Something you may not know about me is I have been a lifelong dancer. I am very passionate about dance. In my early days, I danced every style I could get my hands on. Except for ballet, that is. I gave that up after the teacher told me I had elephant sized legs and I could never be a ballerina. Now the aftermath of that is another story for another episode.

But eventually I landed on ballroom dancing and I competed on the dance circuit for many years specializing in Latin American dance. And over the years as a dancer, I’ve learned how to move forward with power. But I’ve also learned how to step back with grace, with strength and with presence.

But here’s the interesting thing. In every dance I’ve ever performed, the backward step was never a problem. It wasn’t a failure. It was just choreography, a part of the rhythm, an essential part of the story of each dance.

And yet in life, we treat backward steps like a failure, like we’re doing something wrong if we’re not constantly moving forward. Like any pause or pullback is a sign that we are not cut out for this. We’re not good enough or it’s not meant for us and what we want will never be our reality.

But what if that’s not true? What if stepping back isn’t the problem, what if it’s just part of the dance? And more importantly, what if you get to choose the energy you bring to that step? Because here’s what I know. The energy you step back with is the same energy that powers your next move forward.

So today, let’s talk about the backward steps and how you can embrace them as a beautiful part of the dance we call life.

Welcome to The Self-Creation School podcast, for women who are ready to ditch mediocrity, step up and get more of what they want, and finally say YES! to a life that sets their soul on fire. I’m your host Leanne Letica, Self-Creation Coach, founder of The Self-Creation School AND Queen of YES!. If you’re ready to play life by your own personal rule book, and give yourself permission to say YES! to yourself and your wildest dreams, this podcast is the place for you.

Hello from my corner of the world to wherever in the world this podcast finds you. I love so much that you have chosen to join me for today’s conversation.

If you’ve been listening in for a while, you’ll know a lot of what’s going on in my own life tends to inspire the things I share each week here on this podcast. My brain works in curious ways, and honestly, my husband sometimes just shakes his head when I say there’s a podcast episode in that.

Today’s episode is no different. At the moment, we are planning our next few months of travel. We actually hadn’t planned to go anywhere over the summer, but after our recent trip to the Netherlands, we are feeling the pull to explore. And one of the places we love but haven’t spent time in since we moved to Europe is Andalucía, in the south of Spain.

So we are thinking about spending some time down there soon, and I have been researching potential dance studios where I can take some lessons. So dancing has been front and center in my mind. But with the plan to travel, the other thing that is front and center in my mind is how do not have my business take a step backwards while we explore the wonders of the world.

You might know that last year we did a slow travel experiment in Asia and we spent two months there, much longer than we would ordinarily spend anywhere, but for the sole purpose of allowing me the space to work as well as play. And from that trip, I do know it’s entirely possible to travel and still show up as I want in my business and for the women in my world like you.

But it’s always on my mind how to not have things in my business slide backwards while we travel. And so these two seemingly competing desires are the inspiration behind this podcast episode today and the idea I want to talk about that even the steps backwards are part of the dance.

The problem is for most of us, we would never choose to step backwards intentionally. So we don’t tend to see it as part of the dance of life. Steps backwards are not the kind of choreography any of us, for the most part, willingly choose.

And I say that because sometimes we do take a step backwards intentionally, and I will talk about that a little later in this conversation. But most of the time when we take a step backwards in life, it’s usually not intentional. We don’t choose that step as part of our dance. It’s more of a misstep.

Here’s the thing. There were times on the ballroom dance floor where I misstepped and it resulted in me literally falling backwards and messing up the routine. Like slipping on a feather or sliding on a diamanté that had fallen on the floor from someone’s shoe. But it is in those times, especially in those times, that how you treat your missteps, your unintentional falls out of the planned choreography, it really counts and determines your results and your reality.

Do you in that moment decide it’s all over. You’ve messed it up and you can’t possibly win. And then you give up halfway through the dance and you walk off the floor.

You disregard the hours upon hours upon hours you’ve invested into being on that floor in the first place. All of the time, the money, the energy, the previous wins, the progress, it just gets totally forgotten. Like it counts for nothing for. And in doing so, your reality absolutely becomes that you cannot come back from your misstep and you do not win. That will be your reality when you give up on finishing the dance despite your misstep.

Or do you choose to embrace your misstep? You fall backwards as part of the dance and you infuse it with your own flare, your own personality. Do you decide in that moment that this is part of today’s choreography in this moment, and I’m going to dance through it to the best of my ability with the grace, the strength, and the power that I danced every other step before it.

Do you carry on? Not like nothing happened, but despite of it. Do you become even more determined and focused and energized to give the rest of the dance the best of you yet?

Things go wrong on the dance floor no matter how many times you’ve rehearsed your routine. Fellow competitors step into your space at the exact moment you plan to step into it yourself, requiring you to change your direction or adjust your step. Sometimes there arm movements whack you in the face. I’m not kidding, it happens. Sometimes you step pause on shaky ground like that feather or like that diamanté, and you slide in ways you don’t intend.

And maybe you can’t always control the slide, but you can strengthen your ability to stay steady through it. As a dancer, you can develop your center of balance and your muscle strength so that you have much better control over the placement of your feet and your body, even when things go wrong. I will tell you there were so many times no one missed a beat that my missteps were not actually part of the routine.

That is something every dancer trains for, being able to dance through any moment. And in life, you can do that too.

You can strengthen how centered you are in yourself, in your goals, in your values, your standards, in who you choose to be no matter what steps you end up taking and how you show up in your world despite them. You can strengthen all of that so that when your step falls on shaky ground and maybe you do stumble backwards, you don’t stumble quite so bad and you recover so much quicker with grace, strength, and power in the way you move.

You can also strengthen your muscles, your mindset muscles, your emotional muscles, so that you don’t just give into the moment and give up the dance. So that you have the strength, the skills to decide in the moment that this one moment doesn’t define your next steps and it doesn’t define the outcome of your dance. It doesn’t define your ability to take the next step forward and the one after.

And while you do never know when, where, and how an unintentional backward step will happen, these muscles together they will determine how you show up to continue the dance that is your life. And you can absolutely decide that ahead of time. You can decide when this happens this is how I will show up. This is who I will be. This is how I handle my backward steps, my missteps, my falls out of the dance I had planned.

And you can rehearse that you. You must rehearse that you ahead of time so that in the heat of the moment that you is second nature. There’s no guesswork about how you will respond to your backward steps. Instead, there is this very intentional response to it that allows you to keep on dancing, keep moving, rather than stalling, stopping, and maybe giving up.

Your reality in the heat of the moment relies on your rehearsal of your mindset, your identity, that is who you choose to be. Your values, your beliefs about what’s possible despite your backward steps or missteps. Your determination to continue on your courage, and so on and so forth.

You can rehearse how you will show up for your so-called failures, your missteps, your falls backwards ahead of time. Just like you can rehearse, and I would encourage you to be rehearsing every day, how you show up in every moment. The forward steps, the ones you take sideways and the back steps in life.

Now let’s talk about the intentional back steps. I mentioned them a moment ago. Because these are also part of the dance of life.

And what I’m talking about are those times when you pause on purpose to reflect, reassess, reconsider, realign, rethink how it is you actually want to move forward. And sometimes that ends up being in a completely different direction, in a completely different style. Sometimes you change the tune you want to dance to completely.

And the danger in times like this when you’re not feeling the music you’re dancing to at that really soul deep level, when the dance isn’t lighting you up or it’s just not what you thought it would be, the danger is we treat changing our tune as a failure. As a sign we are weak because we didn’t follow through. We didn’t finish the dance.

As evidence that since this time didn’t turn out the way we hoped, it didn’t lead us to the joy, fulfillment, sense of purpose or whatever it might be for you, that maybe the next one won’t either. And so we lose trust in ourselves to change. So we don’t. Or we buckle on down to finish the dance we started because we have something to prove.

As a lifelong entrepreneur and generally a really creative person with 2,465 tabs of ideas all open and competing for my attention at the same time, I’ve lost count of the number of ideas I’ve tried on for size over the years. And some of them have worked, but honestly? Most of them have not.

And what I’ve learned is you don’t need everything to turn out, to work out. You don’t. And trying to force something to work no matter what, because you want to prove you are not a failure, that will cost you in ways much greater than letting go and moving on will ever do.

No step in life is ever wasted if you embrace each and every one of them as part of the dance of life. A meaningful part. Both the intentional backwards steps and the unintentional ones. Both will happen, guaranteed.

So why not embrace them as part of the routine when they happen? Plan for how you would dance through those moments and decide with intention, the energy in which you will dance them. Remember, the energy in which you take a backward step is the energy that powers your next step forward.

Now, a big part of how you dance through the tough moments depends on the stories playing in your mind. Because when you step backwards, you’ll move to the tune of whatever’s playing in your mental jukebox. We all remember what a jukebox is here, right? So much fun back in the day. I digress.

But this is why strengthening your mindset ahead of time is just so important. It’s about trimming the fat and building the kind of muscle that will support you in every step you take, no matter which direction that step leads you. It’s about removing all of those stories from your jukebox collection that do not help you take every step with confidence and with power.

Some of you allow the sad songs of the top 50 billboard to play on a repeat in your mind whenever things don’t go to plan. Some tough love here I know, but my job as a coach isn’t really to sugarcoat things because sugarcoating will keep you stuck and settling for less than you are capable of and you deserve.

Some of you are letting your limiting sad song stories play on repeat like a broken record. And it affects the way in which you dance the steps of your life. Think about it. What’s the energy of those sad songs? Do they inspire you that all is not lost? Do they encourage you to move powerfully forward? Usually they do not. They are designed to keep you mulling over your pain, wallowing in your heartbreak until you spiral into an everything is hopeless mess.

But you can change the record and play something new. You do not have to keep listening to the same tune that makes you dance the same steps. Think about how different kinds of music make you feel. Some music gives you energy, right? You just want to let your hair down and break free. And some music is very draining. It makes you want to retreat to cry, even, to be still to be quiet.

Some music makes you feel alive. And some music makes you want to crawl under the covers and hide. Yes? Am I right? You are going to dance differently depending on what song is playing, if you’re inspired to dance at all.

Your stories that you allow to play on repeat, they are like this too. Some of them will give you energy, they will inspire you. They will make you feel alive and make you want to dance like no one’s watching. And some stories, a lot of your stories, they make you feel like everything is hopeless. It’s all doom and gloom. Best pull up those covers and give up the dance right now.

The thing about your stories is, the stories you tell yourself about yourself and what is and isn’t possible for you are creating your entire reality. Your stories are a reflection of what you believe to be true about who you are, who you are not, and the kind of life you get to live.

And your stories are like your center of balance when it comes to the dance of life. They are what you will come back to by default whenever you take a backward step. They are also what help you strengthen your mental and emotional mindset ahead of time so that when you do step backwards, either intentionally or unintentionally, you can take the next step forward with grace, strength, and power.

When you choreograph your stories to support you in dancing your life in the way you desire, and you rehearse those stories every single day, those are the stories that are much more likely to play on your mind when you take those missteps.

Your stories are like your planned steps that you rehearse again and again and again until they feel like your second skin, until they committed to your memory effortlessly. They help you be who you want to be, to show up how you want to show up, and do things you want to do no matter what happens along the way.

So, I want to leave you today with a few questions to help you reflect on how it is you are dancing to the tune of your life and what broken records you might need to change. And these are for your journal and acquire coffee moment. I don’t want you to just hear them. I want you to spend some time with them to reflect on them and answer them.

Okay? Are you ready? The first one is this. What kind of energy do you usually bring to your backward steps? Do you spiral into frustration, shame, blame, doom and gloom? Or do you pause and choose grace, strength, and intention?

Question two, what stories play on repeat in your mind when things don’t go to plan? What are the stories you tell yourself in those moments about who you are, who you are not, what’s possible for you? Are they energizing, supportive, and aligned with what it is you want to experience in your life? Or are they heavy and limiting and maybe outdated?

Question three. What would change for you if you saw missteps as part of the choreography, not a sign of failure? How would you move differently through life?

Question four. Have you been forcing yourself to keep dancing to a tune that no longer lights you up? Another way of thinking about this one is where are you maybe in proving energy instead of choosing energy?

And question number five, my final question is what emotional or mindset muscles could you start strengthening now so the next time life knocks you off balance, you can move through the moment with more grace, more power, and more presence?

Maybe it’s your self-trust muscle, so you stop second-guessing yourself every time a plan doesn’t go to script. Maybe it’s your emotional regulation muscle, so you can respond rather than react when things get messy. Perhaps it’s your self-compassion muscle, so when you stumble, you don’t spiral into shame and beating yourself up. Or your boundary setting muscle, so you stop saying YES! to things that drain you and no do what actually matters.

It could be your courage muscle, so you can make bold decisions even when you’re scared. Maybe your self-permission muscle, so you stop waiting for someone else to approve of your desires. Or it could be your recovery muscle, so you bounce back faster instead of letting one misstep define your whole week and your week define your months and your months define your year.

And listen, a bonus tip here for you is to just pick one, just one, and start there. Because when you rehearse that part of you now, you wouldn’t have to go searching for her later. You will just show up and dance through the moment from muscle memory. And as you strengthen your mental and emotional muscles, one by one, they will all start to support each other. One by one is the smart way, not the slow way.

So again, sit with these questions. Spend some time to reflect and consider them. And as you do, I want you to hold these final thoughts close to heart.

Every dancer missteps. Every routine changes and adapts accordingly. Every rhythm shifts from time to time. And every woman who ever created a life she wildly loves, has taken steps backwards, sometimes by choice and sometimes by chance. And what made the difference wasn’t that she never stumbled, it’s that she kept dancing.

The energy you bring to your backward steps, that’s what powers your next move. That’s what powers your comeback, your reinvention, your redirection. That’s what keeps you showing up in your own unique performance. And just like in dance, the more you rehearse, the more natural it becomes.

So rehearse the you who responds with steadiness instead of panic. Who grounds herself, resets her stance, and keeps dancing no matter what the last step looked like.

And if you are finding yourself in a moment right now where you feel like you are offbeat, out of rhythm, or slipping backwards, pause. Choose your music. Remember those stories playing on repeat inside your jukebox mind. Choose your music. Choose your meaning in the moment. And choose how you move through it.

Because you can absolutely say YES! to a life that lights you up even if you have to take a few steps back along the way. Even the backward steps a part of the dance. So straighten your posture, take a breath, and keep on moving. And maybe, just maybe, this next step is the one that changes everything.

With that, I’m closing out today’s conversation. I do first want to say a special thank you to the women who have reached out to me over the past few weeks and shared with me how this podcast is making a difference in their life. It truly warms my heart to know what’s resonating with you and helping you change your world for the better. And your feedback really does help me deliver the best possible content I can for you here each and every week.

So if that is you, if you reached out to let me know what’s happening in your world, thank you, my friend. Keep listening, keep showing up for you and keep doing this work. The things I share here really do add up and help you create a life you wildly love.

And keep your messages coming. I love receiving them, and I do personally reply to each and every one of them.

Next week, I have something to share with you that will be happening right here on this podcast over the summer months, and I am very excited about it. So make sure you tune in for that. I cannot wait.

Until then, be the woman who says YES!

Hey, want to know what’s stopping you from saying YES! to you and a life you love?

Head over to https://selfcreationschool.com/yesblock and take my FREE 60 second quiz to find out what’s standing in your way today and I’ll send you my Self-Creation Shift process for shifting it.

That’s https://selfcreationschool.com/yesblock. I’ll see you there.

Something you may not know about me is I have been a lifelong dancer. I am very passionate about dance. In my early days, I danced every style I could get my hands on. Except for ballet, that is. I gave that up after the teacher told me I had elephant sized legs and I could never be a ballerina. Now the aftermath of that is another story for another episode.

But eventually I landed on ballroom dancing and I competed on the dance circuit for many years specializing in Latin American dance. And over the years as a dancer, I’ve learned how to move forward with power. But I’ve also learned how to step back with grace, with strength and with presence.

But here’s the interesting thing. In every dance I’ve ever performed, the backward step was never a problem. It wasn’t a failure. It was just choreography, a part of the rhythm, an essential part of the story of each dance.

And yet in life, we treat backward steps like a failure, like we’re doing something wrong if we’re not constantly moving forward. Like any pause or pullback is a sign that we are not cut out for this. We’re not good enough or it’s not meant for us and what we want will never be our reality.

But what if that’s not true? What if stepping back isn’t the problem, what if it’s just part of the dance? And more importantly, what if you get to choose the energy you bring to that step? Because here’s what I know. The energy you step back with is the same energy that powers your next move forward.

So today, let’s talk about the backward steps and how you can embrace them as a beautiful part of the dance we call life.

Welcome to The Self-Creation School podcast, for women who are ready to ditch mediocrity, step up and get more of what they want, and finally say YES! to a life that sets their soul on fire. I’m your host Leanne Letica, Self-Creation Coach, founder of The Self-Creation School AND Queen of YES!. If you’re ready to play life by your own personal rule book, and give yourself permission to say YES! to yourself and your wildest dreams, this podcast is the place for you.

Hello from my corner of the world to wherever in the world this podcast finds you. I love so much that you have chosen to join me for today’s conversation.

If you’ve been listening in for a while, you’ll know a lot of what’s going on in my own life tends to inspire the things I share each week here on this podcast. My brain works in curious ways, and honestly, my husband sometimes just shakes his head when I say there’s a podcast episode in that.

Today’s episode is no different. At the moment, we are planning our next few months of travel. We actually hadn’t planned to go anywhere over the summer, but after our recent trip to the Netherlands, we are feeling the pull to explore. And one of the places we love but haven’t spent time in since we moved to Europe is Andalucía, in the south of Spain.

So we are thinking about spending some time down there soon, and I have been researching potential dance studios where I can take some lessons. So dancing has been front and center in my mind. But with the plan to travel, the other thing that is front and center in my mind is how do not have my business take a step backwards while we explore the wonders of the world.

You might know that last year we did a slow travel experiment in Asia and we spent two months there, much longer than we would ordinarily spend anywhere, but for the sole purpose of allowing me the space to work as well as play. And from that trip, I do know it’s entirely possible to travel and still show up as I want in my business and for the women in my world like you.

But it’s always on my mind how to not have things in my business slide backwards while we travel. And so these two seemingly competing desires are the inspiration behind this podcast episode today and the idea I want to talk about that even the steps backwards are part of the dance.

The problem is for most of us, we would never choose to step backwards intentionally. So we don’t tend to see it as part of the dance of life. Steps backwards are not the kind of choreography any of us, for the most part, willingly choose.

And I say that because sometimes we do take a step backwards intentionally, and I will talk about that a little later in this conversation. But most of the time when we take a step backwards in life, it’s usually not intentional. We don’t choose that step as part of our dance. It’s more of a misstep.

Here’s the thing. There were times on the ballroom dance floor where I misstepped and it resulted in me literally falling backwards and messing up the routine. Like slipping on a feather or sliding on a diamanté that had fallen on the floor from someone’s shoe. But it is in those times, especially in those times, that how you treat your missteps, your unintentional falls out of the planned choreography, it really counts and determines your results and your reality.

Do you in that moment decide it’s all over. You’ve messed it up and you can’t possibly win. And then you give up halfway through the dance and you walk off the floor.

You disregard the hours upon hours upon hours you’ve invested into being on that floor in the first place. All of the time, the money, the energy, the previous wins, the progress, it just gets totally forgotten. Like it counts for nothing for. And in doing so, your reality absolutely becomes that you cannot come back from your misstep and you do not win. That will be your reality when you give up on finishing the dance despite your misstep.

Or do you choose to embrace your misstep? You fall backwards as part of the dance and you infuse it with your own flare, your own personality. Do you decide in that moment that this is part of today’s choreography in this moment, and I’m going to dance through it to the best of my ability with the grace, the strength, and the power that I danced every other step before it.

Do you carry on? Not like nothing happened, but despite of it. Do you become even more determined and focused and energized to give the rest of the dance the best of you yet?

Things go wrong on the dance floor no matter how many times you’ve rehearsed your routine. Fellow competitors step into your space at the exact moment you plan to step into it yourself, requiring you to change your direction or adjust your step. Sometimes there arm movements whack you in the face. I’m not kidding, it happens. Sometimes you step pause on shaky ground like that feather or like that diamanté, and you slide in ways you don’t intend.

And maybe you can’t always control the slide, but you can strengthen your ability to stay steady through it. As a dancer, you can develop your center of balance and your muscle strength so that you have much better control over the placement of your feet and your body, even when things go wrong. I will tell you there were so many times no one missed a beat that my missteps were not actually part of the routine.

That is something every dancer trains for, being able to dance through any moment. And in life, you can do that too.

You can strengthen how centered you are in yourself, in your goals, in your values, your standards, in who you choose to be no matter what steps you end up taking and how you show up in your world despite them. You can strengthen all of that so that when your step falls on shaky ground and maybe you do stumble backwards, you don’t stumble quite so bad and you recover so much quicker with grace, strength, and power in the way you move.

You can also strengthen your muscles, your mindset muscles, your emotional muscles, so that you don’t just give into the moment and give up the dance. So that you have the strength, the skills to decide in the moment that this one moment doesn’t define your next steps and it doesn’t define the outcome of your dance. It doesn’t define your ability to take the next step forward and the one after.

And while you do never know when, where, and how an unintentional backward step will happen, these muscles together they will determine how you show up to continue the dance that is your life. And you can absolutely decide that ahead of time. You can decide when this happens this is how I will show up. This is who I will be. This is how I handle my backward steps, my missteps, my falls out of the dance I had planned.

And you can rehearse that you. You must rehearse that you ahead of time so that in the heat of the moment that you is second nature. There’s no guesswork about how you will respond to your backward steps. Instead, there is this very intentional response to it that allows you to keep on dancing, keep moving, rather than stalling, stopping, and maybe giving up.

Your reality in the heat of the moment relies on your rehearsal of your mindset, your identity, that is who you choose to be. Your values, your beliefs about what’s possible despite your backward steps or missteps. Your determination to continue on your courage, and so on and so forth.

You can rehearse how you will show up for your so-called failures, your missteps, your falls backwards ahead of time. Just like you can rehearse, and I would encourage you to be rehearsing every day, how you show up in every moment. The forward steps, the ones you take sideways and the back steps in life.

Now let’s talk about the intentional back steps. I mentioned them a moment ago. Because these are also part of the dance of life.

And what I’m talking about are those times when you pause on purpose to reflect, reassess, reconsider, realign, rethink how it is you actually want to move forward. And sometimes that ends up being in a completely different direction, in a completely different style. Sometimes you change the tune you want to dance to completely.

And the danger in times like this when you’re not feeling the music you’re dancing to at that really soul deep level, when the dance isn’t lighting you up or it’s just not what you thought it would be, the danger is we treat changing our tune as a failure. As a sign we are weak because we didn’t follow through. We didn’t finish the dance.

As evidence that since this time didn’t turn out the way we hoped, it didn’t lead us to the joy, fulfillment, sense of purpose or whatever it might be for you, that maybe the next one won’t either. And so we lose trust in ourselves to change. So we don’t. Or we buckle on down to finish the dance we started because we have something to prove.

As a lifelong entrepreneur and generally a really creative person with 2,465 tabs of ideas all open and competing for my attention at the same time, I’ve lost count of the number of ideas I’ve tried on for size over the years. And some of them have worked, but honestly? Most of them have not.

And what I’ve learned is you don’t need everything to turn out, to work out. You don’t. And trying to force something to work no matter what, because you want to prove you are not a failure, that will cost you in ways much greater than letting go and moving on will ever do.

No step in life is ever wasted if you embrace each and every one of them as part of the dance of life. A meaningful part. Both the intentional backwards steps and the unintentional ones. Both will happen, guaranteed.

So why not embrace them as part of the routine when they happen? Plan for how you would dance through those moments and decide with intention, the energy in which you will dance them. Remember, the energy in which you take a backward step is the energy that powers your next step forward.

Now, a big part of how you dance through the tough moments depends on the stories playing in your mind. Because when you step backwards, you’ll move to the tune of whatever’s playing in your mental jukebox. We all remember what a jukebox is here, right? So much fun back in the day. I digress.

But this is why strengthening your mindset ahead of time is just so important. It’s about trimming the fat and building the kind of muscle that will support you in every step you take, no matter which direction that step leads you. It’s about removing all of those stories from your jukebox collection that do not help you take every step with confidence and with power.

Some of you allow the sad songs of the top 50 billboard to play on a repeat in your mind whenever things don’t go to plan. Some tough love here I know, but my job as a coach isn’t really to sugarcoat things because sugarcoating will keep you stuck and settling for less than you are capable of and you deserve.

Some of you are letting your limiting sad song stories play on repeat like a broken record. And it affects the way in which you dance the steps of your life. Think about it. What’s the energy of those sad songs? Do they inspire you that all is not lost? Do they encourage you to move powerfully forward? Usually they do not. They are designed to keep you mulling over your pain, wallowing in your heartbreak until you spiral into an everything is hopeless mess.

But you can change the record and play something new. You do not have to keep listening to the same tune that makes you dance the same steps. Think about how different kinds of music make you feel. Some music gives you energy, right? You just want to let your hair down and break free. And some music is very draining. It makes you want to retreat to cry, even, to be still to be quiet.

Some music makes you feel alive. And some music makes you want to crawl under the covers and hide. Yes? Am I right? You are going to dance differently depending on what song is playing, if you’re inspired to dance at all.

Your stories that you allow to play on repeat, they are like this too. Some of them will give you energy, they will inspire you. They will make you feel alive and make you want to dance like no one’s watching. And some stories, a lot of your stories, they make you feel like everything is hopeless. It’s all doom and gloom. Best pull up those covers and give up the dance right now.

The thing about your stories is, the stories you tell yourself about yourself and what is and isn’t possible for you are creating your entire reality. Your stories are a reflection of what you believe to be true about who you are, who you are not, and the kind of life you get to live.

And your stories are like your center of balance when it comes to the dance of life. They are what you will come back to by default whenever you take a backward step. They are also what help you strengthen your mental and emotional mindset ahead of time so that when you do step backwards, either intentionally or unintentionally, you can take the next step forward with grace, strength, and power.

When you choreograph your stories to support you in dancing your life in the way you desire, and you rehearse those stories every single day, those are the stories that are much more likely to play on your mind when you take those missteps.

Your stories are like your planned steps that you rehearse again and again and again until they feel like your second skin, until they committed to your memory effortlessly. They help you be who you want to be, to show up how you want to show up, and do things you want to do no matter what happens along the way.

So, I want to leave you today with a few questions to help you reflect on how it is you are dancing to the tune of your life and what broken records you might need to change. And these are for your journal and acquire coffee moment. I don’t want you to just hear them. I want you to spend some time with them to reflect on them and answer them.

Okay? Are you ready? The first one is this. What kind of energy do you usually bring to your backward steps? Do you spiral into frustration, shame, blame, doom and gloom? Or do you pause and choose grace, strength, and intention?

Question two, what stories play on repeat in your mind when things don’t go to plan? What are the stories you tell yourself in those moments about who you are, who you are not, what’s possible for you? Are they energizing, supportive, and aligned with what it is you want to experience in your life? Or are they heavy and limiting and maybe outdated?

Question three. What would change for you if you saw missteps as part of the choreography, not a sign of failure? How would you move differently through life?

Question four. Have you been forcing yourself to keep dancing to a tune that no longer lights you up? Another way of thinking about this one is where are you maybe in proving energy instead of choosing energy?

And question number five, my final question is what emotional or mindset muscles could you start strengthening now so the next time life knocks you off balance, you can move through the moment with more grace, more power, and more presence?

Maybe it’s your self-trust muscle, so you stop second-guessing yourself every time a plan doesn’t go to script. Maybe it’s your emotional regulation muscle, so you can respond rather than react when things get messy. Perhaps it’s your self-compassion muscle, so when you stumble, you don’t spiral into shame and beating yourself up. Or your boundary setting muscle, so you stop saying YES! to things that drain you and no do what actually matters.

It could be your courage muscle, so you can make bold decisions even when you’re scared. Maybe your self-permission muscle, so you stop waiting for someone else to approve of your desires. Or it could be your recovery muscle, so you bounce back faster instead of letting one misstep define your whole week and your week define your months and your months define your year.

And listen, a bonus tip here for you is to just pick one, just one, and start there. Because when you rehearse that part of you now, you wouldn’t have to go searching for her later. You will just show up and dance through the moment from muscle memory. And as you strengthen your mental and emotional muscles, one by one, they will all start to support each other. One by one is the smart way, not the slow way.

So again, sit with these questions. Spend some time to reflect and consider them. And as you do, I want you to hold these final thoughts close to heart.

Every dancer missteps. Every routine changes and adapts accordingly. Every rhythm shifts from time to time. And every woman who ever created a life she wildly loves, has taken steps backwards, sometimes by choice and sometimes by chance. And what made the difference wasn’t that she never stumbled, it’s that she kept dancing.

The energy you bring to your backward steps, that’s what powers your next move. That’s what powers your comeback, your reinvention, your redirection. That’s what keeps you showing up in your own unique performance. And just like in dance, the more you rehearse, the more natural it becomes.

So rehearse the you who responds with steadiness instead of panic. Who grounds herself, resets her stance, and keeps dancing no matter what the last step looked like.

And if you are finding yourself in a moment right now where you feel like you are offbeat, out of rhythm, or slipping backwards, pause. Choose your music. Remember those stories playing on repeat inside your jukebox mind. Choose your music. Choose your meaning in the moment. And choose how you move through it.

Because you can absolutely say YES! to a life that lights you up even if you have to take a few steps back along the way. Even the backward steps a part of the dance. So straighten your posture, take a breath, and keep on moving. And maybe, just maybe, this next step is the one that changes everything.

With that, I’m closing out today’s conversation. I do first want to say a special thank you to the women who have reached out to me over the past few weeks and shared with me how this podcast is making a difference in their life. It truly warms my heart to know what’s resonating with you and helping you change your world for the better. And your feedback really does help me deliver the best possible content I can for you here each and every week.

So if that is you, if you reached out to let me know what’s happening in your world, thank you, my friend. Keep listening, keep showing up for you and keep doing this work. The things I share here really do add up and help you create a life you wildly love.

And keep your messages coming. I love receiving them, and I do personally reply to each and every one of them.

Next week, I have something to share with you that will be happening right here on this podcast over the summer months, and I am very excited about it. So make sure you tune in for that. I cannot wait.

Until then, be the woman who says YES!

Hey, want to know what’s stopping you from saying YES! to you and a life you love?

Head over to https://selfcreationschool.com/yesblock and take my FREE 60 second quiz to find out what’s standing in your way today and I’ll send you my Self-Creation Shift process for shifting it.

That’s https://selfcreationschool.com/yesblock. I’ll see you there.