Initiative Part I

A friend of mine from college, who now works at the University of Michigan, recently posted on my facebook wall the following:

Excited to judge tryouts for the Women's Club Cheer Team - started 15 years ago by an awesome person named Katrina!! — with Katrina Blank at Central Campus Recreation Building.

And I commented:
looooooove this! funny, back in 1997 the person i spoke w/at the UM's athletic department said i couldn't start this group, so i called up the lions, hoping to get a pro team started... they said no too. but then i learned, if you get 5 signatures, you can start ANY group on on Michigan's campus - cheers to overcoming obstacles in making your dreams come true! :) often times our noes in life are our answers en route to finding our yeses. tears, prayers, and a good friend named Emily Cheng Nelson also helped bring about this group. thrilled to know it still exists!

Erwin McManus claims we're all made of the same stuff.  But I'm starting to question this claim.  Because reflecting back on my college experience,  no one "taught" me to take initiative, but rather, I just did.  And I don't think it's "normal" to go after something like I did, and to continue to go after my "dream" despite such opposition.  Most people would have given up if not at the first no, then at the second.  But for some reason, I refused to take no for an answer. 

Granted, the "cause" I fought for in college was seemingly trite, but I loved cheerleading enough to not let it go to the wayside, simply because I was 5'8" and much too tall for the coed team.

And so 15 years ago I created what today is this:
http://www.umich.edu/~mcheer/UMich_All-Girl_Cheer/Home.html

But I mention intiative, because although it may not be as natural for eveyone else like it is for me, it's still within each and every one of us.  I suppose that's where Erwin is correct in his claim.  The potential to take initiative is there, but some people are more apt than others to step forward and pursue possibility.

So what is it that holds us back from making our ideas a reality?