Get Out of Your Own Way
Let me preface this bysaying, I do understand that past trauma is difficult to overcome andoftentimes, it requires professional help. I also understand the importance of adolescent development and how thosecrucial years can have profound effects on adulthood behavior. Now that I have said all of that, please knowthat the following comments are from a caring place. Nobody cares that your father wasn’t aroundor that you had a rough childhood. Thatis no excuse for your current position, your piss poor attitude, or yournegative outlook on life. The badchoices you made in life up to this point were just that, choices!
You have to learn to get out of your own way! So many times, I encounter full grown adults who say things like, “I am from “xyz” and we don’t do those things”, or “my father wasn’t around so I don’t know how to be a man”. Just the other day, I had an opportunity to go out on the town with some friends and I requested that we wear suits. One of the guys said, “I don’t own a suit”. When grilled by the rest of us, his response was, “I am from the hood and my father wasn’t s***, so I don’t own a suit”. It’s that type of thinking that keeps so many of us inside the negative box that society often places us in.
It is okay to grow, evolve, and change. You are not required to be the same person you were in high school. As the old saying goes, “change is inevitable”; but how we deal with change is what makes or breaks us. How we prepare for and plan for change dictates how we handle the change. If you spend all of your time finding ways to avoid change or finding reasons to be against change, you are perpetuating the same cycle that allows you to be in the same place while everyone else is moving forward.
It is absolutely OK to outgrow your surroundings and even people. It is OK to want more for yourself. Be careful around people who are constantly resistant to change, because they are resistant to growth. Once you grow past them, they may channel their negative energy towards you into envy and spite for growing past them. They will think: how dare you evolve? How dare you want more when they seem content to wallow in their own circumstances?
We all know these types of people; the ones that are quick to fly off the handle, the ones that don’t know how to handle constructive criticism, are quick to resort to toxic behavior, and blame it on something from their past. They always shift blame for their shortcomings, while refusing to change the behavior that leads to their roadblocks. They breed toxic work environments, always have something negative to say about everyone else, and never own up to anything.
Well, how can you get out of your own way if this is you? Ask yourself, what was the last thing you did for no other reason than to better yourself? That inner voice, your conscience--what are you doing to ensure that voice is whispering good things to you? An exercise I typically ask my people to indulge me with is this; I will pull my cell phone out of my pocket and ask them to tell me what is in my hand, but to answer in their minds and not out loud. This simple exercise should highlight two major things. The first, being that they can speak without using their mouths and second, they can hear without using their ears. I then go on to ask them, who’s voice did you hear? Whatever you call that voice, whether it be your consciousness or soul, what are you doing to ensure that voice is whispering positivity into your mind? We must be mindful of what we think because it becomes what we say. We must be mindful of what we say because it becomes what we do, and what we do becomes who we are. Do you want to grow? Have you thought about growing? Have you taken steps to grow yourself?
We tend to look at others’ achievements and never see the growth they had to go through in order to achieve those successes. All it takes is one choice to initiate change and eventually growth. A change in diet will impact your health, a change in education level will impact your position, a change in how you spend money will impact your net worth. It all starts with one change. To quote Big Boi and Andre 3000 of Outkast “you got to get up, get out and get something”. The evolved version of you lies on the other side of change.
Editor’s Note: J. Ridore is an active duty member of theUnited States Air Force. He is currentlyresponsible for the leadership and development of over 300 people as theytransition from workers to front line supervisors.