Jon Acuff Quotes

If you’re going to risk and maybe fail, fail at something that matters. Fail gloriously so that even in failure, lives change.

You don't need to go back in time to be awesome; you just have to start right now. Regretting that you didn't start earlier is a great distraction from moving on your dream today, and the reality is that today is earlier than tomorrow.

Don't compare your beginning to someone else's middle, or your middle to someone else's end. Don't compare the start of your second quarter of life to someone else's third quarter.

Pitting your dream against someone else's is a fantastic way to get discouraged and depressed.

Fear would have told the Wright brothers not to fly. Fear would have told Rosa Parks to change seats. Fear would have told Steve Jobs that people hate touchscreens.

Regardless of what you want to do or who you are, fear will always see you as wholly unqualified for anything you ever dream or attempt.

People are mistaken when they think chasing your dream is a selfish thing to do. As if perhaps being average is an act of humility. As if perhaps wasting the talents you were given is proof that you're a considerate individual. It's not.

developing tolerance for imperfection is the key factor in turning chronic starters into consistent finishers.

God found Gideon in a hole. He found Joseph in a prison. He found Daniel in a lion’s den. He has a curious habit of showing up in the midst of trouble, not the absence. Where the world sees failure, God sees future. Next time you feel unqualified to be used by God remember this, he tends to recruit from the pit, not the pedestal.

I want the peace in knowing that is wasn’t for lack of hustling that I missed a target for my dream. I want to know that the one thing in my control was under control.

In order to survive, I came up with a five-step secret to getting it all done. If you're busy too, feel free to use it: 1. Admit that you can't possibly get it all done.

Joy is an incredible alarm clock. It will wake you up and keep you up and pick you up and gently pull you through a thousand rejections along the way.

Generosity is always cheaper than greed.

This is the first lie that perfectionism tells you about goals: Quit if it isn’t perfect.

Choose your attitude every day until eventually it chooses you right back.

I’m not a fan of “finding your purpose.” I’m a fan of “living with purpose.

People who can't be questioned often end up doing questionable things.

All you have to do is win more today than you did yesterday and repeat the whole thing tomorrow.

I like being a beginner. I like the moment where I look at everyone and say, “I have no idea how to do this, let’s figure it out.

Age is no longer the primary factor that determines where you are on the map. Life is now less about how old you are and more about when you decide to live.

great lives are very rarely created in great comfort.

Don't climb a single rung up the entitlement ladder. Demanding something you haven't truly earned is a great way to get stuck in the land of Learning for decades, even an entire lifetime. Kick those ladders over and keep on walking.

Regardless of your age or station in life, it all comes down to one simple truth: you just have to start.

Want a better job right this second? Choose your attitude and adjust your expectations.

If taking a break from social media sounds intimidating, remember, you’ve already done this for an entire year. It was called 1997.

But more than just analysis, perfectionism offers us two distinct distractions: Hiding places Noble obstacles A hiding place is an activity you focus on instead of your goal. A noble obstacle is a virtuous-sounding reason for not working toward a finish. Both are toxic to your ability to finish.

It’s one of my theories that when people give you advice, they’re really just talking to themselves in the past. —STEVE GARGUILO

A dream you don’t have to fight for isn’t a dream—it’s a nap. One changes your afternoon. The other changes your world. Keep fighting.

You know who we should fire, that guy who keeps learning how to do his job even better,” said no one ever.

Cut your goal in half. Choose what you’ll bomb. Make it fun if you want it done.

Hustle tries. Then it fails. Then it tries again, because of grit, which is simply being brave when you don’t feel like being brave.

Awesome writes great books even if no one is going to read them.

That's all data is. A gift from yesterday that you receive today to make tomorrow better.

You used to believe like that too. You used to turn sticks into swords or dirty flip-flops into glass slippers. You climbed trees and made forts and thought being a doctor wasn’t out of reach. Nothing was out of reach. Then, somewhere along the way, you lost it.

I’m with you, networking is miserable. Whenever I find myself at a dinner party where people are networking I immediately focus on the dog, and if the host doesn’t have one, I focus on persuading them to get a dog.

(The truth is that real life-change and the joy of being who you are designed to be always results in selflessness, not selfishness.)

Right now, 80 percent of employers Google you before they bring you in for an interview.

Success always comes when preparation meets opportunity.”4

You have the perfect amount of time each day for the things that matter most. The key is spending time on those things.

Life is dreamed in big leaps and revealed in small steps.

Misery loves company, but company often multiplies your misery.

Complacency is a slow gas leak, not a bomb blast. Like being robbed by a thief in the night who only steals a penny at a time, we awake to find the days have all gone somewhere. Things

Worrying about your book’s marketing plan when you haven’t even finished writing the book is a noble obstacle. Weighing grams of carbohydrates when you haven’t exercised a single minute all month is a noble obstacle.

People are mistaken when they think chasing your dream is a selfish thing to do. As if perhaps being average is an act of humility. As if perhaps wasting the talents you were given is proof that you’re a considerate individual.

If you’re watching Netflix every time it’s time for you to do X, that’s a hiding place. You’re afraid to face the fear of imperfection that comes along with every endeavor, so you’re hiding from it by doing something that requires no skill. You might write a bad sentence on your blog, but no one’s going to critique the way you watch TV. “I

Perfectionism always makes things harder and more complicated. Finishers make things easier and simpler. The next time you work on a goal, I dare you to ask the following questions during the middle of the project: Could things be easier? Could things be simpler?

the best way to crush the discussion, is with a decision.

The problem is that “by now” is a phrase we say to ourselves when we’re trying to believe the lie that it’s too late to start pursuing our dream.

What do you do when all the excuses you used to not chase your dream are gone? What do you do then?

You’re just going to be a Starter. The starting line is the only line you completely control.

As if perhaps joy is acceptable for rare moments on the weekend or surprising glimpses of sunsets while on vacation, but it has no real purpose in the real world.

Not because of my words—those are cheap and untrustworthy. But because of my actions, which are expensive and trustworthy.

The only reason cavemen painted on walls was they didn’t have note cards.

don’t build a park bench if you secretly love Frisbee.

The other problem with learning a new skill is that it takes forever. How long is forever exactly? Longer than you thought.

Attitude impacts everything. Start there. ■

You’ve got to be flexible with your dream because it might not exist yet. ■

Sometimes, people who hate on your dream aren’t really mad about your dream. They’re mad because you’re making them jealous.

Unfortunately, perfectionism dies slowly. It’s persistent and particularly dangerous because it masquerades as excellence

To deal with our secret rules, we have to do three things: Identify them. Destroy them. Replace them.

you pursue the right goal in the wrong way, you still end up in the wrong place.

You’ve got today, and today is all you need to start.

People position adulthood like it’s the end of your life, not the beginning. You’ve had your fun. Now it’s time to grow up. You’ve lived it up. Now it’s time to start dying.

Accomplishing a goal is a lot less like taking a train across country and a lot more like driving a bumper car.

One of the greatest mistakes you can make in life is assuming all your thoughts are true.

Your brain is waiting for you each day. It's waiting to be told what to think. It's waiting to see what kind of soundtracks you'll choose. It's waiting to see if you really want to build a different life

If you blink and find yourself working on something besides your real goal, you’ve probably retreated to the first kind of hiding place: the obvious time waster. You will never accidentally end up doing a difficult project. The work you’re trying to avoid is not something you’ll stumble upon one day unexpectedly.

I learned a simple lesson about being awesome: always play to the size of your heart, not to the size of your audience. Awesome doesn’t let the crowd determine the size of the performance. Awesome gets up for two people or 200. Awesome writes great books even if no one is going to read them. Awesome sweeps the parts of store floors that no foot will ever touch. Awesome can’t help itself. Awesome has a huge heart. And that’s what it always plays to. The size of the crowd doesn’t matter. The applause of the audience doesn’t matter.

The bigger rule was “For something to count, it has to be difficult.” A lot of high performers carry that sort of secret rule along with them. If an exercise is enjoyable and you have fun doing it, it must not count.

Billions of people have traveled and continue to travel the other path, and it grows wider every year....The trouble is that on this wide path, you don’t end up at awesome. You just end up at old. This path is called 'average'.

Real-World Example = Don’t constantly complain about the work conditions. (It’s too bright, it’s too dark, it’s too cold, I wish it smelled more like cinnamon.) A simple rule of thumb to remember is, “Unless there’s a live cobra in the office, I’ll be all right.

If you want help for your dream, start by helping someone else with their dream. If you want support for your hope, start by giving support to someone else’s hope. If you want encouragement as you work on your calling, start by encouraging other people. Giving support is often the best way to get it.

Learning from those before you is a dying art that can catapult you ahead in the land of Mastering.

Someone is going to hate what you do. That’s not a maybe. That’s a definite. And I don’t mean dislike. I mean hate. With energy and vitriol and a passion that surprises you.

They are four words I want you to keep in mind when critic’s math gets loud. He wrote, “We will miss you.

Want to know how to be awesome at just about everything else too? It’s simple. Don’t be a jerk.

No one pursuing a life of average was ever made fun of by other average people. But if you decide to travel the road to awesome, you will be.

If you are ever invited to a late Friday afternoon meeting with your boss, that’s not a meeting, that’s a booby trap.

Intentions are ambitious liars.

Ever feel like you don’t know exactly what you want to do with your life? Know who else feels that way? Everyone. We

Average is so popular because average is familiar.

your willingness to discipline one part of your life creates freedom in another.

Real-World Example = Don’t schedule meetings that demand high creativity on Friday afternoon at 4:00 P.M. People are creatively empty then and their ideas will be too.

(Gang + Awesome + Nice) × Grind = Career Savings Account

The harder you try to be perfect, the less likely you’ll accomplish your goals.

Hiding places are tricky like that. They make you feel like you’re doing well when in reality you’re not getting anywhere on your most important projects.

Until” is just perfectionism wearing a Halloween costume.

Kids are a crisis. They're a beautiful crisis, but they're a crisis nonetheless.

A hiding place is the safe place you go to hide from your fear of messing up. It’s the task that lets you get your perfectionism fix by making you feel successful even as you avoid your goal.

The tricky thing is that “until” often wears a cloak of responsibility. It pretends that it’s not about being lazy but rather about making sure everything is in order before you start. It would be foolish to come up with a great invoice system until I really know what my business is about. Once I have a core mission, the rest of the pieces will fall into place, but until then, it would be wasted effort.

It’s the Very Good Reason you cannot pursue your goal. Perfectionism will tell you, “If you’re going to do it, you might as well do it right.” And when we leave the idea of “right” undefined, it tends to get complicated, usually in one of two ways. In the first kind of noble obstacle, perfectionism sneakily tells you that you cannot move toward your goal until you do something else: “I can’t do X until Y.” In the second kind, perfectionism tells you that reaching your goal could actually produce bad results or make you a bad person. Would-be entrepreneurs often express fear that they’ll become workaholics

When you hit a Career Ceiling, you used to have only a few options. You could: 1. Get a job at another company. 2. Do a job you didn’t want to do, like being a creative director. 3. Suck it up and die inside over a period of roughly thirty years.

You will work harder at something you love than at something you like. You will work harder than you have ever worked when you start chasing a dream. You will hustle and grind and sweat and push and pull. You will get up earlier and go to bed later. But that’s okay.

Want to create a reward you really love? When new ideas or new goals get shiny, put them at the finish line. Don’t try to grow callous to the shiny objects; if anything, let them gleam. Let them be brighter than the noonday sun. Just make sure they point the way to the finish line. No podcast until the book is done.

Your emotions cloud your judgment. They form a perfect smoke screen for denial, making your path in life feel murky and confusing. In the fog of feelings, it’s hard to see what’s really happening. Data doesn’t lie, though. It is not swayed by emotion. It is not subject to the drunken whims of feelings. Disaster is always the final destination of denial.

Instead of saying “until,” they say, “if . . . then.” They claim that if they pursue their goal something bad will happen. Maybe the finish will turn them into a monster. Maybe they will turn into a bad person. Either way, because they’re wise and good guys, they just can’t pursue their finish. Often, the second kind of noble obstacle shows up in finances.

perfectionism is a desperate attempt to live up to impossible standards. Perfectionism will do anything to protect those impossible standards. It can’t let you find out how impossible they are, especially with the cold eye of data, so it terrifies you into thinking that you’ll be crushed by disappointment if you peer behind that curtain. Data would tell you that your bank account is low, but you’re spending a lot more on coffee than you think. If you started making it at home, you could easily start saving for a vacation. You might even stop comparing yourself to the impossible financial standards of your friends online. You might make some reasonable goals and completely change the way you view money. You might even have fun.

done, we will never work. There will always be one more amazing distraction. Our minds will do anything to avoid the challenge of focusing on something. The second you hear the word “until” pop into your mouth, spit it out like Brussels sprouts that have been served without bacon. You can always tell how gross a vegetable is by how much bacon has to be added to it to do all the heavy lifting.

The ceiling is actually the jungle that keeps most people away from the hidden treasure. And if you’re ready to work on the skills category of your Career Savings Account, this is a tremendous gift. Author Seth Godin calls it the “Dip.” He says, “The Dip is the set of artificial screens set up to keep people like you out. If you took organic chemistry in college, you’ve experienced the Dip. Academia doesn’t want too many unmotivated people to attempt medical school, so they set up a screen. Organic chemistry is the killer class, the screen that separates the doctors from the psychologists. If you can’t handle organic chemistry, well, then you can’t go to med school.”2

Those kids would have accepted My Little Pony into their heart that day if it would have ended the chain saw sin massacre. The emotion they learned, the threshold they had to cross that led to God, was raw fear. He’s terrifying. He wants to hurt you. He wants to cut you in half to remove your sin. I think sometimes this happens because we want to take a shortcut to salvation for someone. We want them to be saved right this second and right this moment, and love can feel like it’s taking too long. Love is messy and slow. It unravels at God’s speed, not ours. Shame is faster. Fear is faster. And if the goal is to get them in the door, then fear becomes a pretty good method. To tell you the truth, terrifying someone into a relationship with God is also easier. Love makes us vulnerable. I have to throw myself out there and be honest and naked and open to getting rejected if love is what I give to you. But fear doesn’t require any of that. I can yell and scream and try to intimidate you without getting hurt or taking any real risks. Love is harder because it demands that I get personally involved in your life. Fear doesn’t carry those same requirements.