“You know what Sylvia Sykes told me when I was a new dancer?” Valerie Salstrom said as we got ready for the evening dance. “If you’re not willing to place last, don’t compete.”

Stunned, humbled, and yet somehow deeply satisfied, I felt like I found the missing puzzle piece to something I had been pondering for months: how to navigate the “Dark Side” of competing. That is, how to mitigate negative emotional and mental states that surface when we don’t win, place, or make finals in a competition.

Every competitive dancer knows what it feels like to be ashamed, disappointed, and frustrated when we don’t compete well. Often these feelings come with an internal monologue of destructive self-talk and emotional abuse that rips apart our self-worth and our dancing.

Here’s a diagram of the emotional process and destructive self-talk that can happen after a disappointing competition:

