Step Out on Faith

I get it. Every day of your life is perfectly planned out days, weeks, maybe even months in advance. And I also get it that you have certain short- and long-term goals that guide those activities. For example, you go to class, get the grades, earn the internship, get into grad school, and before you know it, kick up your Louibouton’s or Ferragamo’s - respectively – on your Mahogany desk in the corner office overlooking the city. I get it. And, I respect it. Best of luck. Sincerely.

First, I want to warn everyone that the purpose of this post isn’t to suggest that you should change your goals and aspirations. Instead, this post is to bring you back to that place when you used to dream. It may have been during undergrad. Maybe high school. Maybe even before you started school. There was once a time that you wanted to be a writer. A dancer. An artist. A motivational speaker. And at some point, you were convinced that your dream wasn’t the most practical decision. Maybe you wouldn’t make a lot of cash. Maybe the chances were slim that you’d make it. In any case, you stopped dreaming and took another route.

Let me guess, that dream has never left you, has it? You still secretly wish that you could sell your art in a small boutique in SoHo. You’d love to be recognized as an author. Maybe you want to own your own dance studio. How about travel the world giving speeches about uplifting ourselves and our communities? I say, why not try? Why not send out book proposals. That doesn’t mean you have to drop out of grad school or quit your day job. If you want that dance studio, why not visit local studios to gain a better understanding of how they become successful? Get back into dancing yourself. Step out on faith. We get so caught up in the impracticality and we even let others crush our dreams.

Stop! Take just thirty minutes to an hour each day, or every other day, to step out on faith and live a little bit of that dream. Sure, your book may never get published. But, if you send out proposal after proposal, who knows what might happen? Maybe you end up with a New York Best Seller. Maybe you end up with something to stick under the dining room table. Maybe you save enough to put a down payment on a dance facility. Maybe you don’t. Maybe you surround yourself with just enough dance that you remember the days. Maybe you don’t get into law school this year, but next year, you get a full ride. Maybe. Maybe. Just maybe. I know it sounds cliché – even saying “I know it sounds cliché’” is a cliché – but, you never know what will happen. And more importantly, you don’t want that dream to turn into a “what if,” “if only,” “if, if, if, if” NIGHTMARE.

Manifest.