Ballet Beautiful: Transform Your Body and Gain the Strength, Grace and Focus of a Ballet Dancer (5 page)

The Ballet Beautiful mindset is all about empowerment! Living Ballet Beautiful is not just about modifying your diet or executing the exercises—though obviously those are core features of the program. To maximize the ballet-inspired movements as well as tone and reshape your body through dietary changes, you must make sure that your inner attitude—your self-orientation—is pointing you in the direction of success.

By avoiding the pitfalls of yo-yo dieting and crash courses on fitness, you will reinforce the belief that you can make and maintain changes, that you trust yourself to reach your goals, and that you see yourself in the new body you desire. By developing a belief in yourself and in the program you are embarking on, you will be able to make true changes and accomplish this new way of life.

You will need to take the following steps to shift your inner voice from one that can paralyze you with self-criticism and doubt to one that empowers you instead to accept and then embrace your ability to rise to any occasion, persist in the face of any obstacle, and forgive yourself and move on even if you down a pint of ice cream. Remember:
You can shift your mindset and change your life
!

1.
Can you bring to mind a situation that you dreaded before it happened, and sure enough, your worst fears were realized? Perhaps it was a work meeting, a job interview, or even a date that went just as badly as you had imagined it would.

2.
Do you think that experience would have been different if you had approached it with a mindset that left what happened open-ended?

3.
Can you remember a time when you avoided a challenge rather than take the chance of failing?

4.
Can you now imagine embracing that same challenge
because you are less afraid to fail or make a mistake
?

5.
Can you think of a time when you encountered an obstacle to a plan, project, or goal and felt like giving up? Maybe you were on a strict diet and had to go to a party; maybe you were trying to change jobs and you were turned down for a position.

6.
How might you prepare for such an opportunity now, knowing that all endeavors involve certain obstacles or challenges? Do you think you might be able to prepare for challenges by trusting your ability to overcome them?

It’s not always easy shifting away from a mindset that is premised on fear and the belief that certain outcomes are preordained. But it is possible. No one is perfect. And one of the secret weapons of the Ballet Beautiful mindset is its inherent flexibility and forgiveness, which is why I suggest staying away from any extremes. Ballet Beautiful is a challenging, targeted workout with a culture that is demanding yet relaxed. As a woman, I love this mix! I love being challenged, but I don’t like being forced—this is a great combination that always makes me motivated and leaves me wanting more. As you will soon see, you can do the workout twice a week, three times, or even six times; it’s up to you and how fast you want to see results. I’m not asking you to make impossible sacrifices or deprive yourself of food. As your priorities shift, the way you make decisions will too: you will make the time to eat well and exercise, but it will no longer feel like a burden. You won’t feel like you’re making huge sacrifices and depriving yourself. The changes will reinforce the shift in attitude as you begin to get results. In fact, you will feel like you’re giving yourself a gift—every day.

I have so many clients who for years resented or even hated working out; in their minds working out had been a chore. But Ballet Beautiful is going to feel like a reward to yourself—something you miss when you can’t do it!

As you start to make changes and shift your behavior, it is incredibly helpful to surround yourself with people who support you and will cheer you on. This doesn’t happen automatically, and it may be a bit more complicated than it sounds. In fact, some of your friends and family may actually withdraw or feel threatened as you begin to change, shift, and grow. They might make negative or unsupportive comments. You can probably expect some resistance from people around you when you really start to shine. Don’t take it personally. Some people see change in others as a threat to themselves or their lifestyle, which may not be the healthiest. Part of the Ballet Beautiful mindset is learning to live your life to the fullest without letting the negativity of others (or yourself!) set you back. How do you handle this when it happens? You build a strong community around yourself, and you also build strength within yourself to keep you on track.

Over the next few weeks, you will begin to shift your mindset and connect to your intrinsic ability to make better choices and find a way to live the life of your dreams. But the very next step is setting goals that are clear and achievable. The Ballet Beautiful community will be here to cheer you on!

I am a very goal-oriented person. I love having goals to work toward and delight in working with clients toward their own goals—be it getting ready for a wedding, embarking on a postnatal program, preparing for an onscreen role, or just getting ready for bikini season. Setting and working toward a goal can be an incredibly rewarding process. Ballet Beautiful is all about empowerment, remember? There is nothing more empowering than achieving your goals, be they large or small! Ballet Beautiful goal setting will lead you to that inner place where you can finally accomplish what it is you really want. I can’t overestimate the importance of setting simple goals—it’s one of the keys to being Ballet Beautiful!

When it comes to your health and the decision to create true and lasting change in your lifestyle, goal setting is one of your most important inner tools. Without it, you risk getting lost and tripped up by obstacles along the way, or experiencing the pain of helplessly watching your hard-won achievements slip away as you regain weight you had lost suddenly (or not so suddenly). Ballet Beautiful goal setting can prevent these kinds of disappointments and keep you on track.

Goal setting with Ballet Beautiful will help you sync up with your mindset, align your actions with your desires, and help ensure your success with the program! As you learn to connect to your goals, you cultivate an inner resource that can center and guide you, even when life becomes hectic and unpredictable. Life is guaranteed to surprise you; it’s important to have a system that can see you through.

Here you’ll discover simple tips and checklists for setting and meeting your goals for better fitness and a healthier diet and lifestyle. Whether your goal is to lose 10 pounds or 20, to wear your clothes with more confidence, or simply to feel stronger, cleaner, and brighter, you will find easy ways to match your most important desires to goals that are completely achievable.

And this is true whether or not you’ve ever pointed your toe or taken a ballet class. My program is designed for any woman, any body, and any level of dance experience . . . even a complete lack of it. It’s very important to keep this in mind so that as you become familiar with the movements you don’t expect to execute certain motions as if you’ve trained in ballet for 20 years!

Determining and realizing your goals is not as simple as naming a desired outcome. If goal setting were as easy as making a wish, we would all already be living an idyllic life at our ideal shape, weight, and size. I am not saying that this isn’t possible, so please don’t misunderstand. To the contrary! I believe that every woman has the ability to transform her body and her life so that she can embody a shape that matches her inner ideal. However, I have learned along the way that for my clients and myself, goal setting involves a lot of hard but also incredibly rewarding work.

I love this process because it is literally the path to achieving your dreams and anyone can do it. It’s a process that requires that you be truly honest with yourself about your strengths as well as your vulnerabilities. To do that you have to look deep inside to understand what makes you tick, what makes you feel motivated, and what makes you want to quit. Effective goal setting is one part formula and one part self-awareness, and it is definitely not one size fits all. You have to learn to listen and trust yourself and your instincts in this process; they will rarely guide you in the wrong direction.

Remember when I was getting started again with Ballet Beautiful as a student at Columbia? My body was telling me that I wanted to work out, but my mind didn’t want to go to the gym. Tuning in and listening to a need (even one that I didn’t fully understand) to work out from home let me accomplish everything I needed—that is one of the key ideas embedded in the Ballet Beautiful method. So trust yourself and do what your body needs now—knowing that these needs will always change. Goal setting is as individual as your taste in clothes or food.

Ultimately, goal setting requires effort and perseverance so that each day you feel yourself moving toward your goal. This is good! Don’t be scared of working hard on
this part of yourself, because once you arrive the rest of it happens easily without too much planning or effort. Part of the beauty of goal setting is this very process—it is a wonderful chance to learn about yourself, to observe why you may have experienced failure in the past, and to find solace, new strength, and a belief in yourself and your capabilities.

Maybe you are frustrated with where you are or looking for ways to make changes. That’s okay. This program is essentially flexible and designed to meet you exactly where you are, help you define your goals, and give you the inner resources to achieve all that you desire—for your body, your spirit, and your mind.

Ballet Beautiful will help you create more time and energy in your busy schedule. My days are incredibly busy running and building my company—I understand how challenging it is to find time to work out! I also realize how lucky I am to be able to sneak in a workout with my clients when I am teaching class, and I know that my body aches when I spend too much time at my desk or in a car. I am in the same predicament as any woman trying to balance a career with family time and personal time. I find this balance by making cuts in other areas of my life: I file my own nails instead of getting a manicure, I don’t blow-dry my hair, and I only wear mascara when I’m going to a fancy dinner or being photographed! If I need a facial, I’ll just do a face mask while I catch up on email. This leaves me some extra time to work out and to buy and prepare healthy food, which I make a priority. The truth is that we just can’t do it all, but setting the right priorities will go a long way toward getting the right things done!

Have you found yourself setting out to lose weight and be healthier, only to get frustrated with your body and yourself time and again? I know so many women who have tried diets and extreme exercise programs, often with no lasting success. And what happens? They are left with a sense of futility and lack of control and a belief that they really cannot transform their bodies. Or they cling to extremes like juicing and fasting because those practices worked in the past.

This frustration is common among women who have not been working out for a while and who set out to lose weight or get in shape with nonstop dieting and exercise, only later to crash and burn. Or it happens to women who set their sights on losing 10 or 20 pounds and then, after a couple of weeks of total dedication to eating right and working out, they have a bad day, skip their workout, and in an instant lose the will to make better choices at dinner, followed by more bad choices at breakfast the next day. Before they know it, they have lost all momentum. They quit. They despair. They totally lose faith. And not just faith in their program, but in themselves. Sound familiar?

I have been there before, and it is not a good place. I have gained weight and experienced frustration because my body wasn’t responding the way I wanted. But when I look back now, I see that my frustration stemmed from not looking at the big picture and considering my health and happiness; I was obsessing over how I could make a change fast, whether it was looking thinner in a leotard or getting into a tight pair of jeans. I didn’t realize that my flash dieting was destroying my once-swift metabolism and throwing everything out of whack. It wasn’t until I took a step back that it all started to make sense. I also realized that when it came to goal setting, the solution wasn’t going to appear overnight.

In most cases, we fail to achieve weight or fitness goals because the goal we set at the very beginning was unrealistic, unhealthy, or lacking in the structure needed to ensure success. Our motivation or inspiration breaks down because our goals were not specific enough to sustain or were not healthy in nature. For example, if your motivation to change your diet includes a plan to cheat on “off days” later on, you should not expect
lasting results. Being kind to yourself and giving yourself a rest day is good for you, but restricting calories with the goal of cheating (i.e., overeating or bingeing on unhealthy foods) only undermines your goals and your mindset. It’s hard on your body too. A goal that is not clear and simple often becomes more of a wish; you just are not committed in the same way. Without this clarity, people often lose motivation and stop trying.