Dr. Rosy Boa, a pole teacher and former researcher who runs the online studio Slink Through Strength, discusses how highly specific, difficult pole goals can undermine enjoyment and sustainability when they’re repeatedly missed. Citing a 2021 Frontiers in Psychology study by Hoffner and Keats, she notes that repeated goal failure increases negative affect, lowers self-esteem, and reduces motivation, a problem amplified by social media comparisons to professional athletes. She shares her own experience of burnout from pursuing an unrealistic academic job goal, while overlooking the meaningful impact her research still has through citations. She encourages dancers to refocus on why they started pole, set achievable short-term or intermediary goals, and consider working with a coach to choose realistic targets based on time, energy, and resources.
Chapters:
00:00 What If You Never Get It
00:36 Meet Dr Rosy Boa
01:27 Why Pole Attracts Achievers
02:19 When Goals Backfire
02:38 Research on Goal Failure
04:14 My PhD Burnout Story
05:24 Redefining Success
07:14 Remember Why You Started
08:14 Set Realistic Milestones
09:44 Wrap Up and Next Steps
Citations:
Höpfner J and Keith N (2021) Goal Missed, Self Hit: Goal-Setting, Goal-Failure, and Their Affective, Motivational, and Behavioral Consequences. Front. Psychol. 12:704790. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.704790
Links and resources:
Free sample class: https://mailchi.mp/slinkthroughstrength.com/free-pole-flow-class
Sign up for community flow: https://slinkthroughstrength.as.me/community-flow-class
Join my mailing list: https://mailchi.mp/slinkthroughstrength/newsletter
2025 studio dance playlist (these are all songs members suggested/brought to class!): https://open.spotify.com/playlist/06yzGCF4wi22B8516YuhIZ?si=9226904ac6f54287
Transcript:
Pole dancer, what if you never invert or do an Aisha or climb to the top of the pole or get your flick flack or whatever it is that, you know, that specific big goal that you have that you're trying to work towards, ah, what if it doesn't happen? And I'm not saying this to be a big bummer. I'm gonna be talking today a little bit about the research on goal setting and motivation and also just some of my experience in my life and some of the ways that the goals that we set and the expectations that we put on ourselves can make our pole life less fun, less fulfilling, and less sustainable.
So if you don't know me, uh, I'm Dr. Rosy Boa. I am a pole teacher. Um, I used to be a researcher. We'll talk about that in just a second. That doctorate is a research doctorate. It's not a medical doctorate. None of this is medical advice.
And I run an online studio, Slink Through Strength. I got a membership, Science of Slink, uh, for home polers who are big nerds. If your brain works the way that I do, if you really like this podcast, it'll probably scratch that itch for you. Really focused on helping you find freestyle dance, uh, and just being able to put on a song, walk up to the pole, and move and dance for a full song and feel nice, and that's really what my membership is trying to support. If you wanna sort of see what that looks like in practice, I've actually got a free sample class. There's a link down below. You can check it out. And for those of you who are my members, mwah uh, love ya. Hearts. Hearts, hearts, hearts, hearts. Y'all make this possible.
All right we're gonna jump right into it. Gonna keep it short and sweet today. There is something about pole that really draws in high-achieving, type A, motivated people who like doing hard shit. I know that, 'cause that's me, and I've taken a lot of pole. I've been doing this for a while [mumbles]-teen years. Oh. and also, you know, I've worked with a lot of students. I've taught hundreds of pole dancers over my career as a teacher. Being really goal-oriented and having big dreams and big goals that they're working towards is super, super, super common for pole dancers. I've got goals. I'm sure you've got goals.
Goals in themselves, not a problem, right? There's a really big body of research in psychology, in particular, on how goal-setting can really help us improve outcomes, right? It helps build a sense of self-efficacy. You know, whatever it is that you wanna do, being specific about it and working towards it in a structured way helps, right? We've got a lot of evidence about that. I think you've probably had experience of that in your own life.
That's not what I'm talking about. I'm not saying setting goals is bad I do wanna say if you are setting high specific goals for yourself, things that are very challenging and that it will be very clear to you whether or not you've succeeded, and you are failing in those goals repeatedly, that is bad for you.
That is bad for you psychologically. So there's a 2021 study, uh, by Hoffner and Keats, in, uh, Frontiers in Psychology, " goal missed, self-hit, goal setting, goal failure, and their effective motivational and behavioral consequences". And basically what they found is when they gave folks really high goals, those that were very difficult for them to achieve, and because they were difficult for them to achieve, they didn't, right?
And if they failed repeatedly, not only did they have negative affect, it made them feel worse, right? Negative emotions. They also had lower self-esteem. They felt worse about themselves as people and also lower motivation. So they had less drive to continue to work and continue to do things.
And this is a pattern that I do unfortunately see a lot with folks in pole because our Instagram feeds, right, our social media is filled with literal professional athletes who do this full-time as their job, and that is the bar that we are seeing that is being set for us, you know, visually, that our brains are like, "Okay, that's what I should be doing."
And most of us are not full-time professional athletes, right? Like, I mean, this is my job, and I don't have that much time to train. Mostly I'm at my computer doing computer tasks, right? That's mostly what running a studio is. Uh, I hate to, to break the glamour for you, but it's a lot of spreadsheets.
And if you are constantly setting goals for yourself that are not achievable for you and are not in a reasonable timeline and don't have intermediary goals that you can hit to see the improvement that you're working towards, you're gonna have a bad time.
You're gonna have a bad time. And this is not just, true for pole, this is true for life in general. So, uh, I mentioned I have a research background. I have a research doctorate. I don't work in the field that I got my PhD in, and it's not 'cause I didn't want to, right?
Those of y'all who worked in research, you're, I'm sure you are familiar with the issues there. Uh, but basically, I come from a field that produces more PhDs than it has jobs for. Um, and most people who go into these PhD programs are like, "I want one of those jobs," and there's just not that many of them.
And I tried real hard to get one, and I didn't, and, it worked out. I am fine. But for a long time, I was not fine. It required me to change my identity about who I am as a person. It really had a negative effect on me. And in trying to work towards this really high, really specific goal so I knew whether or not I would achieve it, that was also not particularly reasonable or attainable, I pushed myself way too hard. I burned out pretty badly as a result of just how hard I was working to try and get this thing that, to be frank, it was not realistic to get.
And now, I'm fine. I've moved past that. I am, for the most part, un-burned out, although there are long-term cognitive consequences that I'm just gonna have to live with for the rest of my life, but it is what it is.
But because I was so focused on that goal, because I was so focused on this thing that frankly I knew I wasn't likely to get, uh, what I wasn't doing was I wasn't appreciating that I was doing the thing that I had set out to do to begin with, right? Some of the work that I did in grad school and just after grad school I had really wanted to have work that had a broad impact, and there was a specific sub-area that I was working on, and I really wanted to raise awareness of that sub-area, and I really wanted to see other people working to fix these problems and to acknowledge that they were problems in the first place.
And to this day, even today, this morning, people are still citing that work as they are working on those problems. So yeah, I don't work in the field that I got my PhD in. Again, that's fine. But I shouldn't discount the work that I did do. I did achieve my goals. I did do the thing that I went to grad school to do, right? I had an effect in the world in this sub, sub, sub, sub, very narrow, little, little area of research. And genuinely, it changed the way that other people are doing their work, what they're focusing on and you know, helped people realize that there was a problem, and now people are working on that problem.
So if I, took a step back and instead of focusing on this like single specific goal that, again, I knew I wasn't likely to get, right? Uh, like if I was like, "Hey, I'm gonna learn to fonji today," it's just not gonna happen. I don't have the preparatory steps. You know, I have not been training for power. It's not in my body. It could maybe be in my body in like a year if I really focus on it, but I know I'm not going to. So if I set that as a goal for myself, it's not gonna happen. Uh, and if I have this expectation that it's going to happen, I will be upset when it doesn't happen. Um, and you know, feel negative emotions, feel worse about myself, and feel less motivated to keep training.
But if instead of being like, "I'm gonna fonji," I'm focusing on what I am doing, what I came to do. Why did you start pole, right? I went to grad school to try and change the world, and I did. I changed my little bit of the world. I was successful in that.
I started pole because I wanted to move and feel good, and I remember when I started pole, I was like, "Wow, if I could just do an inside leg hang, that would be the coolest thing in the world."
And that was, when I started pole, literally the hardest thing I could possibly imagine myself doing in my wildest dreams. And for me right now, my body where I am right now, that's pretty accessible. I can actually do that.
And even setting aside specific movements and goals, I wanted to move. I wanted to feel more connected with my body. I wanted to feel stronger. I wanted to move with other people who were interested in the same things that I did, and I've done that, right? I never have to meet another move goal, right? I never, ever in my life have to learn another new move to have succeeded in pole. To have succeeded in doing the thing that I came to pole to do.
So that's my little rant, uh, because I, I see this a lot, folks coming in, really focusing on something that is just not in their body right now, that would be very challenging for them to get there, um, that they don't necessarily have the time or capacity to train for.
When instead of focusing on, like, a specific movement, if instead, based on my experience, based on the research, they focused on, "Okay, why am I doing pole? What do I want out of this? Do I want a feeling of achievement? If so, maybe I should focus on something that's achievable for me, maybe in the next month, maybe in the next two months."
Um, and this is where working with a coach and someone who's really experienced in pole can be very helpful because, you know, they can look at your movement and be like, "Okay, X, probably not gonna happen for a little bit. We can work towards this. But Y, you could probably get this in a couple classes," right?
Or even, you know, if it's, if it's an organizational thing, if it's a motor learning thing, possibly even in one class, right? It really depends on what it is that you're working on. It depends, right? The more you know about something, the more likely you are to say it depends. This is really a case where it depends.
Um, and I would really recommend working with someone if you are interested in having a specific goal to figure out what is gonna be reasonable for you in your timeframe with the resources that you have. And the resources include time and energy and how much of your, your pie of everything that you have in your life are you willing to devote to pole.
Uh, because for most people, it's a pretty small slice, and it should be a pretty small slice, especially if this is your hobby, your recreational thing that you're doing for fun. It should not take over your whole life. You got other things to do, right? You're, you're a well-rounded person. There are other things going on in your life.
So that is my soapbox. Goals, not necessarily a bad thing, can be very effective. Goals that are very, very challenging for you, that are very specific, and that you don't have the capacity to support working towards, setting and working towards those goals, probably not gonna be good for you long term.
If instead you reframe how you're thinking about pole, how you're thinking about what you're doing, and then focusing on getting the things that you want out of pole, you're probably gonna have a much nicer time. So that's my experience. That's my advice. Uh, and of course, if you're interested in reading the study, I got the research down there. Uh, I'm also gonna link to that, that free class if you wanna work with me.
Uh, and leave me a comment. Let me know, is this something that you've experienced in your life? Uh, is this something you struggle with? I know a lot of us who are big achievers tend to struggle with this. Uh, so I'd love to hear more about your experiences.
Oh, and if you have not reviewed the podcast, review the podcast. Leave a little review. Leave me some, leave me some stars.
All right. Short and sweet today. I gotta go teach class. Members, I will see you there. Non-members, I'll see you in the next podcast episode. I'll talk to you then. Bye.
 
