A Magic Word--Part III

3. Say yes when things are not going well

 

 

Twyla Tharp was a farm girl from Indiana . She went to New York with big dreams. She dreamed to be a dancer, but she lacked the technical skills to be a ballerina, and she was too short. So she wondered, “Will I ever be a dancer? Could I live my life as a professional dancer?” The only way to find out, it seemed, was to form her own troupe and create her own style of dance.

 

 

 

For five long years, Tharp and her troupe practiced every day in the basement of a Greenwich Village church. They worked for little pay and got almost no recognition. Constantly, she asked herself, “Do you want to do this, or don't you?” Forty years later, she has performed over 100 dances on Broadway and in movies, and she won the National Medal of the Arts in 2004, Tharp still asks herself that same question. And the answer is -- YES.

 

 

 

When things are not going well, we usually start to have doubts about ourselves. “Am I really good at this? Do I want to do this? I’m fooling myself, I shouldn’t do this. I want to quit, so I won’t embarrass myself.” But if we quit, we could never know whether we are capable of doing it or not. We should never give up, and never be a quitter. Let’s tell ourselves, “Yes, this is what I want to do. I will persist and finally achieve my goal.”