of the Apprentice with ‘the Donald’ or Lord Sugar, nor the Amazing Race, and never any Survivor series.  You can imagine my surprise when I found myself deeply entrenched watching all the episodes of Strictly Come Dancing (and before that Dancing With The Stars).  Of course my analytic brain wondered why…

  1. could it be because I danced as a young child, teenager and was entered into dance competitions myself (and won I might add!)
  2. was it my mesmerization with sparkly costumes, big hair, big makeup & high heels
  3. was it the theme of taking a challenge and turning it into a triumph
  4. it was all of the above and MORE

These 2 series (I can only vouch for these ones) are the perfect examples of motivation, drive and achievement.  All the things our clients quest for and question us about.   The perfect example, with the perfect formula…..so lace up your dancing shoes ladies, and give this formula a twirl.

Step 1 – take a risk outside your comfort zone. (Jerry Rice, all American football player turned ballroom dancer? Carol Kirkwood BBC weather person turned ballroom dancer?   Master P, hiphop artist/producer turned ballroom dancer?  Jake Wood, actor turned ballroom dancer?  You get the picture—someone you’re not… being transformed into someone you will become…

Step 2 – learn a skill previously outside your personal proficiency to ensure legitimate challenge.  Tax the brain to learn something different, harder, outside the usual brain function. In this case,  weekly ballroom dances that require 6-8 hours a day of practice on top of a busy career schedule.  The best brain stretch there is….

Step 3 – learn from a professional ballroom dancer (mentor, coach) who is relentless in making you work, sweat buckets, loose weight, gain muscle and a sense of your body you never had before.

Operative words…learn, fail, get frustrated, get bruised (bones and ego), fall down but learn to get back up, try it over again and master it.  Discipline to mastery…

Step 4 – put these teachings to the test, whether you are fully prepared or not (the airing dates create the schedule to learn, practice and present each dance per week) The contestants did it, ready or not and learned to roll with the punches…a key component of success.

Step 5 – discover learning dancing produces a learning about yourself as a human being when faced with limitations and deadlines.  Discover the strength of your body, discover the agility you can acquire, discover the ability to move in a powerfully beautiful way.

Step 6 – learn there is something inside of you you never could have imagined was part of you prior to taking on a new challenge.  Capability to stretch beyond and grasp a new reality of who you can become and what you can accomplish. (set this to music!)

Step 7 – learn to overwhelmingly enjoy the process of learning again through both mistakes, pain, embarassment and triumph.

Step 8 – learn that competition with others, is always really about competing to be your very best regardless of others. (aka competition with your limitations)

Step 9 – embrace ‘practice’ as the key to perfecting your skills.  The more the dancers spent practicing the same step, the more they perfected the step, perfected their posture, perfected their execution, perfected their integration, perfected the dance, perfected their performance.

I became a Dancing With the Stars junkie (when I lived in Canada and Strictly Come Dancing when I relocated to the UK) because it was exciting for me to witness the change in human spirit and the fight within each of the celebrities to care deeply about this new skill they were learning and wanting to do it better, best, perfect.  The shift from just wanting the top prize to wanting to improve and perfect their abilities was addictive.

Taking it beyond the dance floor,  it reminds me about risking and challenging and testing myself to uncover and discover more potential within me that until that moment of revelation I did not know I possessed. It reminds me of why I keep pushing myself, why I keep reinventing me and how absolutely exhilarating it feels to succeed at it for myself.

It is that strength once uncovered and no longer avoidable that I can take into my career realm and share with others about hopes, possibilities, discipline and perserverance.  Pure transformation.

And I can see in those celebrity contestants what I have witnessed in my clients…the excitement of embracing change in themselves, to tap into that knowledge that they ‘have the right stuff’ to make something more powerful, engaging and meaningful for their lives.

So lace up those dancing shoes and set the motivation formula for mastery in motion….

risk + challenge + practice + test + discover + enjoy + compete =

the greatness of you.

 

Find something to reach for beyond where and who you are now.  As one contestant once wisely said….”don’t just wish for it, work for it”.

Now…shall we dance…cha, cha, cha!   Love The Burnout Queens xx

Self-Doubt gets the nudge!

doubtful

You know those moments when you say yes to something and when the time comes to do it, you wonder if you actually ‘can’?  You get that creeping moment of doubt that undermines you. (what was I thinking!)

Lack of confidence and self-doubt is an awful place to be. It’s unnerving and keeps you in a jittery state.  Yuck.

This truly is a state of mind, and we’re here to help you give that ‘doubting Thomasina the nudge.  Ready…

  1. Make a list of your strengths (we know you have strengths).  Finish this sentence,                              “I am good at ___”.   Start listing them.
  2.  Then memorise them (they are based on facts and memories)
  3.  Put them in your pocket, briefcase, wallet, purse and keep them with you.

Next time you say yes to something,  and the doubt and lack of confidence starts creeping up on you, whip out that list and give yourself a boost.

Turn those moments of doubt into moments of triumph!

Until next time, Grab Life By the Crown!   The Burnout Queens xx

Red Knickers and a Cape!

red-knickers-super-coperQuick, check your lingerie drawer!  If you find red knickers and a cape, you may be a Super-Coper.  You leap tall buildings in 4-inch heels, catapult over the glass ceiling, and perform acrobatic feats while juggling small children and grown adults alike!  Sure you may feel like you are walking a tightrope or precariously swinging from the trapeze, but no one else would ever catch-on because you are a Super-Coper.

So how can you tell if you have a super-heroine tucked away inside you?  Of course the red knickers and cape is a dead give away!  After that (hmmm) you are likely female, probably a perfectionist, and most definitely the ‘responsible’ one!  Super-Copers rarely ask for help, never give-up, and make it all look astoundingly easy.

Super-Copers are expected to handle it all…so they do.

Oh, here’s another thing, Super-Copers can defy gravity!  It’s true!  Super-Copers have bounce.  They rarely fall flat on their face despite the fact that their knees may be buckling under the load or they are teetering on the edge of burnout.

Most of us grew-up admiring super-heroines, who didn’t want to be Wonder Woman?  (I mean she did have a very exciting lifestyle and BIG hair!)  However, if we have to get real here, (yes, my love, I’m afraid we have to) there are drawbacks to being a Super-Coper.

Here’s what we’ve found, not everyone loves a Super-Coper!  We know hard to imagine, what’s not to love about us!  Others want you to shoulder the load, sometimes demand that you shoulder the load, but then get a little cranky when you make it look ‘too’ easy.   Sometimes others perceive you as ‘Little Miss Smarty Pants’ and resent the fact that you appear to handle it all effortlessly (or so they think).

No one sees you lying awake in the middle of the night wondering if you can pull it all off again tomorrow.

Super-Copers do what is necessary to solve problems, meet deadlines, or handle emergencies.  They don’t wear their hearts on their sleeves and they don’t fall to their kneees or beat their chest in the midst of a crisis.  (Usually because they’re too busy holding everyone else up and solving all their problems!)

It can be dangerous being a Super-Coper.  While you are being-all and doing- all you miss your own signs of exhaustion, overwhelm, or even illness; sometimes you simply ignore the signs because you believe you have no choice but to shoulder the load.

Then there’s the Super-Coper ‘post-party crash’.  When you’re finally done, when you get the chance to catch your breath, the emotional impact hits.  You finally come down from the rush of stress hormones.  You may start feeling shaky, anxious, overwhelmed or even sad or depressed.   You most definitely end-up exhausted.  Here’s where it goes south, over-coping is so completely normal to you that you misinterpret this normal post-stress reaction as you ‘not handling things’ or as some sign of weakness which sends you running back to your wardrobe only to emerge wearing, you got it, red knickers and a cape!

Oh dear, you can see how the whole Super-Coper thing backfires!

You have been raised and trained to be a Super-Coper.  Family, friends, co-workers, pretty well everyone, have relied on you over and over again to be their super-heroine.  We would be willing to bet our crowns that you have filled this role from the time you were very young.  The time has come to be bold and to stop letting others put you in this box, even when it comes gift-wrapped.

If you are a Burnout Queen you naturally have great problem solving skills and emotional fortitude.  You have life-coping skills that others don’t necessarily have or use.  You are strong.  There are just a few little gems you need to learn like setting limits for others, refusing requests, or letting others handle their own situations or problems (whoa now that’s revolutionary!)

Even if you have been annoited the Super-Coper, you don’t have to agree to handle everything.

The thing is, it’s not a bad thing to be a Super-Coper, indeed it’s pretty special.  But you do need to recognise when you have taken it over the top, when you have donned your cape!  Being Super-Copers ourselves has allowed us to navigate some pretty steep slopes in life; our secret is knowing how, when, where, and for whom to use our super-powers.

Go ahead embrace being a Super-Coper but promise, no more leaping over tall buildings or saving the world!

Our last words of wisdom?  Lose the cape Darling but keep the red knickers because Burnout Queens live to defy ordinary!

Until Next Time…Grab Life by the Crown!

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P.S.  The BOQs would love to hear from you!  Leave your wisdom and comments in the box below. 

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