Think About Your Goals

"Think why or what. Goals can be thought of in relatively abstract, why-am-I-doing-this terms or in more concrete, what-am-I-actually-doing terms. For example, dealing with the mess in your closets can be thought of as “getting organized” (why) or “throwing out clothes I never wear” (what). Think about your goals in why terms when you want to get energized, stay motivated, or avoid temptations. Think about your goals in what terms when you are dealing with something particularly difficult, unfamiliar, or anything that takes a long time to learn."

-- Heidi Grant Halvorson

To Continue Your Success Journey

"Success doesn't mean avoiding failure. All of us fail. As we travel, we all hit potholes, take wrong turns, or forget to check the radiator. The only person who avoids failure altogether is the person who never leaves her driveway. So the real issue is not whether you're going to fail.  It's whether you're going to fail successfully (profiting from your failure). As Nelson Boswell observed, the difference between greatness and mediocrity is often how an individual views mistakes. If you want to continue on the success journey, you need to learn to fail forward"

--  John C. Maxwell

The Key To Feeling Successful

"The truth is, however, that when it comes to feeling successful no amount of money is enough because money is not enough. Hence, the key to feeling successful is not only more stuff, more money, more credit, or more shops, but also more wisdom. Before you ask yourself “How much more can I get?” you first have to ask “What do I really want?” This one simple question—“What do I really want?”—is the key to feeling truly successful. No amount of materialism can provide the answer to this question; only you can do that. You must learn to be wise"

-- Robert Holden

Law of Correspondence

"By the Law of Correspondence, which says, 'As within, so without,' your outer life will begin to correspond to and mirror or reflect your inner life. As your inner life changes, your outer life changes to reflect this new thinking. Shakespeare wrote, 'There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.'"

-- Brian Tracy

Be Delighted With Your Work

"Best of all, though, by saying that you delight in your work, you will draw inspiration near. Inspiration will be grateful to hear those words coming out of your mouth, because inspiration—like all of us—appreciates being appreciated.  Inspiration will overhear your pleasure, and it will send ideas to your door as a reward for your enthusiasm and your loyalty."

-- Elizabeth Gilbert 

Trade-Off Represent An Opportunity

"As painful as they can sometimes be, trade-offs represent a significant opportunity. By forcing us to weigh both options and strategically select the best one for us, we significantly increase our chance of achieving the outcome we want."

-- Greg McKeown

The Optimal Strategy of Goal Setting

"The optimal strategy to use when setting a goal seems to be to think positively about how it will be when you achieve your goal, while thinking realistically about what it will take to get there. Oettingen refers to this as mental contrasting—first you imagine attaining your goal, and then you reflect on the obstacles that stand in the way."

-- Heidi Grant Halvorson

No Substitute For Passion

"Passion Increases Your Willpower: There is no substitute for passion. It is fuel for the will. If you want anything badly enough, you can find the willpower to achieve it. The only way to have that kind of desire is to develop passion."

--  John C. Maxwell

Make Time For Reflection and Inspiration

"The word direction has two broad meanings. It can mean “route,” as in the direction of a journey. It can also mean “guidance,” as in receiving inspiration, heeding advice, and being wise. The most successful and happy people I know are good at making time for reflection and inspiration. They stop regularly to go deeper, to gain perspective, to hold a vision, and to receive direction."

-- Robert Holden

Life Still Goes On Take It Easy

"Maybe I won’t always be successful at my creativity, but the world won’t end because of that. Maybe I won’t always be able to make a living out of my writing, but that’s not the end of the world, either, because there are lots of other ways to make a living besides writing books—and many of them are easier than writing books. And while it’s definitely true that failure and criticism may bruise my precious ego, the fate of nations does not depend upon my precious ego."

-- Elizabeth Gilbert 

The Focus on Value

"The focus on value is why we respect competence. Competence conveys your ability to deliver results, and it shows up in language when you reference your skills, knowledge, and reputation on the current topic. When people with high personal power persuade others, they instinctively focus on communicating signs of competence.* And the more someone communicates competence, the more they are valued by the group. Thus, personal power translates naturally into social status."

-- Chris Lipp

The Joy of Being Playful

"Joy actually creates positive physical energy. Moments of joy when performing are often what help performers get over past failures and cast off boulders of stress. According to research, joy increases our dopamine levels, which increases activity in the brain associated with “high-level cognition”—memory, attention, creativity, and motivation. What helps create joy? Being playful. As play researcher and author Peter Gray points out, “The predominant emotions of play are interest and joy.”"

-- Brian Levenson

Mindfully Choosing Your Habits

"Habit is notorious—and rightly so —for its ability to control our actions, even against our will. By mindfully choosing our habits, we harness the power of mindlessness as a sweeping force for serenity, energy, and growth. Better than before! It’s what we all want."

-- Gretchen Rubin

Believing The Road Will Be Rocky

"Why is believing the road will be rocky so important for achieving your goal? For starters, despite being so unpleasant, negative emotions like anxiety and worry are useful. And that’s primarily because they can be very motivating. They can motivate us to take extra effort or to plan how we will deal with problems before they arise." 

-- Heidi Grant Halvorson

The Power of You Thoughts

""Thought is creative. Hence, if you know you never perform well at interviews, you will make yourself very anxious each time you have one. If you keep believing you don’t deserve a bigger salary, you make it hard for others to think otherwise. If you keep telling yourself that “they don’t return my phone calls because they don’t like me,” you will lose confidence. If you keep judging the one mistake you made today as “unforgivable,” you will be more afraid of failure in the future. I think, therefore I am—i.e., I am afraid or I am hopeful or I am nervous or I am confident or I am unable—becomes your mantra. As my friend and mentor Tom Carpenter14 says, “Every day you are experiencing the effects of your thoughts.”

-- Robert Holden

The Goals That You Pursue

"The goals you pursue in the classroom, playing field, and workplace, on the other hand, can tell us quite a lot about how you will cope with difficulty, and whether or not you are likely to ultimately succeed. Psychologists who study achievement have been particularly interested in the differences that arise when people focus on performing well to demonstrate ability (being good) versus focusing on progress, growth, and gaining mastery (getting better)."

-- Heidi Grant Halvorso

Don't Let Failure Go Into Your Head

"Successful people don't let failure go to their heads. Instead of dwelling on the negative consequences of failure, thinking of what might have been and how things haven't worked out, they focus on the rewards of success: learning from their mistakes and thinking about how they can improve themselves and their situations." 

--  John C. Maxwell

What Are You Busy For

"Being busy can make you feel important, but is what you are busy about important? This is the sort of “Intelligent Question” a good coach asks. In my experience, permanently busy people tend to confuse busyness and success, adrenaline and purpose, and effort and effectiveness."

-- Robert Holden

Don't Forget Your Ability To Choose

"When we forget our ability to choose, we learn to be helpless. Drip by drip we allow our power to be taken away until we end up becoming a function of other people’s choices—or even a function of our own past choices. In turn, we surrender our power to choose. That is the path of the Nonessentialist.  The Essentialist doesn’t just recognize the power of choice, he celebrates it. The Essentialist knows that when we surrender our right to choose, we give others not just the power but also the explicit permission to choose for us."

-- Greg McKeown