As a 3-year-old, I attended a ballet class, like many other little girls before and after me. My mom tells me that I didn’t care about performing the organized dance with the other girls, instead preferring to run amok and treat the barre like monkey bars. Now, 15 years later, I am all but hopeless as a dancer—my movements are awkward rather than elegant, and I become instantly uncomfortable when faced with even the potential prospect of a dance floor. For most of my life, I’ve thought of dancing as something that wasn’t for me, and something that I did not and never would care about. But that all changed when I read about the revolutionary Misty Copeland.

I first learned about Misty Copeland from a profile written about her in the March 2014 issue of Teen Vogue. The American ballerina was an unlikely focus of interest for me, since, as I mentioned above, I am most definitely not a dancer. But what struck me as I turned the pages of the magazine were the images that accompanied the article: African-American Copeland, dressed all in white, sitting poised and confident in front of a line of perfect, young ballerinas raising their arms to the sky, and then Copeland again, in a leather jacket and a tutu, gazing up and out of the page, her bearing relaxed and regal. These were images of a powerful woman who was unafraid to be herself and owned her impressive presence, and they gripped me. The accompanying excerpt from her then soon-to-be-released memoir, Life in Motion: An Unlikely Ballerina, added to my captivation. Copeland had begun dancing at age 13, much later than most ballerinas, and she had a body and skin color that some say looks all wrong for ballet. Yet despite all that, she proved her critics wrong through her overwhelming talent and quickly became a professional ballerina. Here was a woman who had ignored the odds, expectations, and naysayers to reach for her dreams and goals and claim them as her own. Here was a woman whom I wanted to emulate.

On Tuesday, June 30, Copeland continued defying the odds as she was promoted to a principal dancer for the prestigious American Ballet Theatre. But not only did she accomplish the impressive feat of reaching the highest rank of ABT, she also made history as she became the first African-American woman to hold the title in all of the company’s 75 years.

You might know nothing about ballet, as do I, but you should definitely know—and care—about Misty Copeland. Because what she has accomplished deserves to be recognized. She has changed the world in a way that may seem small but will have monumental consequences. Not only has she achieved for herself, but her success has also opened the door for others—in 2013 the American Ballet Theatre launched Project Plié, a program inspired by Copeland and aimed at increasing diversity in the elite world of ballet.

Copeland is living, breathing, and dancing evidence that determination, hard work and perseverance can pay off—and that you can prove all the critics wrong. By breaking down a barrier, she has set the stage for a future where opportunities in the ballet world are no longer limited to class, build, or race. As five-time Olympic gold medal gymnast Nadia Comaneci wrote, when Misty was named one of TIME's 100 most influential people of 2015, “Her story—of overcoming personal and physical challenges to become a soloist at the American Ballet Theatre—is the story of someone who followed her dreams and refused to give up. In that way, she is a model for all young girls.” And even though I’m not really a young girl anymore, as I begin to face the world as a young woman, Misty serves as an inspiration for me, too.

Misty is talented, graceful and poised on stage and on-screen. Her artistry—her powerful, passionate leaps and beautiful, expressive gestures—is something I could not hope to copy. But her determined spirit and unwavering confidence in herself is something I admire, and what I yearn to match. And maybe, just maybe, watching her commanding grace as she leaps across a stage will also inspire my own dancing to be less timid.