β
Sometimes life knocks you on your ass... get up, get up, get up!!! Happiness is not the absence of problems, it's the ability to deal with them.
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Steve Maraboli (Life, the Truth, and Being Free)
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A thinker sees his own actions as experiments and questions--as attempts to find out something. Success and failure are for him answers above all.
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Friedrich Nietzsche
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How would your life be different ifβ¦You stopped making negative judgmental assumptions about people you encounter? Let today be the dayβ¦You look for the good in everyone you meet and respect their journey.
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Steve Maraboli (Life, the Truth, and Being Free)
β
Make a pact with yourself today to not be defined by your past. Sometimes the greatest thing to come out of all your hard work isn't what you get for it, but what you become for it. Shake things up today! Be You...Be Free...Share.
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Steve Maraboli (Life, the Truth, and Being Free)
β
Renew, release, let go. Yesterdayβs gone. Thereβs nothing you can do to bring it back. You canβt βshouldβveβ done something. You can only DO something. Renew yourself. Release that attachment. Today is a new day!
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Steve Maraboli (Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience)
β
A kind gesture can reach a wound that only compassion can heal.
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Steve Maraboli (Life, the Truth, and Being Free)
β
Don't confuse poor decision-making with destiny. Own your mistakes. Itβs ok; we all make them. Learn from them so they can empower you!
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Steve Maraboli (Life, the Truth, and Being Free)
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Don't mistake activity with achievement.
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John Wooden
β
Plant seeds of happiness, hope, success, and love; it will all come back to you in abundance. This is the law of nature.
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Steve Maraboli (Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience)
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The universe doesnβt give you what you ask for with your thoughts - it gives you what you demand with your actions.
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Steve Maraboli (Life, the Truth, and Being Free)
β
Let today be the day you stop being haunted by the ghost of yesterday. Holding a grudge & harboring anger/resentment is poison to the soul. Get even with people...but not those who have hurt us, forget them, instead get even with those who have helped us.
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Steve Maraboli (Life, the Truth, and Being Free)
β
One of the most spiritual things you can do is embrace your humanity. Connect with those around you today. Say, "I love you", "I'm sorry", "I appreciate you", "I'm proud of you"...whatever you're feeling. Send random texts, write a cute note, embrace your truth and share it...cause a smile today for someone else...and give plenty of hugs.
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Steve Maraboli
β
People tend to be generous when sharing their nonsense, fear, and ignorance. And while they seem quite eager to feed you their negativity, please remember that sometimes the diet we need to be on is a spiritual and emotional one. Be cautious with what you feed your mind and soul. Fuel yourself with positivity and let that fuel propel you into positive action.
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Steve Maraboli (Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience)
β
Those with a grateful mindset tend to see the message in the mess. And even though life may knock them down, the grateful find reasons, if even small ones, to get up.
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Steve Maraboli (Life, the Truth, and Being Free)
β
People who lack the clarity, courage, or determination to follow their own dreams will often find ways to discourage yours. When you change for the better, the people around you will be inspired to change also....but only after doing their best to make you stop. Live your truth and don't EVER stop.
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Steve Maraboli (Life, the Truth, and Being Free)
β
When you do the things in the present that you can see, you are shaping the future that you are yet to see.
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Idowu Koyenikan (Wealth for All: Living a Life of Success at the Edge of Your Ability)
β
To dream of success is to set a goal of where you want to be; to wake up, take action, and achieve it is what true success is all about.
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Idowu Koyenikan (Wealth for all Africans: How Every African Can Live the Life of Their Dreams)
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If you believe you can, you might. If you know you can, you will.
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Steve Maraboli (Life, the Truth, and Being Free)
β
You may be hurt if you love too much, but you will live in misery if you love too little.
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Napoleon Hill (Napoleon Hill's Positive Action Plan: 365 Meditations For Making Each Day a Success)
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The path to success is to take massive, determined action.
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Anthony Robbins
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Act the way you'd like to be and soon you'll be the way you'd like to act.
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Bob Dylan
β
The greatest love stories are not those in which love is only spoken, but those in which it is acted upon.
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Steve Maraboli (Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience)
β
There is great change to be experienced once you learn the power of letting go. Stop allowing anyone or anything to control, limit, repress, or discourage you from being your true self! Today is YOURS to shape - own it - break free from people and things that poison or dilute your spirit.
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Steve Maraboli (Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience)
β
If you're waiting until you feel talented enough to make it, you'll never make it.
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Criss Jami (Healology)
β
Youβre frustrated because you keep waiting for the blooming of flowers of which you have yet to sow the seeds.
β
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Steve Maraboli (Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience)
β
No matter what your history has been, your destiny is what you create today. What are you going to create?
β
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Steve Maraboli (Life, the Truth, and Being Free)
β
Your life is a print-out of your thoughts.
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Steve Maraboli (Life, the Truth, and Being Free)
β
Action is the foundational key to all success.
β
β
Pablo Picasso
β
Do not sit still; start moving now. In the beginning, you may not go in the direction you want, but as long as you are moving, you are creating alternatives and possibilities.
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Rodolfo Costa (Advice My Parents Gave Me: and Other Lessons I Learned from My Mistakes)
β
Money, an invention in which its creators decide who gets what amount of the finite pie. A person could work miracles for humankind and be given next to none of this manmade item, whereas another person could do next to nothing, or even perform major adverse actions against humankind and the planet, and be given a huge helping of it. This is because the monetary system that was initially used as a way of keeping track of goods and services rendered had been hijacked by the Masters to be used against the population.
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Jasun Ether (The Beasts of Success)
β
You can't just wish change; you have to live the change in order for it to become a reality.
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Steve Maraboli (Life, the Truth, and Being Free)
β
How would your life be different ifβ¦You pretended those around you were deaf to your words? Let today be the dayβ¦You let your actions speak and communicate your feelings and intentions.
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Steve Maraboli (Life, the Truth, and Being Free)
β
Perform all thy actions with mind concentrated on the Divine, renouncing attachment and looking upon success and failure with an equal eye. Spirituality implies equanimity.
[Trans. Purohit Swami]
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Anonymous (The Bhagavad Gita)
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Although time seems to fly, it never travels faster than one day at a time. Each day is a new opportunity to live your life to the fullest. In each waking day, you will find scores of blessings and opportunities for positive change. Do not let your TODAY be stolen by the unchangeable past or the indefinite future! Today is a new day!
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Steve Maraboli (Life, the Truth, and Being Free)
β
Zen is a present state of mind where one honors the task they are partaking of, even if the task is sitting still and doing nothing. Zen is engrained in the Japanese way of life. You can see it everywhere: when a sushi chef delicately slices a piece of raw fish, when a retired man watches an autumn leaf fall from a tree in the park, when a mother prepares and places a cup of tea before her child. When actions and thoughts are done with mindfulness, being fully present in the moment, the person performing the action or thought gives honor to the food, an idea, a task, a person, etc.
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Jasun Ether (The Beasts of Success)
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The bird dares to break the shell, then the shell breaks open and the bird can fly openly. This is the simplest principle of success. You dream, you dare and and you fly.
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Israelmore Ayivor
β
When you are able to maintain your own highest standards of integrity - regardless of what others may do - you are destined for greatness.
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Napoleon Hill (Napoleon Hill's Positive Action Plan: 365 Meditations For Making Each Day a Success)
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Stop giving meaningless praise and start giving meaningful action.
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Steve Maraboli (Life, the Truth, and Being Free)
β
You are where you are right now because of the actions you've taken, or maybe, the inaction you've taken.
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Steve Maraboli (Life, the Truth, and Being Free)
β
How to win in life:
1 work hard
2 complain less
3 listen more
4 try, learn, grow
5 don't let people tell you it cant be done
6 make no excuses
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Germany Kent
β
TELL THE WORLD WHAT YOU INTEND TO DO, BUT FIRST SHOW IT.This is the equivalent of saying "deeds, and not words, are what count most.
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Napoleon Hill (Think and Grow Rich)
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You have the right to work, but never to the fruit of work. You should never engage in action for the sake of reward, nor should you long for inaction. Perform work in this world, Arjuna, as a man established within himself - without selfish attachments, and alike in success and defeat.
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Anonymous (The Bhagavad Gita)
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NEVER be surprised by your own success!
β
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Steve Maraboli (Life, the Truth, and Being Free)
β
Stop allowing your day-to-day life to be clouded by busy nothingness.
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Steve Maraboli (Life, the Truth, and Being Free)
β
Stop pointing fingers and placing blame on others. Your life can only change to the degree that you accept responsibility for it.
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Steve Maraboli (Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience)
β
6 Ways To Give Your Mind A Break:
1. Stop stressing
2. Stop worrying
3. Give rest to the problems weighing you down
4. Lighten up
5. Forgive yourself
6. Forgive others
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Germany Kent
β
If you donβt know exactly where youβre going, how will you know when you get there?
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Steve Maraboli (Life, the Truth, and Being Free)
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Courage to me is doing something daring, no matter how afraid, insecure, intimidated, alone, unworthy, incapable, ridiculed or whatever other paralyzing emotion you might feel. Courage is taking action....no matter what. Β So you're afraid? Be afraid. Β Be scared silly to the point you're trembling and nauseous, but do it anyway!
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Richelle E. Goodrich (Smile Anyway: Quotes, Verse, and Grumblings for Every Day of the Year)
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The power behind taking responsibility for your actions lies in putting an end to negative thought patterns. You no longer dwell on what went wrong or focus on whom you are going to blame. You don't waste time building roadblocks to your success. Instead, you are set free and can now focus on succeeding.
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β
Lorii Myers
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Godβs word is not just to be heard and repeated, it is to be breathed, lived, and emulated with each action.
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Steve Maraboli (Life, the Truth, and Being Free)
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If you are on social media, and you are not learning, not laughing, not being inspired or not networking, then you are using it wrong.
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Germany Kent
β
You've been given the innate power to shape your life...but you cannot just speak change, you have to LIVE change. Intent paired with action builds the bridge to success. You can't just want it; you have to do it, live it...BE it! Success isn't something you have, it's something you DO!
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Steve Maraboli
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Stop waiting for the perfect day or the perfect moment... Take THIS day, THIS moment and lead it to perfection.
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Steve Maraboli (Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience)
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The universe doesn't give you what you want in your mind; it gives you what you demand with your actions.
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Steve Maraboli (Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience)
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While intent is the seed of manifestation, action is the water that nourishes the seed. Your actions must reflect your goals in order to achieve true success.
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Steve Maraboli (Life, the Truth, and Being Free)
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Live your vision and demand your success.
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Steve Maraboli (Life, the Truth, and Being Free)
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Our culture has become hooked on the quick-fix, the life hack, efficiency. Everyone is on the hunt for that simple action algorithm that nets maximum profit with the least amount of effort. Thereβs no denying this attitude may get you some of the trappings of success, if youβre lucky, but it will not lead to a calloused mind or self-mastery. If you want to master the mind and remove your governor, youβll have to become addicted to hard work. Because passion and obsession, even talent, are only useful tools if you have the work ethic to back them up.
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David Goggins (Can't Hurt Me: Master Your Mind and Defy the Odds)
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You cannot continue on the same path and arrive at a different destination. Make the choice to have your actions reflect your goals.
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Steve Maraboli (Life, the Truth, and Being Free)
β
Every action we take has consequences, Vin," Kelsier said. "I've found that in both Allomancy and life, the person who can best judge the consequences of their actions will be the most successful.
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Brandon Sanderson (Mistborn: The Final Empire (Mistborn, #1))
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Make the choice to embrace this day. Do not let your TODAY be stolen by the ghost of yesterday or the "To-Do" list of tomorrow! Itβs inspiring to see all the wonderfully amazing things that can happen in a day in which you participate.
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Steve Maraboli (Life, the Truth, and Being Free)
β
Stop just cheering for others who are living their visions. Commit yourself to your own success and follow the steps required to achieve it.
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Steve Maraboli (Life, the Truth, and Being Free)
β
Inaction creates nothing. Action creates success.
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β
Stephen Richards
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The value of a moment is immeasurable. The power of just ONE moment can propel you to success and happiness or chain you to failure and misery.
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Steve Maraboli (Life, the Truth, and Being Free)
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Participate in your dreams today. There are unlimited opportunities available with this new day. Take action on those wonderful dreams you've had in your mind for so long. Remember, success is something you experience when you act accordingly.
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Steve Maraboli (Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience)
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Interrupt your thoughts of "I should", with your action of doing.
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Steve Maraboli (Life, the Truth, and Being Free)
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Start before you're ready.
Don't prepare, begin.
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Mel Robbins (The 5 Second Rule: Transform Your Life, Work, and Confidence with Everyday Courage)
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Your dream is a reality that is waiting for you to materialize. Today is a new day! Donβt let your history interfere with your destiny! Learn from your past so that it can empower your present and propel you to greatness
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Steve Maraboli (Life, the Truth, and Being Free)
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After so many successes on the battlefield, I learned one lesson too late. Standing alone, I defeated many external enemies. But alone I could not defeat the enemies that were inside of me.
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β
Stephen Alder (Deehabtaβs Song)
β
If you really want to eat, keep climbing. The fruits are on the top of the tree. Stretch your hands and keep stretching them. Success is on the top, keep going.
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β
Israelmore Ayivor
β
Although goals are important, having a plan of action is vital to the success of those goals. Having a goal with no plan of action is like wanting to travel to a new destination without having a map.
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Steve Maraboli (Life, the Truth, and Being Free)
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The road to success is always under construction.
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Steve Maraboli (Life, the Truth, and Being Free)
β
You differ from a great man in only one respect: the great man was once a very little man, but he developed one important quality: he recognized the smallness and narrowness of his thoughts and actions. Under the pressure of some task that meant a great deal to him, he learned to see how his smallness, his pettiness endangered his happiness. In other words, a great man knows when and in what way he is a little man. A little man does not know he is little and is afraid to know. He hides his pettiness and narrowness behind illusions of strength and greatness, someone else's strength and greatness. He's proud of his great generals but not of himself. He admires an idea he has not had, not one he has had. The less he understands something, the more firmly he believes in it. And the better he understands an idea, the less he believes in it.
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Wilhelm Reich (Listen, Little Man!)
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Free yourself from the complexities of your life! A life of simplicity and happiness awaits you.
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Steve Maraboli (Life, the Truth, and Being Free)
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Reading is good, action is better.
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Eric Ries (The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses)
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Participate in your own dreams, donβt just say what you want or complain about what you donβt have.
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Steve Maraboli (Life, the Truth, and Being Free)
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Success is something you experience when you act accordingly. Success is not something you have, it's something you do.
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Steve Maraboli (Life, the Truth, and Being Free)
β
When you truly embrace your human impermanence you connect with the power you have, and influence you have, over the time you have.
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Steve Maraboli (Life, the Truth, and Being Free)
β
A real decision is measured by the fact that you've taken a new action. If there's no action, you haven't truly decided.
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Anthony Robbins (Unlimited Power: The New Science Of Personal Achievement)
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Today, many will choose to live free of conditions and rules governing their own happiness. Why not you? Do not let another day go by where your dedication to other people's opinions is greater than your dedication to your own emotions! Today's a new day!
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Steve Maraboli (Life, the Truth, and Being Free)
β
You have the right to work, but for the work's sake only. You have no right to the fruits of work. Desire for the fruits of work must never be your motive in working. Never give way to laziness, either.
Perform every action with you heart fixed on the Supreme Lord. Renounce attachment to the fruits. Be even-tempered in success and failure: for it is this evenness of temper which is meant by yoga.
Work done with anxiety about results is far inferior to work done without such anxiety, in the calm of self-surrender. Seek refuge in the knowledge of Brahma. They who work selfishly for results are miserable.
β
β
Bhagavad Gita
β
Change is in the air. This change reminds us that we are made and beautifully sculpted by the same power that orchestrates the change of season. Let this be the season you embrace and align yourself with this change.
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Steve Maraboli (Life, the Truth, and Being Free)
β
The heaviest burden: βWhat, if some day or night, a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: βThis life, as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sighβ¦ must return to youβall in the same succession and sequenceβeven this spider and this moonlight between the trees and even this moment and I myself. The eternal hourglass of existence is turned over again and againβand you with it, speck of dust!β Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: βYou are a god, and never have I heard anything more divine!β If this thought were to gain possession of you, it would change you as you are, or perhaps crush you. The question in each and every thing, βdo you want this once more and innumerable times more?β would lie upon your actions as the greatest weight. Or how well disposed would you have to become to yourself and to life to crave nothing more fervently than this ultimate eternal confirmation and seal?
β
β
Friedrich Nietzsche (The Gay Science: With a Prelude in Rhymes and an Appendix of Songs)
β
Discomfort brings engagement and change. Discomfort means you're doing something that others were unlikely to do, because they're hiding out in the comfortable zone. When your uncomfortable actions lead to success, the organization rewards you and brings you back for more.
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β
Seth Godin (Linchpin: Are You Indispensable?)
β
I am Me. In all the world, there is no one else exactly like me. Everything that comes out of me is authentically mine, because I alone chose it -- I own everything about me: my body, my feelings, my mouth, my voice, all my actions, whether they be to others or myself. I own my fantasies, my dreams, my hopes, my fears. I own my triumphs and successes, all my failures and mistakes. Because I own all of me, I can become intimately acquainted with me. By so doing, I can love me and be friendly with all my parts. I know there are aspects about myself that puzzle me, and other aspects that I do not know -- but as long as I am friendly and loving to myself, I can courageously and hopefully look for solutions to the puzzles and ways to find out more about me. However I look and sound, whatever I say and do, and whatever I think and feel at a given moment in time is authentically me. If later some parts of how I looked, sounded, thought, and felt turn out to be unfitting, I can discard that which is unfitting, keep the rest, and invent something new for that which I discarded. I can see, hear, feel, think, say, and do. I have the tools to survive, to be close to others, to be productive, and to make sense and order out of the world of people and things outside of me. I own me, and therefore, I can engineer me. I am me, and I am Okay.
β
β
Virginia Satir
β
A human being always acts and feels and performs in accordance with what he imagines to be true about himself and his environment...For imagination sets the goal βpictureβ which our automatic mechanism works on. We act, or fail to act, not because of βwill,β as is so commonly believed, but because of imagination.
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β
Maxwell Maltz (The New Psycho-Cybernetics: The Original Science of Self-Improvement and Success That Has Changed the Lives of 30 Million People)
β
They remained imprisoned in the CICU, kept alive in physicality by mechanical devices and medicinal support, inexorably suffering. I revered their resiliency, though I struggled to understand whether they were truly resilient or if this was a descriptive term I used to assure myself that what we were doing was just. Could they merely represent physical beings at this point, molecular derivatives of carbon and water, void of souls that had moved on months prior once the universe had delivered their inevitable fate, simply kept alive by us physicians, who ourselves clutched desperately to the most favored of our prehistoric binary measures of success: life?
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Dean Mafako (Burned Out)
β
Dear Child,
Sometimes on your travel through hell, you meet people that think they are in heaven because of their cleverness and ability to get away with things. Travel past them because they don't understand who they have become and never will. These type of people feel justified in revenge and will never learn mercy or forgiveness because they live by comparison. They are the people that don't care about anyone, other than who is making them feel confident. They donβt understand that their deity is not rejoicing with them because of their actions, rather he is trying to free them from their insecurities, by softening their heart. They rather put out your light than find their own. They don't have the ability to see beyond the false sense of happiness they get from destroying others. You know what happiness is and it isnβt this. Donβt see their success as their deliverance. It is a mask of vindication which has no audience, other than their own kind. They have joined countless others that call themselves βsurvivorsβ. They believe that they are entitled to win because life didnβt go as planned for them. You are not like them. You were not meant to stay in hell and follow their belief system. You were bound for greatness. You were born to help them by leading. Rise up and be the light home. You were given the gift to see the truth. They will have an army of people that are like them and you are going to feel alone. However, your family in heaven stands beside you now. They are your strength and as countless as the stars. It is time to let go!
Love,
Your Guardian Angel
β
β
Shannon L. Alder
β
You can map out a fight plan or a life plan, but when the action starts, it may not go the way you planned, and you're down to your reflexes - that means your [preparation:]. That's where your roadwork shows. If you cheated on that in the dark of the morning, well, you're going to get found out now, under the bright lights.
β
β
Joe Frazier
β
I will act now. I will act now. I will act now. Henceforth, I will repeat these words each hour, each day, everyday, until the words become as much a habit as my breathing, and the action which follows becomes as instinctive as the blinking of my eyelids. With these words I can condition my mind to perform every action necessary for my success. I will act now. I will repeat these words again and again and again. I will walk where failures fear to walk. I will work when failures seek rest. I will act now for now is all I have. Tomorrow is the day reserved for the labor of the lazy. I am not lazy. Tomorrow is the day when the failure will succeed. I am not a failure. I will act now. Success will not wait. If I delay, success will become wed to another and lost to me forever. This is the time. This is the place. I am the person.
β
β
Og Mandino
β
Attitude is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, than education, money, circumstances, than failures and success, than what other people think, say, or do. It is more important than appearance, ability, or skill. It will make or break a business, a home, a friendship, an organization. The remarkable thing is I have a choice every day of what my attitude will be. I cannot change my past. I cannot change the actions of others. I cannot change the inevitable. The only thing I can change is attitude. Life is ten percent what happens to me and ninety percent how I react to it.
β
β
Charles R. Swindoll
β
so here i sit. a sum of the parts. about a third way down this wonderful path, so to speak. and i've been thinking lately about a friendship that fell apart with time, with distance, and with the misunderstanding of youth. i'm trying not to confuse sadness with regret. not the easiest thing at times. i dont regret that certain things happened. i understand that perhaps i had a choice in the matter, or perhaps i believe in fate. probably not, but so far actions as small as the quickest glance to events as monumental as death have pushed me slowly along to right here, right now. there was no other way to get here. the meandering and erratic path was actually the straightest of lines. take away a handful of angry words, things once thought of as mistakes or regrets, and i'm suddenly a different person with a different history, a different future. that, i would regret. so here i sit. thinking about a person i once called my best friends. a man who might be full of sadness and regret, who might not give a damn, or who might, just might, remember the future and realize that's where its at.
β
β
Chris Wright
β
We all have different desires and needs, but if we don't discover what we want from ourselves and what we stand for, we will live passively and unfulfilled. Sooner or later, we are all asked to compromise ourselves and the things we care about. We define ourselves by our actions. With each decision, we tell ourselves and the world who we are. Think about what you want out of this life, and recognize that there are many kinds of success.
β
β
Bill Watterson
β
Welcome every morning with a smile. Look on the new day as another special gift from your Creator, another golden opportunity to complete what you were unable to finish yesterday. Be a self-starter. Let your first hour set the theme of success and positive action that is certain to echo through your entire day. Today will never happen again. Don't waste it with a false start or no start at all. You were not born to fail.
β
β
Og Mandino
β
In human affairs of danger and delicacy successful conclusion is sharply limited by hurry. So often men trip by being in a rush. If one were properly to perform a difficult and subtle act, he should first inspect the end to be achieved and then, once he had accepted the end as desirable, he should forget it completely and concentrate solely on the means. By this method he would not be moved to false action by anxiety or hurry or fear. Very few people learn this.
β
β
John Steinbeck (East of Eden)
β
They say that life is an accident, driven by sexual desire, that the universe has no moral order, no truth, no God.
Driven by insatiable lusts, drunk on the arrogance of power, hypocritical, deluded, their actions foul with self-seeking, tormented by a vast anxiety that continues until their death, convinced that the gratification of desire is life's sole aim, bound by a hundred shackles of hope, enslaved by their greed, they squander their time dishonestly piling up mountains of wealth.
"Today I got this desire, and tomorrow I will get that one; all these riches are mine, and soon I will have even more. Already I have killed these enemies, and soon I will kill the rest. I am the lord, the enjoyer, successful, happy, and strong, noble, and rich, and famous. Who on earth is my equal?
β
β
Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa (The Bhagavad Gita)
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When we start being too impressed by the results of our work, we slowly come to the erroneous conviction that life is one large scoreboard where someone is listing the points to measure our worth. And before we are fully aware of it, we have sold our soul to the many grade-givers. That means we are not only in the world, but also of the world. Then we become what the world makes us. We are intelligent because someone gives us a high grade. We are helpful because someone says thanks. We are likable because someone likes us. And we are important because someone considers us indispensable. In short, we are worthwhile because we have successes. And the more we allow our accomplishments β the results of our actions β to become the criteria of our self-esteem, the more we are going to walk on our mental and spiritual toes, never sure if we will be able to live up to the expectations which we created by our last successes. In many peopleβs lives, there is a nearly diabolic chain in which their anxieties grow according to their successes. This dark power has driven many of the greatest artists into self-destruction.
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Henri J.M. Nouwen (Out of Solitude: Three Meditations on the Christian Life)
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Success demands singleness of purpose.
You need to be doing fewer things for more effect instead of doing more things with side effects.
It is those who concentrate on but one thing at a time who advance in this world.
Passion for something leads to disproportionate time practicing or working at it. That time spent eventually translates to skill, and when skill improves, results improve. Better results generally lead to more enjoyment, and more passion and more time is invested. It can be a virtuous cycle all the way to extraordinary results.
The ONE Thing shows up time and again in the lives of the successful because itβs a fundamental truth.
More than anything else, expertise tracks with hours invested.
The pursuit of mastery bears gifts.
When people look back on their lives, it is the things they have not done that generate the greatest regret...Peopleβs actions may be troublesome initially; it is their inactions that plague them most with long-term feelings of regret.
Make sure every day you do what matters most. When you know what matters most, everything makes sense. When you donβt know what matters most, anything makes sense.
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Gary Keller (The One Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results)
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People who see themselves as βgoodβ are much more likely to do βevilβ things. This is because believing you are the βgood guyβ allows you to define your actions as good because you are the one doing them. This is why many successful cultures frame humans as intrinsically wretched. It can seem harsh to raise a child to believe deeply in their own wretchedness, but doing so helps them remember to always second-guess themselves by remembering their lesser, selfishly motivated instincts. Instincts that run counter to your morality and values have every bit as much access to your intelligence as βthe better angelsβ of your consciousness and will use your own knowledge and wit to justify their whims. You canβt outreason your worst impulses without stacking the deck in your favor. Coming from a culture that anticipates bad impulses and steels you against them can do that. That said, cultures will no doubt develop different, less harsh mechanisms for achieving the same outcome.
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Simone Collins (The Pragmatistβs Guide to Crafting Religion: A playbook for sculpting cultures that overcome demographic collapse & facilitate long-term human flourishing (The Pragmatist's Guide))
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We stand at the crossroads, each minute, each hour, each day, making choices. We choose the thoughts we allow ourselves to think, the passions we allow ourselves to feel, and the actions we allow ourselves to perform. Each choice is made in the context of whatever value system we have selected to govern our lives. In selecting that value system, we are, in a very real way, making the most important choice we will ever make.
Those who believe there is one God who made all things and who governs the world by this providence will make many choices different from those who do not. Those who hold in reverence that being who gave them life and worship Him through adoration, prayer, and thanksgiving will make choices different from those who do not. Those who believe that mankind are all of a family and that the most acceptable service of God is doing good to man will make many choices different from those who do not. Those who believe in a future state in which all that is wrong here will be made right will make many choices different from those who do not. Those who subscribe to the morals of Jesus will make many choices different from those who do not.
Since the foundation of all happiness is thinking rightly, and since correct action is dependent on correct opinion, we cannot be too careful in choosing the value system we allow to govern our thoughts and actions.
And to know that God governs in the affairs of men, that He hears and answers prayers, and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him, is, indeed, a powerful regulator of human conduct.
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Benjamin Franklin (the Art of Virtue: His Formula for Successful Living)
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In life, the question is not if you will have problems, but how you are going to deal with your problems. If the possibility of failure were erased, what would you attempt to achieve?
The essence of man is imperfection. Know that you're going to make mistakes. The fellow who never makes a mistake takes his orders from one who does. Wake up and realize this: Failure is simply a price we pay to achieve success.
Achievers are given multiple reasons to believe they are failures. But in spite of that, they persevere. The average for entrepreneurs is 3.8 failures before they finally make it in business.
When achievers fail, they see it as a momentary event, not a lifelong epidemic.
Procrastination is too high a price to pay for fear of failure. To conquer fear, you have to feel the fear and take action anyway. Forget motivation. Just do it. Act your way into feeling, not wait for positive emotions to carry you forward.
Recognize that you will spend much of your life making mistakes. If you can take action and keep making mistakes, you gain experience.
Life is playing a poor hand well. The greatest battle you wage against failure occurs on the inside, not the outside.
Why worry about things you can't control when you can keep yourself busy controlling the things that depend on you?
Handicaps can only disable us if we let them. If you are continually experiencing trouble or facing obstacles, then you should check to make sure that you are not the problem.
Be more concerned with what you can give rather than what you can get because giving truly is the highest level of living.
Embrace adversity and make failure a regular part of your life. If you're not failing, you're probably not really moving forward.
Everything in life brings risk. It's true that you risk failure if you try something bold because you might miss it. But you also risk failure if you stand still and don't try anything new.
The less you venture out, the greater your risk of failure. Ironically the more you risk failure β and actually fail β the greater your chances of success.
If you are succeeding in everything you do, then you're probably not pushing yourself hard enough. And that means you're not taking enough risks. You risk because you have something of value you want to achieve.
The more you do, the more you fail. The more you fail, the more you learn. The more you learn, the better you get.
Determining what went wrong in a situation has value. But taking that analysis another step and figuring out how to use it to your benefit is the real difference maker when it comes to failing forward. Don't let your learning lead to knowledge; let your learning lead to action.
The last time you failed, did you stop trying because you failed, or did you fail because you stopped trying?
Commitment makes you capable of failing forward until you reach your goals. Cutting corners is really a sign of impatience and poor self-discipline.
Successful people have learned to do what does not come naturally. Nothing worth achieving comes easily. The only way to fail forward and achieve your dreams is to cultivate tenacity and persistence.
Never say die. Never be satisfied. Be stubborn. Be persistent. Integrity is a must. Anything worth having is worth striving for with all your might.
If we look long enough for what we want in life we are almost sure to find it. Success is in the journey, the continual process. And no matter how hard you work, you will not create the perfect plan or execute it without error. You will never get to the point that you no longer make mistakes, that you no longer fail.
The next time you find yourself envying what successful people have achieved, recognize that they have probably gone through many negative experiences that you cannot see on the surface.
Fail early, fail often, but always fail forward.
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John C. Maxwell (Failing Forward)