As parents, we are powerful influences guiding our children mentally, physically and emotionally as they mature. Our role is to help them evolve, open their minds, discover new experiences, and pursue new interests or passions they didn’t realize they had.
Our children look to us to lead by example, but sometimes even parents get so settled into a fixed mindset of what we think is our “lane” of skills, interests and experiences, that we become complacent. Ask anyone with a failed new year’s resolution – it’s easy to quit or never start something at all. Sometimes it’s also easier to stick with a grind that we know rather than finding something new that, as author Marie Kondo suggests, “sparks joy”.
Filling Your Own Cup
Self-care is the act of awareness and protection of our well-being, physical and mental wellness. A family is only as strong as its units, and as parents, we are the foundation. Self-care habits can enable a change in mindset, that is a critically important building block of that foundation. Parental self-care is sometimes neglected as we give work, sports schedules, tutoring sessions, tests, school projects, grocery shopping, car inspections and family activities first priority.
Erin Leyba writes about the importance of self-care for parents in her piece, 25 Simple Self-Care Tools for Parents. “It’s essential that parents care for themselves – first, for their own well-being, but also because any effort they put into self-care also has huge payoffs for their children. When parents ‘fill their own cups,’ they have more patience, energy, and passion to spread to their families.”
For some, self-care is more sleep, an hour quietly reading or even using the Instacart App instead of facing the crowds at the grocery store. I discovered that it wasn’t quiet time, yoga or running that I needed a dose of each week to reset and improve my mindset. For me it was the opposite – it was Zumba.
“If You’re Open to Growth, You Tend to Grow”
There is so much truth in this statement from writer Janet Rae-Dupress. She explores the influence of shifting mindset and taking on new experiences. She shares insights from famous psychologist and author, Carol Dweck whose work popularized mindset as a growth tool. According to Dweck, “it’s not easy to just let go of something that has felt like yourself for many years…nothing is better than seeing people find their way to things they value.”
As a runner, I have trained for half marathons, marathons and an ultramarathon over the last 10 years because running was my identity, my stress reliever, my “hobby”. I stumbled upon a Zumba class after my strength training class at the gym and everything changed.
Each week the energy was palpable and contagious. Even though I had never taken a dance lesson in my life, I decided to stay one week. I heard three words: “Welcome to Zumba!” and the entire packed studio cheered. I hid in the back flailing to keep up, but I was smiling the whole class. And just like that, I was hooked.
Because I Can
The whole Zumba class experience releases endorphins that makes me happy and changes my mood. I started going to Zumba once a week because it positively impacted my state of mind and I’ll be honest – if I can’t go to Zumba, I get a little cranky. That is when I realized that Zumba is my self-care. It changes my mindset and that helps me feel like a better parent.
Through those two years of mastering Zumba classes, I wanted to demonstrate to my children that with a growth mindset, you can set out to accomplish something new and challenging that is completely out of your comfort zone. I wanted to keep growing as a person. To take it a step further, I trained to become a Zumba Basic 1 instructor and became certified to teach Zumba basic classes. And when my family asked me “Why now?” – my growth mindset simply responded, “Because I can.”
The Zumba Experience
One of the most important parts of the Zumba experience is the passion and presence of the Zumba instructor to engage and excite their classes. Our Basic 1 class trainer was an amazing Zumba Education Specialist (ZES) named Loretta Bates, who is kind of a big deal.
Loretta is Zumba famous. Besides her loyal social following of 126,000+ Instagram followers, Loretta is everywhere – literally. She is a prominent presence on the Zumba corporate website, their training videos and social media. In addition to appearing in the Zumba video game and on their Zumba branded cruises, Loretta has traveled the world training Zumba instructors at all levels in almost 100 countries!
Discovering Personal Strengths
Loretta embodies the Zumba spirit in everything she does – she is inspiring, authentic and motivating. She loves what she does and that is evidenced through her enthusiasm and the excitement she brings to every training and performance whether it’s for adult classes or their Zumba Kids classes.
My experience with Zumba is not a unique one. For Loretta, this is more than just a job. She also finds strength in the thing she gets to do for a living every day: “The mindset that helps me the most in these areas is the thought of wanting to share with as many people as possible, not just a fitness program but an EXPERIENCE that was life changing for me.”
She went on to share, “Zumba is something [that has] helped me immensely in my mental toughness, or what I would call confidence or security. When you doubt yourself or your own abilities, it makes it impossible for you to perform at your best. You begin to question everything you do. Zumba helped me to discover my own personal strengths, which allowed me to be more confident and stop the endless comparison to those around me.”
Merengue Mindset Boost
The mindset boost both Loretta and I experienced through Zumba is backed up by Lebya’s piece about self-care tools. The supporting research shows that embracing self-care habits can “minimize the effects of burnout, including emotional exhaustion and stress perception.”
Deepak Chopra and Kabir Sehgal have also written about the impact of owning our mindset and our self focus. “When you shift the attention back to yourself, you’ll realize that only you can control your mood, disposition and destiny… When you see yourself as the change agent, problems will start to feel like opportunities. And as you encounter difficult situations, ask yourself ‘What can I do to fix it?’ “
In the intense youth sports atmosphere where many of our kids compete, we know we can’t control the energy and attitude that coaches, parents, officials and other players bring to the field/court. The impact of that environment is being felt earlier and earlier by our young athletes.
That makes it even more important for us to encourage their mental resilience and mindset awareness at a younger age. We can influence how we develop and cultivate our own growth mindset and how we shape the mental environment that our players experience.
When what you are deeply passionate about, what you can be best in the world at… come together, not only does your work move toward greatness, but so does your life.
– Author Jim Collins, Good to Great
Many thanks to Zumba and the passionate, charismatic and talented Loretta Bates. Player EQ is very grateful for Loretta’s insights and thoughts shared for this piece. Loretta is a worldly recognized Zumba® Education Specialist and international presenter. She has traveled to over 95 countries sharing her love for Zumba. Loretta is featured on many of Zumba’s training videos and Video Games. Her biggest honor in life is being the wife of one, and mother of two.
– Danielle Mintz, Founder of Player EQ