The Casual Dance Teacher's Podcast

Welcome to the Casual Dance Teacher's Podcast. I'm your host, Maia. No matter who, what, or when you teach, I'm here to share all my best tips and tools along with real and practical conversations with fellow dance educators to help you be the very best dance teacher you can be.

Let's talk about it.

Hello, hello. Thank you so much for joining me again.

If you read the title of today's episode and clicked on it on purpose, then you are probably here to delve into some analysis of your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, or what we call a SWOT analysis. Thank you so much for being here to do that. I think this is something that everyone should do.

It's a fabulous opportunity to take a lot of the guesswork out of goal setting and figuring out where we are and have a lot of really clear answers about where we are and the direction that we can and should be going. So thank you so much for being here to do that. Now, if you're not familiar with SWOT analysis, again, SWOT being an acronym for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.

This is a system that is typically used for companies or organizations as opposed to individuals. And if you are a studio owner or business owner of any kind, this is absolutely a great opportunity for you. You can do this for your company or your organization.

However, being the Casual Dance Teachers podcast, as I love to say as often as possible, today, I want to take a look at how this system can be used for individual dance teachers. It's not really typically applied in that way to an individual, but the system can totally work for you as a dance teacher. If you're wondering why you would do this, what is the purpose of this? Like, what are we trying to accomplish? Here's what I'm thinking when I'm doing this for myself as an individual dance teacher.

First of all, if you happen to be in the market for a new job, you're wanting to break into the industry to be a dance teacher for the first time or be a choreographer or a judge or anything like that for the first time. I think it's really important to do this first and then look for jobs that align with what you found in your results to assess if and how this new studio or company aligns with you personally as a teacher. So it'll help you find out what it is that you're looking for and what it is that you're wanting.

If you are already working at a studio, or you already have a job or jobs that you are working as a dance teacher, and maybe you're feeling a little bit burnt out, or maybe there are just little things that bug you, but you brush them off because you're like, ah, it's fine. Like, it's a job, but you just always have that nagging feeling that little things bug you or things could be better. Or, you know, I really feel like I've been in this same situation for a year, five years, 10 years, and I've been so used to this schedule, but I don't feel like I'm growing.

I don't feel like I'm getting any closer to the goals that I had when I first started this job or this situation. Or maybe you're looking at your students and you're saying, you know, I really like it here at the studio where I teach, but I don't feel like my students are growing the way I think that they should be. And maybe you only see them once a week, but they go to the studio multiple times a week and you're saying, I wonder what it is that is preventing them from growing the way that I think that they should be.

And all of these situations are things where it's really good to analyze the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats that are present in that situation to understand what you can control, what you can't control. And once you know that, and you have that broken up, what are the things that you are willing and able to tackle and change? And what are the things that are just not worth it? When is it time to step away because those things are just too far beyond you? Or is everything actually really great and you just kind of needed that outside perspective on the situation to understand just how valuable the opportunity really is. You never know until you kind of delve in and analyze it.

So I'm going to take you through the process of analyzing through this lens. And then at the end, I also have an additional resource that you can use if you want to do this yourself in a really nice organized way. So stick around to hear more about that.

Here's what you're going to do if you want to analyze your strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats as a dance teacher. So essentially we are looking at these four things as four quadrants. And within those four quadrants, you have two pairs.

Strengths and weaknesses are going to be paired up and opportunities and threats are going to be paired up. Why is that? Your strengths and weaknesses are going to be only internal factors. Those are you things.

Those are things that are going on within yourself. Opportunities and threats refers to only external factors. So those are things that have really nothing to do with you personally, but have to do with your surroundings, the situation that you're in.

In the example that I'm using, it would be the studio or studios where you work or whatever your job situation is. So I'm going to start by looking at the internal, right? You can analyze strengths and weaknesses kind of at the same time, because as you start to think through this, both strengths and weaknesses might start to pop up simultaneously. And you can just write them down in their respective quadrants as they come up, or you can start with just strengths, focus on strengths, write down as many strengths as you can think of, and then move on to weaknesses.

So with strengths, you are looking at positive internal factors. These are going to be the traits that make you a great dance teacher. Could be skills that you really excel in, could be things that you notice your students really like about you or really respond well to.

I will use myself as an example, which is a little scary to try and tell you guys more about my, well, I'm fine with telling you about my strengths, but that means I also have to tell you about my weaknesses, which I would rather not do. But let me use myself as an example, because I think hearing me kind of go through this process might help you. This is not going to come as a surprise because of my podcast, like if you've listened to it.

So the reason why I started the podcast is because I wanted to share some of my strengths with the dance educators who have different strengths. I'm very goal oriented. I really enjoy and I'm very good at breaking things down to be able to focus on what's really important and then putting the pieces together to create a whole.

That's just how my brain works. And so that's the area where I really excel. I also want to just give myself a little pat on the back and say, I'm a good choreographer and I have a lot of creative ideas and I love coming up with original movement and original ideas as a choreographer.

So for teaching in a studio setting. I think I'm a very strong choreographer. And that's something that I do really well.

So those are internal things about me that are positive that contribute positively to my dance teaching weaknesses are going to be your internal negative factors. So what are areas where maybe you don't connect with the students? Well, or you lack skill in certain technical elements of the style of dance that you teach. This unfortunately really does apply to me.

Both of those things. I don't do super great at remembering terminology. I have like a goldfish memory.

So sometimes when I'm teaching in class, I will blank on the term for the step that I'm teaching and I'll have to look it up. That's a weakness of mine because I would rather be a lot quicker and be able to pass on terminology to my students a lot easier. I also am like a mega people pleaser and I hate conflict.

So if and when I get into the situations where a student or a parent is challenging me, I struggle to maintain those healthy boundaries. And that's a huge issue because consistency to all students, all parents, like everyone within the studio is so important. If you can't be really consistent and give the same answer to everybody every time, you're only going to create more conflict.

But in situations where like it's very clear in the studio handbook, what the policy is, how things are to be dealt with. And a parent comes to me and they're like really challenging me. They're saying like, well, I don't think that that should apply to me because XYZ.

I just have such a hard time being like, well, that's what it says in the handbook. So, you know, you're probably gonna have to take it up with the studio owner because I really can't say anything otherwise because I just want to be so nice and like solve everybody's problems for them. But really, like I said, that just creates more problems.

So that is a weakness on my end. And I have zero, zero, zero, zero intention of ever opening a studio. But let's say that that was a path that I was exploring.

Like I'm teaching in a studio. And I was like, I really want to open my own studio. Let me do this SWOT analysis.

And I came across that same weakness of having a hard time with boundaries. Man, I would really have to make sure that my studio handbook was so super duper duper clear on policy so that I could just whip out the handbook as opposed to having to try to voice and kind of solve things myself, because I would just know that that's an area where I'm going to struggle. Okay, so if you want to right now, you can take some time to write down your own strengths and weaknesses, those internal factors that really work well for you, and might hinder you.

And then we're going to move on to opportunities and threats. And these are those external factors. So opportunities.

In the example of a teacher that's teaching in a studio, what does a studio provide for you? For example, do they let you use the studio space for free or give you a discounted studio rate for working on your own projects? Do they support your choreographic pursuits by giving you a lot of creative freedom giving you a platform to create choreography in unique and exciting ways? Do they give you gifts? Do they give you free dance apparel, free classes? Do they give your kids free classes? Do they give you discounts on things? These are all opportunities. And I'm using the example of a studio. But remember, whatever the situation is, like, if you're a freelancer, and you're working at three different studios, opportunities might be you have a lot of flexibility, you're able to charge more than if you just took a contract with one studio.

You are very creatively fulfilled from working with a lot of different students, anything about the situation, not about you personally, but about the situation that is contributing to you in a positive way. And then we come to threats. So these are those external negative factors.

And these are the areas that drive teachers away from working at a studio or drive teachers away from teaching dance at all, because sometimes the threats just really wear on you. But it's good to know them so that you can address them. So threat sounds like such a strong word, it might be hard for you to come up with something here, because you're like, No, everyone's nice to me, like, it's something like that.

You don't need to think about it as something really serious. But just think back to when you first started teaching dance, what was your objective? What was your goal? And maybe that has changed. So right now, what is your current objective or your goal as a dance teacher? Is it just to make money? Or are you really looking for a platform to explore your creativity? Are you looking right now to build your resume so that in the future, you can open your own studio or pursue different avenues within your career, but right now, you just really need to get more experience and get more on your resume.

Have your goal in mind, and then take a look at your current situation and say, what are the threats to that goal within this? So for example, if your goal is to make money, and you're not making enough money, that's a threat. If your goal is to have a platform to choreograph and be creative, but your studio owner assigns you your music for their recital assigns you your costume or says, you know, you have to pick from A, B, and C, and that feels stifling to your creative expression. That's a threat to your goal.

If you really want to build your resume and get as much experience as possible, but your studio owner wants you to sign a contract that says you can only exclusively teach for them, and they own anything that you create in the time that you're there, that's probably going to work against your goal. The reason why we do this whole analysis is because once you have these things down, you want to always go back to that goal and say, how can we leverage this information to get me closer to my goal? So any of the examples that I gave as a threat might be totally fine for one teacher, but if they are a threat to your goal, then you need to address them either by having a conversation with whoever is kind of like responsible for posing that threat, negotiating, trying to diminish the threat, trying to make it so that it's not standing in the way of your goal. Or if you can't do that, walk away, right? Figure out where you need to go, where those threats are not going to stand in the way of your goal.

But you also want to weigh the opportunities, right? Don't just turn around and go somewhere else because it doesn't seem to pose that one specific threat. You want to still make sure that you have the same opportunities that you have. And that's why negotiation can be really important.

Because if you have a lot of opportunities in your current situation, but there is one or two threats that are making you go, I just don't love this. Like this isn't perfectly aligned with what my long-term goals are. Have that conversation.

And because you've done the SWOT analysis, you'll be able to put into really clear terms what it is that you want and also what it is that you appreciate. Because if you just go in, you're like, I don't like this. That conversation is probably not going to be as productive as if you came in and said, hey, listen, I really want to stick around because the opportunities that you're presenting me by doing this, this and this are so valuable.

And I'm so grateful for them. But I'm not really willing to deal with missing out because of this threat and the way that this thing is structured or the fact that I'm not getting paid enough or whatever it is. So can we get on the same page about that one thing so that I can continue to offer you all of these amazing strengths that I have to offer? And you can list what those strengths are.

That's going to be a much better conversation than just saying you're annoyed about something and not realizing why it is that that's annoying you and how it is that that's actually holding you back from your goals. Okay. So that's the gist of the SWOT analysis.

Again, this doesn't just have to be for a dance teacher to do about his or her own personal situation. This can work great for studios. I absolutely encourage you to do this for your studio as a whole.

If you have one for your program, for your dance team, for your company that has nothing to do with dance, whatever it is, SWOT analysis is just a great way to be able to articulate all of those things. I didn't come up with this like this is a very well known process. There's plenty of SWOT analysis templates that are out there if you just Google it.

But I didn't personally find one that broke it down in a super clear way because I think it can be hard to remember the difference between the external and the internal and really stay focused on that and not try to turn strengths into something that can be more external and with opportunities and threats to try and make it something about you. I always need that constant reminder and I couldn't find a template that really broke it down in super clear terms. So I made my own.

It is absolutely 100% free. Share, share, share as much as you want. I don't care.

I want everyone to have it. I want everyone to benefit from this. So I'm not trying to gain anything from this.

But it just breaks down those quadrants and it gives you a reminder of what they each refer to and gives you space to write in your answers. So I think that's really, really helpful. I am going to put that in the Casual Dance Teachers Network Facebook group.

So if you are not already a member of that group, make sure to go and join it. If you're not on Facebook, feel free to reach out to me through my Instagram page at the Casual Dance Teachers podcast. If you happen to my DMs on there and you say, Hey, I'm not on Facebook.

Can I have your download? 1000% Yes, you can have it. Like I said, I'm not trying to gatekeep. I'm just trying to find like an easy place to put it where people can find it and share it.

So go to the Casual Dance Teachers Network on Facebook. If you're not already a member, join the group, make sure to answer the membership questions. Otherwise, you will not be approved.

And you can find that in the files tab on the Casual Dance Teachers Network group. All right, everybody, let's kick butt in this new year by analyzing our strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats, and then doing something with it. Get yourself a little bit closer to your goals by using this system.

Real quick before we go, I also want to thank GB mystical for the theme music for the show. And remind you to please leave a review that would help me get closer to my goal of sharing this type of information and content with more listeners. And let's close today's episode with a perfect quote from Albert Einstein.

If you want to live a happy life, tie it to a goal, not to people or things.