Senior year of college. Late winter. I am sitting in my car in the parking lot after a study session, heat running, windows fogging up around me, completely still.

Not because I am tired. Because I am torn. I am studying pre-med and dance, and I’ve been silently holding a question I can no longer ignore: 

Do I quit college and move to New York City to dance? Or do I stay in school, get my degree, and go to medical school?

I loved the science of medicine. But the idea of it as a profession did not make my heart sing. The thought of dance, of actually following that persistent inner nudge, inspired me in a way nothing else did. And yet I felt a strong pull toward obligation, toward doing what my mother thought I was capable of and therefore what I should do.

What I felt in that car was not laziness or indecision. It was the very human experience of looking outside myself for permission. 

Many of us do this by looking to the economy, to our education, and our history. We even wonder whether we’ll have our parents’ approval, whether our decision will offend someone, whether going for something we’ve always dreamed of means losing the good we’ve worked so hard to build.

Most of us have sat in that car. The details are different, but the feeling is the same. Hesitancy. The impulse to draw back. The gap between what we want and what we are willing to commit to.

What I didn’t yet understand, sitting in that frigid fog, was that the commitment itself was the thing I was waiting for. Not the certainty. Not the perfect conditions. The decision.

What W.H. Murray Understood

There is a passage I have returned to many times since that night. I think it explains what happened next better than I ever could.

“Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back. Concerning all acts of initiative and creation, there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now.” — W.H. Murray

Read that again if you need to. What Murray is describing is not motivation. It is not positive thinking. 

It is a law of creative energy that most of us never get to experience, because we’re still sitting in the parking lot, waiting for a sign that it’s safe to begin.

The moment you commit, something shifts. Not outside you first. Inside you. And then, almost without explanation, outside you too.

Borrowing a Belief

That winter I did my winter term in New York City, immersing myself in studying dance with several well known “dance greats”. After class one day, my teacher asked me to come in early the next morning. 

That next morning, we sat down together and he told me I had something special, that I had what it took to be remarkable as a dancer. He went on to invite me into his jazz dance company and we performed at Studio 54 that Spring. Unforgettable!

The most valuable thing I took from our conversation was that his belief in me lit a bonfire under my desire to continue in professional dance. 

I borrowed his belief, listened to the persistent inner nudge, and after graduating from college, moved to New York City to pursue a life in professional dance.

I’d secured a three month apartment with a friend, had no job, and moved in, feeling both expectant and terrified. 

What scared me most was that I’d had no experience supporting myself. And the dream, although very strong, was still just an idea. Not too many people made it as professional dancers. 

The starving artist’s life certainly didn’t pay well. Even the top dance companies only contracted their dancers for thirty-two weeks out of the year.

There was no logic that said I could do this successfully. So I stopped looking for it.

I kept my focus on the dream and took a step in that direction. Took class, looked for a job, and began auditioning. Without the passionate desire, without visualizing myself on stage and feeling the joy in my body, as I imagined dancing and performing, the daily hurdles and the unknown would have been certain roadblocks. I would have quit on myself.

But that’s the beauty of commitment. Something in me that had been scattered became coherent and focused. The ships were burned. There was only forward.

What Commitment Actually Does

Bold action is not the absence of fear. It’s the decision to stop giving fear the deciding vote.

Hesitancy lives in the gap between wanting something and committing to it. In that gap, doubt has all the room it needs to grow. We dip a toe, we delay, we wait for more evidence, more certainty, more permission from people whose lives are not ours to live. And the dream stays an idea.

The moment we commit, that gap closes. Not because fear disappears, but because we’ve made it irrelevant. 

There is a definiteness in commitment to the desired thing that closes down any previous option of not doing it. Of hesitating, delaying, dipping your toe. You just jump into the present moment and relegate fear to the sidelines.

And in that decisiveness, what Murray refers to as “genius” is activated:

• Commitment and the bold action that follows wakes up inner genius. 

• Doors open that were invisible to me from where I contemplated my future, in that parking lot. People show up. Opportunities surface. 

• A whole stream of events issues from the decision that no one could have dreamed would come their way. 

This is actually what happens.

Ten Years Later

Fast forward a decade. I am performing in a modern dance company on West 19th Street in Manhattan. The Village Voice dance critic is in the audience. 

And so is someone far more important to me: my grandmother, who became a painter at the age of forty-one and is now in her late seventies.

I am one of four dancers on stage. The piece is a comedic commentary on husband and wife relationships. The theater is pitch black.

And then, from somewhere in that darkness, I hear my grandmother burst into laughter. Not only was I living my dream, but at least one other person was gaining joy from it. 

That moment holds everything. Not the review, not the validation, not the proof that I made the right choice to dance instead of becoming a doctor. Just the laughter in the dark, and the quiet knowing that betting on my heart’s desire was the best thing I could have done. 

And to think that I almost stayed in that parking lot. 

The Invitation

When was the last time you felt that hesitancy? That pull toward something you want, followed by the quiet retreat back to what feels safe?

What have you been circling?

Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. I know this because I have lived it. But I also want to offer you this: boldness does not have to feel brave in the moment. It just has to be decided. 

You don’t wait until the fear is gone. You jump, with the fear and the desire. And when you land, you notice that what the fear was telling you wasn’t true, it was just trying to keep you safe. 

This kind of courage in action releases incredible amounts of motivating energy and skyrockets confidence. Every human deserves to feel this.

Decide for what gives you life. Take a step in that direction.

Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Not when the conditions are right, not when everyone approves, not when you have enough evidence.  

Now.

Your heart’s desire is enough of a confirmation.

And if you are reading this thinking, “I don’t even know what makes my heart sing”, that question deserves a real conversation. You do not have to sit with it alone.