Physically and virtually...
We have been setting goals and creating new habits inside the on-line community of myDANCEjournal LiVE and it's soooooo exciting!!!
It sounds simple enough and I'm sure we can all write down at least 2 things that would either be a goal we should strive for or a habit we should adopt.
Can you think of a time that you dug deep and decided to go all in to achieve a goal? You are excited and create good habits at the beginning and but around week 3 or 4 you lose motivation, get side tracked, or think you're fine and you miss a few days.... and then boom! It all slips away, you are back to your old habits and right back where you started. We've all been there.
Do you want to know what I beleive is the biggest thing that stands in our way of achieving the goals we set out to achieve?
Influence.
Who and what you choose to surround yourself with (Consciously and unconsciously) makes a huge difference on whether or not you can follow through with creating good habits to get you good results.
Parents (with good reason) are always so worried about who their kids are hanging around with because they don't want them to be influenced in a bad way or peer pressered into doing things they shouldn't. I TOTALLY agree with this!!!!
P.S. We as adults need to have the same rationale if we're want to create new, better habits to reach our goals.
What about social media? Honestly, I think this is probably a bigger influencer in all of our lives these days.
A couple weeks ago I was listening to one of my husbands LIVE podcasts where he was interviewing Shawnee Harle. Shawnee is a sports mental toughness coach and a beast of a woman. You should check her out and the amazing interview here
Anyway, she was talking about what it takes to have a winning mindset. How parent's comments, coach's comments and peer comments can leave lasting imprints on athlete's. These imprints can either help or hinder a player. Then someone asked if social media plays apart in a winning mindset? She said, "Absolutely".
This totally struck a cord with me.
I'm sure most of you have heard about the Netflix docummentry "Social Dilemma" by now. If not, go watch it!
So we have this thing called social media that's not going away any time soon. But how do we manage it? Most people don't want to get off of it but then we get totally sucked in and it becomes overwhemling. How can we find a healthy balance with this thing?!
This is what Shawnee said...
Be selective with who you follow. Just like the physical friends we surround ourselves with. Are the posts and pix that you scoll through on your FB and IG feeds feeding your goals and habits? Are they propelling you towards your dreams and the person you're setting out to be? What kind of thoughts are they putting into your head?
I have to be honest, I don't know if I would have had the gusto to move out to LA from MI at 17 to pursue a dance career if IG was around. The camparison game may have held me back. I'm sure there was someone (I'm sure multiple) in the world at that time who could turn, jump, flip and dance way better then me. But because I wasn't seeing their best moments splattered all over my IG feed my confidence was intact to go for it.... thank god!
My heart goes out to young people today. The pressures of putting only what's "perfect" out there and not having the freedom of making dumb choices because the repercussions of your mistake becoming viral makes me sick. I mean, I feel it as a 40 something woman! I can't imagine having to navigate this as a teenager with all the insecurities that come with that life stage.
Nobody knows what the answers are exactly with socila media but I thought what Shawnee said about being very choosy about who you choose to follow and what you expose yourself to in your feeds made logical sense and a good place to start.
Because like they say.... You are average of the 5 people you choose to spend the majority of your time with!