When you're in a rut, you have to question everything except your ability to get out of it.
Interpretation
In difficult times, trust in your capacity to overcome challenges while questioning other aspects of your situation.
This quote by Twyla Tharp emphasizes the importance of self-belief during challenging periods when one feels stuck or in a 'rut'. It suggests that while it's essential to critically assess one's circumstances and options, the one thing you should not doubt is your own ability to rise above the difficulties and find a way forward.
In practice
In a motivational speech about resilience and personal growth.
Do I watch dancers as people? Yes, absolutely. Do I watch really good dancers for specifically who they are? Absolutely, because how they move best and how they look best is going to be most familiar to them, and not necessarily to me.
I am still pushing the edge of what my body can do.
No one is born with skill. It is developed through exercise, through repetition, through a blend of learning and reflection that's both painstaking and rewarding. And it takes time.
Without passion, all the skill in the world won't lift you above craft. Without skill, all the passion in the world will leave you eager but floundering. Combining the two is the essence of the creative life.
I grew up in a drive-in theater, from the time I was 8, working in a snack bar watching four features every week. It was silent theater in the sense that this was a drive-in, which meant that I often saw the films going with no sound. But I learned to tell stories through action.
Without passion, all the skill in the world won't lift you above craft.
That aim in life is highest which requires the highest and finest discipline.
If you are relaxing and subconsciously thinking about your coming race, you are going to perform at just about 100 percent efficiency.
I see no reason that a golf course cannot be played in 18 birdies. Just because no one has ever done that doesn't mean it can't be done.
We all have the tendency to believe self-doubt and self-criticism, but listening to this voice never gets us closer to our goals. Instead, try on the point of view of a mentor or good friend who believes in you, wants the best for your, and will encourage you when you feel discouraged.
If you give up at the first rejection or the first bad review, you will never make it in publishing.
If people are not laughing at your dreams at least once a week, you are aiming too low!
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