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.
If I'd won every single race and got pole everywhere, that would just be boring. It would suck. Where's the fun in that?
Faith becomes a bridge between where I am and where I want to go- it is a substance.
To achieve your dreams, work is required. Suffering is optional.
Like stones rolling down hills, fair ideas reach their objectives despite all obstacles and barriers. It may be possible to speed or hinder them, but impossible to stop them.
Success isn't owned - it's leased. And rent is due every day. Every single day, someone's coming for your job. Someone's coming for your greatness. If you're the greatest, someone wants to be the greatest, and so if you're not constantly improving your game, somebody else is.
Act enthusiastic and you will be enthusiastic.
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