Create Goals That Make You Stretch

“If you want to be exceptional,” the instructor said, “you have to set goals that you cannot achieve with your current level of capability. You need goals that will make you stretch.”

-- Barbara Oakley

We Are Responsible for Our Own Lives

"We do not have the right to feel helpless. We must help ourselves. After destiny has delivered what it delivers, we are responsible for our lives."

-- Cheryl Strayed

Doing Things To Build Up Experience and Stamina

"Sometimes we do things to build up experience and stamina to prepare us, but it’s to prepare us for something bigger. Always know you could be on the precipice of something great—that’s being connected to your higher self. It’s also a good way to keep those negative thoughts far away."

-- Donald Trump

Heal Your Emotions and Move Forward

"If you spend all your time looking in the rearview mirror, you can’t look out the windshield. Staying stuck in the past will prevent you from enjoying the future. Recognize times when you’re dwelling on the past and take the steps necessary to heal your emotions so you can move forward."

-- Amy Morin

Treat Every Steps Seriously

"Sometimes what you want should be achievable in a fairly short time. But other aspirations are too big to take a blind jump at. You need to break them into manageable steps. And the important thing is to treat every one of those steps seriously—think each one through as carefully as you would if they were your eventual goal and not just a starting point."

-- Richard Templar

Keep Moving and Learning

"Traditionally, careers have been stepping stones where you lingered at each step. Modern careers, however, are more like conveyor belts. You have to keep moving and learning no matter what stage you’re at."

-- Barbara Oakley

Let The Wisdom You Gained Guide You

"My advice to you is this: Keep moving forward, like a swimmer with practiced strokes, and let the wisdom you’ve gained over time guide you. Your destination may be closer than you think."

-- Bob Bowman

Feel A Lightness of Heart

"Humor naturally brings us perspective and a balm of hope. Not all of life needs to be taken so seriously. In our lives and in our daily writing, we come to feel a lightness of heart. Things aren’t nearly as bad as we at first think they are. In fact, they might not be bad at all."


-- Julia Cameron

The Whole Point of Living

"If you are trying to be someone that you’re not, you need to stop and question your motives. Why not become someone that you will be proud of? Isn’t that the whole point of living?"

-- Kallen Diggs

Focus on The Lessons

"Focus on the lessons you learned. If you’ve endured hard times, focus on what you’ve learned from that experience.  Accept that it happened and think about how you may be a changed person because of it but realize that doesn’t necessarily have to be a bad thing. Maybe you learned to speak up because you allowed yourself to be treated poorly, or perhaps you learned that you need to be honest if you want relationships to last. Some of the best life lessons can be learned from the toughest times you’ve endured."

-- Amy Morin

Getting a Workout for Your Brain

"Hobbies often bring valuable mental flexibility and insight.  If you're lucky, these insights can spill over and enhance your job.  But even if they don't, your brain can be getting a workout."

-- Barbara Oakley

My Point of Success

"My point is this: Success in any endeavor is often dictated by how much quality time and effort you put into it."

-- Bob Bowman

The Mother of Motivation

"The mother of motivation is choice. Our mind chose a reason for action, and it either committed to that choice or it did not, and thus we experience a high level of motivation or a low one. In this truth we find our greatest personal power: the ability to take over our impulses and direct our minds to choices and commitments that will serve us."

-- Brendon Burchard

Look for Valuable Lesson in Every Setback

"Look for the valuable lesson in every setback or difficulty. Every problem or obstacle you have contains a lesson of some kind, and often several lessons. While you’re looking for the lesson, asking what can be learned from this situation, your mind remains positive and you remain in complete control of your emotions."

-- Brian Tracy

Getting Used of The Storms in Life

"Storms are never good. They are never fun. They are never wanted. But you get used to dealing with them once you’ve been through a few. The result is, you begin to see that a storm doesn’t have to ruin your entire day. And even if it does ruin a day, it doesn’t ruin a week."

-- Bobby Bones

The Only Thing That Matters Right Now

"The best bit of advice his coach gave him was: “The past is the past. You can’t change that. What you can control is your attitude on the next shot. The only thing in the world that matters right now is the next shot.”"

-- Barbara Oakley

Choosing To Forgive

"When you hold a grudge, those feelings of anger and resentment do nothing to lessen the other person’s life. Instead, harboring anger and resentment gives that person more power to interfere with your quality of life. Choosing to forgive allows you to take back your power, not just over your psychological health, but also over your physical health."

-- Amy Morin

Trust What You Have Learned

"Trust that all you’ve learned was worth learning, no matter what answer you have or do not have about what practical use it has in your life. Let whatever mysterious starlight that guided you this far guide you onward into the crazy beauty that awaits. When the path reveals itself, follow it."

-- Cheryl Strayed

See Yourself as an Organization

"See yourself as an organization. Pay attention to every facet of your life. What’s strong? What’s weak? What’s missing? What can you do to make the big picture better? Whatever you do, don’t stagnate. Don’t become complacent. Don’t pretend that 50 percent is enough, whether you’re giving or receiving. Things move too quickly today to fall into that trap."

-- Donald Trump

Work Out How To Get It

"Look, you have to put something in to get something out. A lot of the work may simply be a matter of thinking, or it might take months of long hard work. But however it might look from the outside, good things don’t just fall into people’s laps. Not very often anyway. If you want something you have to work out how to get it, and this is the first stage of that process."

-- Richard Templar

The Best Version of You

"There will always be somebody out there who is better than you at something you want to do.  You must realize that you are on your own journey, on your own path and you are being the best version of your rather than a bad version of somebody else."

-- Barbara Oakley

The Most Positive Attitude

"When I walked into a room at a children’s hospital to find a six-year-old with incurable cancer and the most positive attitude, I couldn’t help thinking, And I’m worried that I didn’t have a nine share in the ratings this week? Yup, we’re all always learning. Or at least, we should be."

-- Bobby Bones

You Have The Power in The Path of Life

"If you’ve spent most of your life feeling like a victim of your circumstances, it takes hard work to recognize that you have the power to choose your own path in life. The first step is to develop self-awareness by identifying when you blame external circumstances and other people for how you think, feel, and behave. Take a close look at the people you are devoting your time and energy toward. Are they the people you want to receive it? If not, you may be giving them more power than you think they deserve."

-- Amy Morin

Getting Experience

"Experience is one thing you can’t get for nothing."

-- Oscar Wilde

Discover Your Authentic Interests

"Taking the time and effort and care to discover our authentic interests, we move forward in the direction of our authentic dreams."

-- Julia Cameron

Find A Way To Go Beyond

"Instead, the key idea, much like the central idea of this book, is that, whatever you think you are, you are actually bigger than that. You can find a way to go beyond. And you can often get started—or even complete an entire career transition—by reinventing yourself through the constantly updated world of online materials."

-- Barbara Oakley

Other Highly Organized Minds

"No man can build a fortune such as that which Carnegie controlled without the use of other men’s brains. The amount which a single brain can produce, accumulate, and own, acting independently of other brains, is comparatively little, but the amount which one brain can accumulate and control when acting in harmony with other highly organized minds is practically unlimited."

-- Napoleon Hill

How To Put Failure and Disadvantage in Perspective

"It wasn’t until I started to help others that I realized how insignificant my struggles were. There’s nothing like getting involved in things much bigger than yourself to put failure and disadvantage in perspective."

-- Bobby Bones

Have a Strong Sense of Self-Worth

"Without confidence in who you are, your entire self-worth may depend on how others feel about you. What if you offend people? What if they don’t like you anymore? If you choose to put up healthy boundaries, you may receive some backlash. But if you have a strong enough sense of self-worth, you’ll learn that you can tolerate the repercussions."

-- Amy Morin