The multifaceted entertainer has learned to hone her skills and do what is best for her.
Jennifer Lopez has come a long way from her early Fly Girl days.
The 49-year-old entertainer not only sings, dances and acts, she's also a businesswoman, entrepreneur, producer, creator and more! But it hasn't always been an easy path for the Bronx native, who opened up to LinkedIn about what motivates her, how she chooses her next project and how she handles defeat.
"I look [at the downs in my career] now and I think, 'You really just plowed through those,'" the Second Act star shares in the interview posted on Thursday. "That's the thing, you can't stop. You have to keep on going. Failure is not falling down and making a mistake, or choosing a wrong movie, or doing the wrong thing at the wrong time. It's stopping. Stopping is the failure; not continuing forward is the failure."
She adds that at times "we don't listen to our gut enough, telling us this is not the right thing for you right now. You're doing this out of fear instead of out of love."
There have been times, J.Lo admits, that when opportunities came her way, she has had a difficult time passing on them for fear of missing out. But over the years, she's learned to be more selective of her projects.
"It's hard for me to say no, and it always has been," Lopez confesses. "I've always been this person who takes on a lot because I love so many things. I love acting. I love making movies, I also love making television. I love performing live…"
"When opportunities come, it's hard for me to say no," she continues. "But what I think I've learned, and what I'm trying to do now at this point in my life is to say no a little bit more and hone it down to working smarter instead of working all the time. Which, it gets tiring."
"Everybody asks me 'How do you do it?' and I'm like, 'Please stop asking me that question,' because I don't know and at some point it's going to catch up with me," she says with a laugh, adding that, "It's been a transitional time, a learning curve over the years. And now I'm at a place where I'm really much more particular and force myself, as much as I love doing so much, to say no to the smarter things. That changed too when I had my kids."
Of course, Jenny from the Block still has a slew of projects at the same time, from being a judge on World of Dance to wrapping Shades of Blue earlier this year, to a Las Vegas residency and new movie, Second Act. That hard work is just in her genes and it's all she's ever known.
As for her advice for others trying to make it big, she says, "All you can do is know where you want to go and take steps every single day in that direction. Whatever that is, getting better at what you do."
Take a look at Lopez in her early days on the set of her first music video, below!
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