Cher Holton, Ph.D. You can manage your life when you manage yourself … and you can manage yourself when you manage your choices! It doesn’t matter what great things you accomplish in life, until you have inner peace and harmony. Once you have inner peace and harmony, it doesn’t matter what great things you accomplish in life.

5, 6, 7, 8 -
Choreography for a Successful Life

Until I became involved in ballroom dancing, I always believed that counting started with “1, 2, 3, 4....” Now I realize that everything begins with “5, 6, 7, 8!” Enter any dance studio, and you are sure to hear some coach starting a routine by calling out, “5, 6, 7, 8” in time with the beat of the music. This ensures that everyone begins on the same beat, to the same rhythm.

It seems like only yesterday that my husband and I enrolled in our first dance lesson. We’ve learned that just as good choreography makes a dance flow with the music, so, too does a well-choreographed life flow with a rhythm of inner peace and joy. I invite you to slip into your dance shoes, walk onto Life’s ballroom and build the following ideas into your own choreography for a successful life!

Get the Twinkle Right: Focus on the Basics
Skilled coaches teach a dance one element at a time. Then they are able to connect those elements into a beautiful routine set to music. But you have to learn the basics first!

One of the most basic elements in dance is the twinkle. It serves as a link for a multitude of other steps. Although it is a very basic step, professional dancers spend hours practicing its execution. Why? Because if you get the twinkle right, the next move comes much easier.

The same concept holds true in life. So often we overlook the basics in our quest for success. The first-time author skips the local cable talk shows and tries to get on Oprah. A new member of a professional organization runs for the Board without taking time to work into the association first. A couple jumps into a serious relationship before they have gotten to know each other. Then people wonder why things don’t work out.

Go back and focus on the basics.

When you get the twinkle right,
everything else falls into place!

Dance Your Partner’s Part
In ballroom dancing, the man and the woman have distinctly different roles to play in the partnership, and each has a certain choreography to learn and execute properly. So why on earth would partners ever dance each other’s part? The answer is simple: to gain a better understanding of what the other person needs in order to execute the move effectively.

Nothing speeds up the learning curve faster than experiencing something yourself! In life, your best results come when you understand, from an experiential point of view, what the other person is going through. I remember a specific example from a teambuilding workshop, which was being held at the client’s workplace. All the participants brought their own chairs into the boardroom for the session. One of the activities had people moving to different places throughout the exercise. At one point, one of the managers exclaimed, “Yuk! Whose chair is this? It is the most uncomfortable chair I ever sat in!” His administrative assistant jumped up and said, “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you for the past few months! I need a new chair!” The manager apologized to her, in front of the whole group, and committed to order her chair before he left the office that day! There’s nothing like “dancing your partner’s part” to create a common understanding of the situation!

Celebrate With a Grand Jeté
One of the most exciting dance moves is the Grand Jetè, when a dancer—in full flight—leaps into a full airborne split. The dancer appears to fly above the floor in an expression of exuberant joy and excitement. It looks so easy when done by a professional, but we learned through experience that looks can be deceiving! In reality, the Grand Jetè requires immense effort, flexibility, and control, along with split-second timing.

The Grand Jetè is used in dance choreography to emphasize a high point in the music: a climax of emotion and joy. There are moments in life that require a similar kind of celebration. Too often we take our successes for granted. We spend an inordinate amount of time assessing blame, beating ourselves up, and analyzing what to do next. But when things go right, what happens? Nothing. We plod along to the next challenge, with no recognition of what went right.

Let’s take time to celebrate our accomplishments and reinforce our successes. Lifestyle Jetès are leaps for joy on the stage of life—celebrations of spirit over matter.

You may never step onto a ballroom floor, but you can benefit from the lessons that the sport of dancing teaches. One of the best gifts that dancing brings is a reawakening of your inner spirit. It helps you reconnect with the real you, the authentic you that you can honor and accept, unconditionally. As Mikhail Baryshnikov said, “I don’t try to dance better than anyone else, only better than myself.”
There is a Sufi saying: God respects us when we work, but He loves us when we dance!
5, 6, 7, 8 – let your dance begin!