There are many things that can muddy the waters and make something so simple, like trying a new hobby or ditching a bad habit, seem complex. As crazy as it sounds, most humans will come up with excuse after excuse to try to wiggle out of doing the one thing they know they need to do in order to accomplish their deepest desires. But really, it all begins with one step. I believe you will only take that step, and change the course you are on, when the thought of not doing something becomes more painful to you than the thought of giving it a try. It really is that simple.

Keep It Simple, Stupid

The truth that most people fail to acknowledge, however, is that doing something, even if you're following a dream, can still be painful a lot of the time. When you're following a dream, though, there's a pot of gold at the end of the pain. That pot may not be filled with literal gold, but it should at least hold the gold of fulfillment. That fulfillment usually comes in the form of peace, satisfaction, and a pride that only comes from living with purpose.

“We don't tell ourselves, ‘I'm never going to write my symphony.’ Instead we say, ‘I'm going to write my symphony; I'm just going to start tomorrow.’”

—Stephen Pressfield, The War of Art

People these days, myself included, are obsessed with the origin stories of those who have broken away from the pack to take the road less traveled. This is not surprising given the difficulty required to take the first step down any path. The question I'm asked the most, besides how I memorize all my lines, is how I became a professional actor. The trite answer I usually give in interviews is that it started with a girl. That leads to a story about a breakup in college while studying abroad, which ultimately led to my decision to quit playing lacrosse my junior year at Boston College. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, I auditioned for a play, and the rest is history. But perhaps a more truthful and accurate answer is that it started with a plethora of proverbial “no”s throughout my childhood.

Before You Take Your First Step, Ask Yourself Why You're Moving

Most people can trace their why back to some pain, rejection, or perceived loss in childhood that they are now trying to fix. I am no different. For me, my why was forged in the pain of my parents' marriage, which looked one way to my immediate family and another to the rest of the world. As the youngest member of the family, and the peacekeeper, I was constantly interpreting one family member's actions to another. Socially, my role was similar. I could always relate to most people so I'd find myself explaining one person to another, even if they were part of vastly different social subsets. The price I paid for keeping the peace was that I internalized everything and carried it around with me. Looking back now, it is easier to see that my career choice did not really come out of nowhere, the way I previously viewed it, as my job now is to interpret the words of writers and the experiences of the characters I play. But I had zero awareness of this link back then.

On top of carrying other people's secrets around, as well as my own pain and frustration, I could never to seem to attain the things I wanted the most. As far back as the fifth grade, I'd pursue a girl I liked, get close to her, and muster up the courage to ask her out. But, one way or another, I'd end up alone after it fell apart due to a change of heart or some other obstacle I never saw coming until it was too late. Rejection is defined as the dismissing of an idea or the spurning of a person's affections, and I had plenty of both. I feel bad for a certain girl I “loved” in fifth grade because, while I've only run into her on rare occasions since we graduated high school, I never miss the opportunity to remind her of our date that never happened. I had charmed her enough to eventually elicit a “yes” when I asked her to the year-end town carnival, but on the night of the event, she stood me up. Two friends of mine still love to laugh about the memory of me riding The Whip alone in the rain. And while I can laugh at myself about it now, back then it added to the feeling that I was not where I wanted to be emotionally, and not sure I'd ever get there.

While I was not a child actor, I still managed to get a “no” when I auditioned for the role of the Cowardly Lion in an elementary school production of The Wizard of Oz. I had forgotten this story for a long time because it occurred long before I thought of acting as a viable career. It's only been in recent years, as I've reflected about the lessons I've learned in the course of my career, that I've remembered it. It was a play in which the kids in my class were required to participate. I really thought I could get the role of the Cowardly Lion until the new girl, upon whom I had a massive crush, completely outshined me with her audition. (Side note: this was a different crush. I moved on from the carnival stander-upper. But I screwed this one up, too—it wasn't until eighth or ninth grade, when I admitted to liking her three years prior, that she revealed she had a crush on me when she first moved to our school. Talk about missed opportunities. More on self-dispensed “no”s later.)

In the present day, I motivate myself by the thought that there is always someone out there more talented than me ready to take my roles. Perhaps it started back then, with my grade-school crush. She could sing and dance, and she had what people might call “it.” My talent, on the other hand, was rewarded with the consolation prize of playing Uncle Henry. I still remember my sole line, telling Auntie Em I had to fix the incubator. It was an illustrious beginning to my career, I assure you. This “no” was thrown onto the ever-increasing pile of rejections, but I didn't think much of it, at least consciously, because I didn't care about acting back then.

Sports, on the other hand, felt like my life when I was growing up. Unfortunately, my desire to be good at them was not matched by my talent. I'd work my butt off obsessively only to remain skinny, weak, and slow. The fact that I made it as far as I did in athletics is a sheer reflection of a burning desire in me to be accepted and valued. On my own, despite the many things I had going for me and the many great friends and family members who surrounded me, I largely felt like I was not enough.

No matter which “no” I credit as the origin of my career, it was somehow forged in the pain of rejection and the desire to overcome it.

Obviously, all of those childhood “no”s didn't kill me and neither did the “no” of my emotionally harrowing experience in Italy over the summer of 1992. Perhaps the expression “That which does not kill you will make you stronger” is popular because it reflects a truth. The breakup in Italy is what forced me to dig deeper and find something more fully satisfying than being a member of my college lacrosse team. Confusing feelings had been percolating inside me prior to my trip to Italy, inducing a full-blown panic attack long before I had ever heard that term. But, like many people, rather than examine the origins of my unrest, I chose to ignore my anxiety because I was too scared to take the first step.

On the surface, things were looking good for me by the spring of my sophomore year in Chestnut Hill. I had a beautiful girlfriend, a spot on the varsity team, grades that kept me on the Dean's List, and a lot of friends. But beneath the surface lurked a different story. Despite the fact that I thought I was in love for the first time, the panic attacks were brought on by the fact that I had been questioning the relationship subconsciously. I was just too scared to do anything to jeopardize it because I thought it was everything I wanted. There was a chasm deep within me that I had been avoiding and it created a gap between my inner self and the facade I presented to the world. That facade began to crumble in Italy when my girlfriend had the courage to do what I had feared by breaking off our relationship.

The truth inside me rose up, grabbed me by the throat, and got my attention. Uncharacteristically, I skipped out of all the classes I was supposed to be taking and, instead, found a patch of grass in front of a small church in Perugia where I dumped all of my jagged thoughts into the journal my sister had given to me prior to my trip. It was as though there was an angry artist inside of me, no longer allowing me to put a muzzle on him, writing it. He told me that I couldn't continue to go down the path upon which I was traveling. It was an exhilarating yet frightening experience. That journal contains the first traces of my desire to act and write. I look back on this period as fortunate now, but it is no exaggeration to say that, at the time, I feared I was going to die in Italy with no friends or family around to witness it.

“I went back to my room, pulled my pistol out and put it in my mouth and was getting ready to blow my head off. Thankfully, I had a picture of my wife and kids on the desk across from me. I saw that as I was sitting there with a gun in my mouth and thought, ‘What're you doing?’ So I put my gun away and I went and sought help for the first time. And I'd love to say that I woke up. I didn't. I stayed on the X for a while. I still played the victim. I tried to convince myself, ‘You're being thrown under the bus. You're doing the right thing.’ But it literally took me about five months. I hadn't hit rock bottom yet.”

Jason Redman, Retired Navy SEAL, New York Times Best-Selling Author

The result of this breakdown/breakthrough was that the following spring at Boston College, after a brief period of going back to lacrosse and the beaten path I had traveled for so long, I quit the team, stepped out of my comfort zone, and auditioned for a play. After losing out to my roommate, who was also auditioning for the first time, I gave it another shot and scored the lead in a one-act play. It was performed in a lecture hall, rather than an actual theater. But despite the humble venue, I enjoyed the experience so much that I told anyone who would listen that I was going to be an actor. While this may sound dramatic and grand, over a year later, after that one-act play, I had not done any more plays.

Upon graduating, I moved back home with the plan to save enough money to move to New York City and pursue a career in acting. I had taken an acting class my senior year and added a Film Studies minor to my English Literature major, but I had not acted aside from that lecture-hall production. On top of this, after 27 years of marriage, my parents decided to split that summer, so moving back into the house where I grew up without my Dad living there was an adjustment. There were many thoughts swimming through my head, but the primary one was how I could turn my new dream into a reality.

There is no standard how-to manual containing a list of the first steps in becoming an actor, because the how is unique for each individual. Classes can be attended, mentors can be sought out, and the skills required to excel can be attained through training. But the why is the fuel that will propel you. A strong why will obliterate all of the inevitable blockades and barriers you will undoubtedly face no matter what field you choose. If your why is not aligned with your innermost joy and your biggest dreams, you may find success, but eventually you will experience some version of the breakdown I had in Italy. It may not crumble your life or turn you 180 degrees the way it did me. It may not cause you panic attacks. But there will be cracks in your facade. Eventually, if you're not careful, you'll look back wondering whose life you lived.

“I drove a cab for years, I proofread in law firms, I worked in a factory when I kind of dropped it all out and went out to Colorado. I cleaned Greyhound buses on Eleventh Avenue from eleven at night ‘til seven in the morning in summers while I went to school. No, I didn't start making a living for real until my son was born.”

—Richard Schiff, Actor, Emmy Award Winner, The West Wing

That experience in Italy, when everything bubbled out of me, made me certain that I wanted to pursue something that required all of my faculties. I wanted to somehow relieve the knot of emotions and unfulfilled desires tangled in my gut. Thus, my why was a desire to express myself psychologically, spiritually, physically, and mentally and the way I guessed I could do that was through acting. But just because I'd found my why, did not mean I knew exactly how to start.

Everybody Needs Some Billy Sometimes

The challenge for me to begin my pursuit as an actor was that I had almost no experience. Everyone needs to start somewhere and I was no different. The pain of not acting, for me, outweighed the fear of falling on my face in front of others. I wanted to start as soon as possible, so I scanned a local paper and found a casting notice. A community theater a few towns over from where I grew up was doing the musical The Mystery of Edwin Drood. The audition required each hopeful actor to sing 16 bars of music, accompanied by a pianist. I called the phone number and admitted that I didn't have 16 bars of music to sing. I explained that I could play a little piano, even less guitar, and I could carry a tune. When I asked if it would it be okay if I just “sang some Billy Joel” there was a long pause. After what felt like an eternity, I heard, “Sure. Just bring the sheet music.”

The following week I drove over to the theater after a full day of my summer job laying patios with a mason. I'd had time to shower and change, but my choice of wardrobe was hardly appropriate for a musical set in the 1860s. I entered the theater in jeans, a white t-shirt, and a pair of beaten up, low-cut Converse Chuck Taylors. To say I stuck out like a sore thumb would be an understatement. I looked like I was headed to a frat party while the rest of the hopeful actors wore some semblance of period garb similar to the setting of the musical. The way the audition was set up—which I have never experienced since—was that every person who went up on stage to sing did so in front of everyone else waiting to go. Once you were done, you were free to leave. Suddenly, I wished that I had showed up late so there would be no one else to watch this potential debacle, but I hid my insecurity and sat seemingly confidently in the back of the theater waiting for my turn. Heart pounding underneath my increasingly sweaty t-shirt, I began to coach myself. Running through a list of things I'd accomplished up until this point in my life in a desperate attempt to quell my nerves and convince myself this was nothing I couldn't handle, I began to find my confidence.

This lasted until the first girl got up on stage. She was beautiful and blonde, a few years younger than me, but she appeared older because of her formal period wardrobe and the way she carried herself. She handed her sheet music to the pianist as though she'd done this a million times before. The pianist began to play. When this young woman began to belt out her tune, all my insecurities came rushing back. She was amazing. I sat questioning my decision to volunteer for this torture and wondered why I thought I deserved to be here. Somehow, by the time her 16 bars came to an end, I had convinced myself that she was just a fluke. I told myself the rest of the auditionees would be normal, like me.

This theory crashed to the ground when the next person was called to the stage. This young man, dressed appropriately in a suit, was also classically trained. He had the kind of voice you hear on Broadway, and as his song hit its climax, I realized they might all be like this. That realization proved to be true when the next three or four actors, even those who were considerably younger than me, blew the doors off the place. I was looking around for the exit and thinking about sneaking out when my name was called.

Oh boy, I thought, here comes the moment of truth.

I walked up to the front of the theater, feeling all eyes on me. Hopping onto the stage as casually as I could, I thought if I wasn't the most classically trained, I was at least going to appear the most confident. Fake it 'til you make it, son. When I hit the stage, something shifted inside me. I remembered why I was there. I might not be classically trained, but I loved to perform. I remembered my plan to stick out by embracing the fact that I was different. I walked to the center and planted my feet. The pianist asked for my sheet music and I stared back. Mustering all the confidence and courage I could, I told him I'd be singing a cappella. The sheer audacity of it, knowing I was outclassed but forging ahead anyway, was like a rush of adrenaline. After taking a deep breath and exhaling, I began snapping my fingers and tapping my foot. I fell back on what I knew: Billy Joel.

While I didn't have much real stage experience, I did spend many a day and night in junior high and high school, sometimes with friends, sometimes alone, playing piano and singing. Somewhere inside me was a performer dying to get out and all he needed was for me to take this first step and give him the opportunity. I was alive. Whereas just minutes before the attention had nearly crumbled me, as I sang now, I felt everyone's eyes on me and I liked it. I was where I was supposed to be. And even though the odds that they'd think I was right for this play were slim to none, I didn't care. I had taken the leap and I'd be right for something, some day.

In a beautiful twist of fate, my courage was rewarded and I was offered a role. And not a small role, either. I was the Chairman. The Mystery of Edwin Drood is a play within a play, so prior to the curtain going up they needed someone to improvise with audience members as they entered the theater, in a British accent, no less. Breaking the fourth wall of the theater and speaking directly to the audience throughout the play, the Chairman was to introduce the play, narrate it, and jump into the action as Mayor Sapsea for several songs and scenes. He was one of the leads and I had the time of my life.

At the end of the run, the director pulled me aside and told me she had worried about finding the right person to play the Chairman because it required different skills than any of the other roles. When I had hopped on stage in jeans and a t-shirt and started snapping my fingers, she knew immediately that I was her guy. My differences, the very thing I feared would embarrass me, were the reason I got the gig. But I never would have learned that if I hadn't taken the first step to get started.

Too many people I speak with get in their own way because they're judging themselves as if they're at the finish line even though the starting gun has barely sounded. Rome wasn't built in a day, and neither was any good business, physique, or skyscraper. Things take time to grow, and usually that timetable is a lot slower than you hope for it to be. Self-judgment and crippling self-criticism are not the path to your goal. There are many paths to success, depending on who you are and what you want to do. Those paths are as varied and different as the number of people in the world, but they share one thing in common: each one begins with a first step.