How to Get Out of Your Own Way Read online

  If you have a problem with your life, you can elevate yourself or keep standing still, but you will have to decide if you’re going to change. I’ve said this to many people: Life is a menu. Whoever and whatever you order for your life is what’s going to be delivered to the table. If you want something new or better for your life, you have to order it. You are responsible for where you are in your life. You have more influence and can make more of a difference than you can ever imagine, but it has to start with you. When people are going through hell, they say, God will get me through this, but God also gave us free will. He puts us in a scenario and we must decide on our own what we’re going to do. You can get on your knees and pray but prayers shouldn’t be your only course of action. Most Christians can go to church and be saved but because God gave us free will, it’s your choice to save yourself from drama, craziness, dysfunctional surroundings, and bad personal and business relationships. You have to stop getting into the wrong situations and start making better decisions.

  Your life is the life you choose to live. If your life is miserable, is it because you’re too lazy to change? You have to create the reality you want. If you’re complaining every day that you have a problem with your life, you must do something about it. Too many people choose not to. But you have to stop complaining if you’re not going to try and change. If you really had a problem, you would do something about it, right?

  When we have problems in our life we have two choices. We could sit around and pity ourselves, cry about our misfortunes, and accept our fates. That is not me, and that has never been what I am about. I got to where I am now by never being satisfied with my current situation, and I always want more out of life. So I choose the second option—to change. I love myself too much to accept anything less than the absolute best out of life, and I want you to feel the same way.

  It’s easy to pity ourselves. It’s easier to think that all the unfortunate things that happen to us and all the bad situations we find ourselves in are completely out of our hands, that we are simply victims of a cruel fate. But these are excuses we tell ourselves because we are afraid to accept that we can control our lives. Feeling sorry for yourself is a one-way ticket to nowhere.

  You’ve been sitting on the pity potty long enough, so flush the toilet and try to let it go. Cry for a night, but when the sun comes up, know that you’ve flushed the pity potty and keep on moving. If you keep thinking of yourself as the victim, you don’t understand the power you have.

  If you want to stay in a hole, then that’s where you want to be. If you want better for yourself but are not willing to try and change your circumstances, you must question how much you love yourself. You must ask yourself why you’re so comfortable staying where you are. Why do you feel you don’t deserve to turn your life around? Why do you not want the very best for yourself? Life is about transitioning from who we are right now into someone greater, someone better. I want you to reach for everything you can reach for. Be better. Want better. When you figure out what you want for yourself and put that energy into the universe, it will come back to you eventually, like when you throw a pebble into water, the water vibrates and ripples outward. So jump into the water. Sometimes it’s frozen and it looks impossible, but take the leap of faith, jump in, and watch the water move around you.

  Change is hard and it can be scary, but the effort is worth it. Every person that improved his or her life made the choice and did something about it. If you’re afraid, for whatever reason, remember that a saint is a sinner that got up. One of my mentors, John Bryant, told me that once and I’ve never forgotten it. It reminds me that we all go through trials—even saints—and that we all have the opportunity to become better. A person may be considered a sinner because of their bad choices and the negative way they decided to lead their life. At some point even your pastor was sinning, but he got up and rededicated his life to Christ and decided to live and walk with God. In the same way, before you realized you could change, you were “sinning.” You were making bad choices, you were doing bad things to yourself or other people, and you weren’t moving your life forward, but once you get up and make the decision to change, you will be following in the path of the saints. When I heard that quote it just made me feel good, because a lot of us hold on to what was and can’t let go of the bad choices we made. We often don’t remember that even saints made mistakes. As long as you’re not continuing to do wrong, whatever you did is now in the past. If you start to change and make better choices for yourself, you can seal the coffin on your past actions. You’re living righteously now and trying your best to live better now, because you got up. You’re not doing what you used to do, because you learned from it.

  You should do everything possible to try and turn your life around. I am still not comfortable where I am, and I know I’ve come a long way. I am asking you to get up and love yourself more.

  Your Body Is a Slave of the Mind

  One of the first things you have to know as you start to make changes in your life and get out of your own way is that it all starts in your mind. This sounds obvious but there’s more to it than just thinking I need to change. You need to change your actions. Everything you think, do, and say is a result of how much you love yourself, and how much you love yourself depends on your mind-set. If your mind-set changes, everything in your life can change, too. The day you start thinking differently your life will become different.

  This is because your body is a slave of the mind. Your body is going to do what your mind tells it to do. For example, when you drive a car, your mind says, Make a left, and your body responds by turning the steering wheel to the left. Whatever you do, you thought of it first, and like a puppet, your body does exactly what your mind tells it to do. You must first think it or feel it before you speak it. Whatever you do, however you act, whatever you wear, however you carry yourself, whom you choose to be in a relationship with, and whether you decide to change your life are all results of your thoughts and mind-set.

  The idea that your body is a slave of the mind is similar to something James Allen wrote in As a Man Thinketh, one of the books that has influenced me the most in my life. It says, “A man is literally what he thinks, his character being the complete sum of all of his thoughts. As the plant springs from, and could not be without, the seed, so every act of man springs from the hidden seeds of thought and could not have appeared without them…. Act is the blossom of thought, and joy and suffering are its fruits.” When I first read that, it impacted me in a major way. At the time, I was out of shape and knew that what I was eating wasn’t good for me or my career. I had decided that I hated working out and loved food more than maintaining my body, which played a crucial part in giving me opportunities to be able to eat. My body had created all the situations where people were looking my way; Hollywood executives were calling with movie roles, I was getting offers for endorsement deals and modeling contracts, all these people wanted me to take my shirt off but I was so out of shape that I’d turn them down. And when I was on stage, I knew the girls wanted me to take off my shirt, but I was out of shape so I would just tease them and never take it off all the way. After reading As a Man Thinketh I realized that everything in my mind became my actions and that a person is literally what he or she thinks. I had to change how I was thinking.

  If your mind-set is too negative then it will affect how willing you’ll be to better yourself or your circumstances. It can create a cycle of negativity because when we’re down on ourselves, we’re not very motivated to improve our lives.

  Do You Have a Negative Mind and Spirit?

  If you are blocking yourself from making changes in your life, you are standing in your own way, and this may be because you have a negative spirit. The negative spirit comes from a negative mind-set. It’s a voice that always blocks your own blessings because you can’t see the positive in anything. When you’re that negative, you attract dysfunctional people and stay in a cycle of negativity. Your opportunities for change are
right there, so I want you to get rid of this negative voice.

  You may be afraid of stepping out there and doing something you’ve never done, but take me as an example. I started my career with a thirty-second Coke commercial. I was sixteen years old and didn’t have a penny to my name, but I stretched my career after that because I took a leap of faith, I stepped away from the negative spirit around me, and tried some new things. It doesn’t matter what your obstacles are, if you have three or four kids or put on a little weight. You just have to take one little step to start and make it happen. All those obstacles in your path of fulfillment are only obstacles because you’re telling yourself they are. If you say you can’t make it, you won’t. If you say you can make it, you will. You are absolutely right about both.

  I wanted better and believed I could do better because it was in my spirit. I decided I loved myself enough to try. Even if you’re broke financially doesn’t mean your spirit has to be broken. You could be financially broke but rich in spirit. I learned this from my mentor John Bryant. He once said to me that there’s a difference between being broke and being poor: Being poor is an economic condition that doesn’t have to be permanent, but being broke is a disabling state of mind and spirit that affects all aspects of your life. If you’re poor, that’s only financial, but you don’t have to be poor in your mind. There are people in prison, in cages, whose spirits are strong. So you have to make a choice: Are you going to be miserable, or are you going to be happy?

  Everything that you do and everything that you channel your energy into all comes back to you because it’s all linked to your mind-set and what you’re thinking. Even something as simple as watching TV can affect your day. I don’t watch a lot of television and I don’t like watching the news, because they usually report the most negative stories all day, every day. I know it’s the responsibility of a news channel to inform us about what’s going on in the world, but I wish there was some way there could be more of a balance. Unfortunately, most people aren’t interested in those positive stories as much as they are into the negative ones.

  You should know whether you’re watching the news out of curiosity to find out what’s going on or watching the news because you’re trying to feed the negativity in you. You may feel so negative that you’re drawn to everything and everyone that’s negative, including negative tabloid magazines or gossip websites and blogs. Some people go to these sites because they want to submerge themselves in negative thoughts. I would even suggest they become addicted to other people’s business. If you’re going to these different websites and actually sign up to write negative things about other people—whether you know them or not—what does that say about your mind-set? It’s one thing to visit the sites—we all do, because we live in a media-saturated culture—but it’s another thing if you go through the process and sign up for an account. By doing that, you’ve committed to negativity on a whole other level: Not only have you created a user name, but now you’re frequently going to the site, writing your comments, and feeding the nature of the beast. You might not have a lot going on in your life and career, but by doing that you’re inviting that dark energy into your life. And that very dark energy will follow you like your own shadow.

  Some of the people I know who live in the hood have great jobs and money but they stay in that environment and I always wondered why until one of my teachers at Locke told me that a lot of people in the hood are institutionalized. I asked him what that meant and he explained that they may have enough money to leave but they are more comfortable staying. As gang-infested, wild, crazy, and unpredictable as it gets, a lot of people are more comfortable living there than in a safer area. In most cases, people look for great jobs to make money and get out, but there are some people who want to stay. They don’t want to move out to the suburbs, away from the drama and bullshit. And even if they leave, it doesn’t mean that leaving is going to make them happy. Some people may hit the lottery and wonder why they even left. Some people go more crazy from peace and serenity than from drama and bullshit; it’s like they’re in a prison. When my teacher told this to me, it made me think of one of the characters from the movie The Shawshank Redemption who was finally released from prison after fifty years. He could not survive living as a free man and ultimately took his own life. You would think that he would be jumping for joy to leave prison but it was scary for him because everything about what he had known for so many years behind bars had become a part of who he was. He was institutionalized, and felt like a fish out of water. In the same way, for many people, living in the hood is a comfort zone; it would be unfamiliar to leave. That was not the case for me. As soon as I made money, I was out.

  It’s all part of a cycle. The brain is like a machine, and it will adapt to whatever life you lead. Your mind will get used to negativity and think of it as normal. You will continue to block your blessings because you won’t love yourself enough to change. When you are overly negative, you sabotage yourself from getting to your better place.

  Self-Sabotage

  The negative spirit is dangerous because it can turn you into your own worst enemy. When we sabotage ourselves, we prevent any sort of progress in our lives. As soon as you want to do something, a negative thought prevents you from doing it—it talks you out of it. As soon as something good starts happening in your life, you figure out a way—consciously or unconsciously—to mess it up. The negative spirit takes something beautiful and positive and turns it into a negative.

  Once you’re made aware of the right way to go about it, the right thing to say or do, and you do the complete opposite of that, you’re purposely deciding to be in your own way because you’re no longer ignorant about the situation. And you should prepare yourself for the repercussions.

  A few years ago I was not aware that I was sabotaging my career. I was eating too much and had gained a lot of weight. In the movie business, your physique is part of the package and I was sabotaging myself because I knew I should not be eating the things I was eating. As I explained earlier, most of who we are as adults is somehow directly connected to our childhood, and I realized my self-sabotage went back to the fact that when I was younger, I was never able to eat, and when I did, it didn’t mean I was eating what I really wanted; it just meant that was the meal provided for me, so that was what I had to eat. I had gone most of my life not eating what I wanted, when I wanted, and where I wanted, so once I started making money the last thing I wanted was someone telling me I couldn’t eat what I felt like eating—because everyone makes money to do the things they really want to do. I didn’t want to worry about a diet and eating healthy. A lot of people don’t associate food with addiction, but in a way I was addicted to it. Food was my drug. In the same way, someone who is putting heroin in their arm knows the heroin is not good for them but they’re addicted to it and they get to the point where they don’t care how they look or what it’s doing to their life or career.

  I was in my own way because I knew I wasn’t supposed to eat like that and make myself get that big. I was still eating that way while I was aware of the challenges and troubles I was creating for my career by being out of shape. I was sabotaging myself when I didn’t stop myself from eating what I felt like eating. I valued myself but I was still struggling with that balance, and I still do. It’s an everyday beast but I am now aware of it so I can get in front of it. The question becomes this: How can someone be rebellious against him-or herself? How can you purposely block your own blessings? I don’t believe anyone sits down and consciously decides to fuck up their career or life.

  People who suffer from self-sabotage and self-defeat may be suffering from a negative spirit. That is why I want you to try and reprogram your mind with more positive energy.

  Reprogram Your Mind and Spirit

  How you feel about yourself starts at home. There is power in the tongue, and your mind-set will be affected by what other people will say to you and about you. People speak two different languages. It’s one thing for
someone to get on you about your bad habits in a constructive way, and it’s another thing to just be negative and condescending. How are the people in your life affecting you?

  If your partner, your lover, parent, sibling, or teacher puts you down constantly and says you’re worthless, then at some point, if you don’t know any different, you are going to believe it, because you have put your faith and trust in that person. Your own thinking may be, If they claim to care about me, then why would they say something that wasn’t true? If you don’t hear how amazing you are every day at home, then when anyone tries to pay you a compliment you won’t believe it because the person you love hasn’t said it.

  This also pertains to your teachers. There will always be that negative teacher who will try to discourage you from being the best that you can be—and I’ve met my fair share of them. But then there are those teachers who empower you, who really live up to the concept of what being a teacher should be. If your teacher says you won’t amount to anything, that will have an effect on you, because those words are coming from someone you respect, whose opinion you value. You can either live up to everything he says about you or you can try to prove him wrong. I have proven lots of my teachers wrong.

  If you believe any of the negative things people say about you—and I mean the bitter, condescending comments that are not helpful in any way—then you have to question how much you love yourself.