Last weekend, someone sent me a video of myself at a dance competition. I hit play expecting to cringe a little, but instead, there I was smiling, laughing, having fun. Actually having fun.
And the truth is, it hasn’t always been that way and it’s still not always that way. I’m a high-achieving woman which means the minute I decide to do something, I go all in. I study. I prep. I obsess.
I want to do it well, not casually well, but prove-something well. So the thing that was supposed to be just an outlet that I signed up to bring some joy into my life without pressure to perform somehow became another place where I expected myself to perform.
Somewhere along the way, dance became less about joy and more about getting it right.
Maybe you know this pattern too. The hobby that turns into a measuring stick. The thing you wanted to enjoy becoming another thing you need to excel at. The part of your life meant to refill you, slowly draining you instead.
What struck me when watching that video was not the steps or the turns or the timing. It was that glimpse, just a few seconds, where I had actually let myself be in the moment. I wasn’t performing, proving, or perfecting. I was just BEING.
And I realized something:
Joy doesn’t return because we earn it. It returns the second we stop trying so hard.
So this is the practice I’m leaning into, not mastering the dance, but letting it be messy, playful, imperfect, alive. Letting myself be messy, playful, imperfect, alive because if every good thing becomes a performance, we miss the point of living.
I don’t want to miss the point anymore.
Here’s to the moments where the smile is unplanned. Where the body remembers before the mind interferes. Where you catch yourself having fun, despite yourself.
I’m learning to let more of that in.
Photo by Stavrialena Gontzou on Unsplash