New Book "The Ballerina Mindset" by NYCB principal dancer Megan Fairchild

New Book “The Ballerina Mindset” by NYCB principal dancer Megan Fairchild

The Ballerina Mindset: How to Protect Your Mental Health While Striving for Excellence, has officially danced onto bookshelves! Megan Fairchild—principal dancer with New York City Ballet—debuts her literary career with an inspiring how-to guide for dancers, athletes, artists, and anyone struggling to stay sane in a high-pressure environment. Encouraging and full of common-sense advice, The Ballerina Mindset helps readers unlock their true potential by candidly addressing issues like how to handle anxiety, deal with critical feedback, and maintain a healthy lifestyle.

Fairchild shares, “The Ballerina Mindset is really a love letter to the young professional who is trying to find their way in an ambitious industry and not sure how to succeed. A lot of my book is about how to feel healthy in your mind and confident as you work to be so perfect.”

Fairchild is very much living the advice she imparts in her debut book: Publishing during the holiday season when Fairchild will be promoting a book during NYCB’s ever-popular run of The Nutcracker, she is able to speak directly to the challenges of balancing a career in the creative arts. On top of her commitments with NYCB, Fairchild also hosts the advice podcast Ask Megan and a new YouTube series Conversations with Megan. Especially perfect for young professionals, Fairchild’s guidance in The Ballerina Mindset is warm and wise, achievable, and healthy—a much-needed update in the category, and a particularly salient guide during these fraught times. 

In The Ballerina Mindset, Megan shares all the wisdom she’s learned from her nearly two-decade career, drawing upon her own experiences to reveal how she learned to overcome everything from stage fright and negative feedback, to a packed calendar and weight management. In opening up about the realities of her high stress career, Fairchild addresses not just the potential physical obstacles individuals might face, but the mental and emotional strains as well. The result is an incredibly motivating and actionable guide from one of the most relatable and thoughtful performers working today; someone who readers can look up to and turn to for advice throughout their careers.

Publishers Weekly said The Ballerina Mindset is a, “compendium of hard-earned wisdom…provides type A readers eminently practical and practiced advice for dancing ahead in life without the drama.”

The Ballerina Mindset is a unique guide to understanding stress and balancing a competitive, creative career from one of the country’s elite dancers, just in time for the holiday season!