Is Perfectionism Sabotaging Your Ballet Training? Here's What to Do About It...

If you've ever walked out of ballet class replaying every mistake in your head... The turn you fell out of, the combination you messed up, the correction that just won't stick... This post is for you (and me). 🩰

As adult dancers, we tend to care deeply about doing ballet well. And that drive is a beautiful thing. But when caring deeply tips over into perfectionism, it stops being a motivator and starts being a saboteur. It quietly steals our joy, dims our progress and, if we let it go unchecked, it can lead us to burnout.

I recently sat down with Kirsten Kemp, a high-performance mindset coach who works specifically with dancers, for one of my favorite conversations I've had on the podcast. We talked about the psychology behind perfectionism, why it's so common in adult dancers and, most importantly, what to do about it.

Below are some of my biggest takeaways, but I highly recommend listening to the full episode for everything we covered!

You Might Be a Perfectionist and Not Even Know It

One of the first things Kirsten unpacked is that perfectionism doesn't always look the way we expect. You don't have to be a type-A overachiever in every area of your life to be affected by it. In fact, it often shows up most intensely in the areas we care about most which, for a lot of us, is ballet.

Some of the signs of perfectionism Kirsten describes are:

• Rigid, pass/fail thinking ("the whole combination was bad because I made one mistake")

• Excessive frustration when you don't meet your own standards

• Expecting linear, constant progress

• Feeling like your mistakes are a reflection of who you are as a person

That last one hits close to home for a lot of us adult dancers. When ballet means something to you, messing up in class can feel really personal (ie devastating). Kirsten explains this so well: When we think of ourselves as dancers as identity, it's easy to start equating our dancing with our worth. Our unconscious thought process starts to look like: "I am a dancer... Dance is the most important/interesting/fulfilling part of who I am... If I'm "bad" at it, then who am I?"

Sound familiar? You're not alone.

Counting the Cost

Kirsten asked a question during our conversation that stopped me in my tracks and brought tears to my eyes (seriously)...

What is your perfectionism actually costing you?

Sit with that for a second. Think about the classes that weren't joyful when they could have been. The seasons where you felt so burnt out you had to step away. The times you were so caught up in what went wrong that you missed the opportunity to learn from it.

For me, I realized the cost has been significant. I've cycled through seasons of loving ballet deeply and then getting so caught up in perfectionistic thinking that class became a source of stress instead of joy. And then the burnout would hit, and I'd have to take a step back.

Kirsten makes the point that perfectionism isn't actually a great motivator. It feels like discipline, but it often leaves us feeling defeated, insecure, and less motivated than when we started. Once you're honest about the price you're paying, the motivation to do something different becomes a lot clearer.

That was absolutely true for me. Framing it the way Kirsten did, as a cost, was the thing that finally made me want to change. When I looked at what perfectionism had actually taken from me in terms of joy, presence, and love for this thing I care about so much, I realized I didn't want to keep paying that price. And you probably don't either.

Practical Tools for the Perfectionist Dancer

So what do we actually do about it? Kirsten shares a handful of strategies that are genuinely practical and immediately useful.

1. Set an Intention Before Class

One of the simplest and most effective tools Kirsten recommends is going into class with a clear, specific intention. and NOT somethign vague, like "do my best" (which, she points out, is a Trojan horse for perfectionism). Something personal and meaningful, like "I want to stay present and celebrate what my body can do today" or "I'm going to focus on the quality of my arms."

Why does this work? Because if you don't give your brain a clear aim, it will pick one by default, and that default is usually something perfectionistic and unrealistic, like "don't mess up." Giving yourself a concrete doable intention means success gets to look like something other than flawlessness.

I actually do this on my drive to the studio (thanks to Kirsten), and I can genuinely say that on the days I remember to do it, class feels different... More joyful. More energizing. More fulfilling.

2. Ask "What" Instead of "Why"

When something goes wrong in class, our instinct is to ask "why." Why can't I get this? Why does my leg keep dropping? Why is this still not working?

Kirsten explains that "why" questions tend to lead our brains toward what's not working, and they can easily become self-critical rabbit holes. ("Why didn't it work?" can very quickly lead to "because I'm not a good dancer.")

Instead, she recommends shifting to "what" questions: What wasn't engaging that caused my leg to drop? What can I do differently on the next pass? What am I going to focus on right now?

It's a small language shift, but it leads your brain toward solutions and specificity rather than fixation and self-blame. Try it in your next class. (Spoiler: It works.) 💯

3. Mentally Budget for Mistakes

This is one of my favorite concepts from the whole conversation, and it's exactly what it sounds like. Before class (or a performance), you deliberately and consciously accept that mistakes are going to happen. Not in a resigned, disempowered way, but in an empowered, planned-for way.

You decide ahead of time: mistakes are part of being human. When they happen, here's how I'm going to move forward.

It's such a grounding shift. Instead of hoping (🤞🏼) you don't mess up (which, as Kirsten points out, is a very disempowered place to be), you're putting yourself in the driver's seat. You've already decided that one mistake doesn't define the combination, the class, or your worth as a dancer. So when it happens, and it will, you're ready to recover and move forward.

4. Redefine What Progress Looks Like

Perfectionism and slow progress are a really painful combination, especially for adult dancers who often feel like they're already behind. Kirsten's advice here is to radically simplify what you're measuring, and to let progress look small, nuanced, and multifaceted.

Progress doesn't have to mean landing a double pirouette or finally getting that correction to stick. It can be:

• Shaking something off more quickly than you used to

• Noticing a muscle group you've never felt before

• Picking up choreography faster than last month

• Staying present and enjoying the class

She also introduces a concept from the book The Gap and the Gain by Benjamin Hardy and Dan Sullivan, which I've already ordered and can't wait to read.🤓 It's the idea of measuring success backwards, by looking at how far you've come rather than how far you still have to go. Success is what we've already achieved, not what we have yet to accomplish.

If we're constantly focused on the gap between where we are and where we want to be, we'll always feel inadequate & defeated. Taking time to look back and identify your successes will help you stay motivated and inspired.

5. Give Yourself Permission to Play

Kirsten closes the conversation with this beautiful idea: the energy of play is one of the most powerful antidotes to perfectionism. What if class was an experiment instead of a test? What if you gave yourself one class, just one, to stop worrying about technique and just move?

I actually tried this recently. I put on a class at home, decided I was just going to enjoy the music and move, and didn't think too hard about any of it. And watching the video back after, I was smiling so much more than usual. My dancing honestly looked better too. There's something almost poetic about that. The more we enjoy it, the better it goes.

You are allowed to enjoy ballet right now, exactly as you are. You don't have to earn that.

Listen to the Full Episode

There was so much more in this conversation that I couldn't fit into one blog post, including a deep dive into the psychology of why mistakes feel so personal, how to handle the spiral when it's happening in real time, and how to stay motivated during seasons of painfully slow progress.

You can listen to Episode 106 of After Class: The Adult Ballet Podcast below or watch on YouTube. And if you're not already following Kirsten, find her at @kirsten_theconfidentdancer on Instagram and at kirstenkemp.com. She's the real deal. ☺️

xx, Hannah

A Fellow Dancer Who is Still Very Much a Work in Progress 😉