How To Overcome Self-Doubt in Dancers During Initial Days?

PiggyRide
4 min readMar 30, 2022

“Dance is the joy of movement and the heart of life” — Anonymous.

Dance is more about passion and confidence than techniques and steps. So, if you’ve ingrained these two ingredients, you’ve already won half the battle of overcoming self-doubt when dancing. When you’re in a learning phase or took part in a competition, self-doubt, self-judgements, and comparing yourself with others is pretty normal. Regardless of how much people appreciate your dance, you still have low confidence and doubt yourself.

However, self-doubt occurs when you don’t believe in your abilities, and it ultimately, also prevents you from enjoying your dance. Some people have so many doubts about themselves that they give up on their aspirations while succumbing to the doubts. Giving up is never the option, but you should put more effort into your skills and reach a level where self-doubts will no longer affect you and your passion for dance.

In this article, you will learn the 6 tips to overcome self-doubt in dancers.

1. Take A Step Back Whenever You Judge Yourself

When you begin to judge yourself and your talents, you are confronted with self-doubt. Take a step back every time you find yourself judging your ability. Judging oneself will never allow you to believe in one’s skill and confidence. Furthermore, if you condemn your abilities, how can you expect others not to condemn you when you can’t even prevent yourself from self-judgement? As a result, it’s critical to consider oneself as a learner rather than a critic. This way you will provide yourself enough space to learn and grow with positive mental space.

2. Get Inspired Than Comparing Yourself With Others

Never compare your day 1 with someone’s years of hard work.

So, if you want to learn and become successful at something, you must quit comparing yourself to others. Moreover, you should not compare your abilities to others, regardless of your skill level. Instead of comparisons, prepare your mind to be inspired and learn from others. Comparisons lead nowhere and increase self-doubt in a dancer. Thus, you must invest more time in gaining knowledge, dance techniques, and styles from experienced people. It is how you can thrive more in whatever area of life you are.

3. Dance Like No One’s Watching You

This technique might sound simple, but trust me, it will work when you restrict the thought of what people might be thinking about you when you’re on the dance floor or in between a dance competition. Always feel the vibe of the music and lose yourself in the moment. The more time you give in to the moment, the better you will perform. Don’t let all the eyes bother you anymore. Believe in yourself and do your thing with confidence and grace.

4. Figure Out Your Insecurities & Work On It

The greatest method to deal with self-doubt is to identify and address your insecurities. Write about your insecurities that stop you from giving out your best performance or figure out what’s that one thing that restricts you from being ‘you’ when you’re on stage. Once you’ve identified what’s the one thing that fuels your insecurities, get back to work on eliminating them from your life. For example, many people’s accomplishments are hampered by their obesity in dance.Moreover, rather than working on getting fit and eliminating their insecurity, they focus on the problem, which never helps in any way. So, whatever your insecurity is, instead of focusing on it, work on the solution to gain confidence.

5. Set Your Goals & Focus On Learning Than Outcomes

Setting realistic learning goals without focusing on results will help you eliminate self-doubt in the beginning. Your goal should be to learn something rather than to attain something. Because when you focus on accomplishments and fail to achieve them, you always experience a lack of confidence, and you begin to doubt yourself even more. So, set realistic goals and keep on ticking them off to gain more confidence and belief in yourself. Furthermore, throughout the initial stages, your goal should be to learn and gain progress, rather than to achieve or obtain outcomes.

6. Focus On Your Strengths

Create a list of your strengths and focus on them when you’re preparing for a dance competition. Always start your practice by focusing on the dance movements that you love and the aspects that you feel confident about. Once you’re comfortable with these movements, then focus your energy on practicing the dance moves that you feel less confident in. Work on those complex movements one by one, and you’ll develop your strength in the difficult movements as well. Then, once you’re comfortable with your dancing style, your self-doubts will be less of a hindrance.

Final Verdict

Dancing is an emotion and art of storytelling, but self-doubts often hamper the art, but these 6 tips discussed above will help you to overcome your self-doubts while dancing and maximize your confidence. Furthermore, work on yourself, eliminate your insecurities, put more effort into learning, don’t think about results, and dance like no one’s watching you. If you consider and apply these tips, then consider them as your first steps towards your passion. Moreover, if you are looking for 1:1 or group online dance classes, visit PiggyRide. PiggyRide is a leading platform that offers unlimited online dance classes in various genres. These classes are led by professional and certified teachers who aim to provide you with a rewarding experience. Visit PiggyRide or download the app to book a class for yourself.

Author

Hi Friends! I am Nidhi Arora. I am working as a content writer with PiggyRide. I earned a bachelor’s degree in literature from Delhi University and am currently pursuing an MA in Literature. I’m the founder of spiritbulb.com, and I enjoy writing about everyday issues that will inspire you all to have a more fulfilling life. I’m probably happiest when I’m writing or reading.

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PiggyRide

PiggyRide — an E-Learning platform for kids to explore extra curriculum activities like dance, singing, music, yoga, chess, etc.