When you start to question

I am guilty of questioning why I'm bothering to do something. I get in one of those moods and start to question why I do what I am doing with my life. This can be about a few things but nine times out of ten it'll be about dancing.

I could have just had a bad class where everyone else in my class, to me, looks so much better than me at everything or it could have been after stretching and my flexibility fails me or even something just as simple as looking at someone's profile on Instagram. I start to wonder why I didn't start working as hard as I am now when I was younger so I could be amazing now rather than feeling average. I start to question why I keep kidding myself with the dream of getting into a dance school and dancing professionally. It puts me in a really bad place that is hard to get me out of, my mother would agree! It's easy to say that you shouldn't compare yourself to others and to only compare yourself to yourself so you can see how you have developed, but in reality that is really hard.

Something that has always put me in this mood is my exam grades for ballet. I am currently taking RAD Grade 8 and Advanced Foundation, having taken Grades 1-7 and Intermediate, and in all my exams I have always got Merits. Yes, of course, this is great to have not got passes but when you know that someone in your class is getting distinctions but you know that in comparison to them you are at their level a merit isn't that great. You start to question what it is that you've done wrong, why hasn't that examiner seen in you what they saw in them. It drives me nuts!

However, when I am in a mood like this I try to think back to things that my teachers have said that have made me want to jump up and down but I've had to stay composed as I'm in the middle of a class. The two things that I try to think about is when my teacher compliments my arabesque line and the time last year when we were in Intermediate pointe doing the echappes and she said that I was making it look easy. That is what dancers strive for, it shouldn't look like hard work to an audience and so that was probably the biggest compliment I have ever received in my life.

When I am in a horrible mood there are a few things I do and I recommend them to you:

• Sketching/watercolour - I love to do watercolours and then do biro pen details on them and I also love to go onto Pinterest and try doing my version of sketches that I find on there
• Baths! - Baths are proven to make you feel better, I love to have a bath and watch something on my laptop while eating a snack and having a glass of some fizzy drink as it makes me feel fancy for some reason!
• Hot Chocolate - I am the hot chocolate queen! Well, I like to think I am... No joking around though, a hot chocolate with melted marshmallows and whipped cream is the best.

So in a nutshell, we all have those points in time when we question what we are doing with our lives but when we do get in them we need to try to cast our minds back to times when we really knew why we are doing what we are doing and if all else fails run a bath then snuggle up with a hot chocolate and a sketch pad!

Willow x