“You have to set goals that are almost out of reach. If you set a goal that is attainable without much work or thought, you are stuck with something below your true talent and potential.”
This quote is by former baseball player Steve Garvey. The quote isn’t just about reaching for the stars and having ambitious goals. Instead, it’s about the consequence of not having ambitious goals. Therefore, the key message here is being stuck. Without setting goals that are almost out of reach, we inevitably find ourselves stuck with things that are far below our talent and potential.
“If you’re doing something outside of dominant culture, there’s not an easy place for you. You will have to do it yourself.”
Whether we want to believe it or not, things like our age, gender, race, and socioeconomic background play a factor in where we go to school, when, if we attend college, what we major in, the career we pursue, when we start a family. The list goes on. Simply put, a lot of what happens in our life is already laid out for us per our dominant culture. But once in a while, we step outside of our trajectory. As this quote by Ava DuVernay reminds us, paving a different path isn’t always going to be easy. It might feel uncomfortable, and there may be moments we feel like we’re…
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“It’s only in our darkest hours that we may discover the true strength of the brilliant light within ourselves that can never, ever, be dimmed.”
“Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.”
“A river cuts through a rock not because of its power, but its persistence.”
“Don’t wait until everything is just right. It will never be perfect. There will always be challenges, obstacles and less than perfect conditions. So what? Get started now. With each step you take, you will grow stronger and stronger, more and more skilled, more and more self-confident, and more and more successful.”
It’s human nature to come up with every excuse in the book before we finally start something. And a very common excuse we get ourselves to believe is that it’s just not the right time to begin. Sounds like a logical reason. But there’s a difference between the condition being feasibly and the condition being perfect. This quote comes from Mark Victor Hansen, motivational speaker/author and co-founder of the book series Chicken Soup for the Soul. It serves as a reminder that chasing after the perfect condition–when everything is just right–inevitably results in us never getting started. “There will always be challenges, obstacles and less than perfect conditions.” So if…
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“Try a thing you haven’t done three times. Once, to get over the fear of doing it. Twice, to learn how to do it. And a third time to figure out whether you like it or not.”
Be not afraid of going slowly. Be afraid of standing still.
“Success is no accident. It is hard work, perseverance, learning, studying, sacrifice and most of all, love of what you are doing or learning to do.”
“The moment you doubt whether you can fly, you cease forever to be able to do it.”
This quote is not to be taken literally. It’s from the classic children’s story, Peter Pan, by J.M. Barrie. In the story, Peter Pan’s ability to fly is significantly influenced by his belief that he can without any second thought or hesitation. While the story is made-up, the core principle is real. Nothing kills our ability to do something more than doubt. The moment we doubt whether we can is the moment our likelihood of doing it significantly decreases. Unfortunately, believing in yourself can be easier said than done. So, if self-doubt does creep in despite your effort to fight it, there’re a couple things you can do. First, it…
“Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear.”
It’s easy to assume people who show courage aren’t afraid–that they lack fear. But that couldn’t be further from the truth. There’s fear in all of us, and this quote, by Mark Twain, reminds us that fear is not necessarily absent in the midst of courage. It’s there. However, what is also present is a resistance to or mastery of fear. This means overcoming fear with faith (resistance) or using it as fuel (mastery) or both. So courage doesn’t absolve all fear but, in a way, it can be created and strengthened by it. It doesn’t have to be about choosing one or the other but deciding how we redirect…
“If you hear a voice within you say ‘you cannot paint,’ then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced.”
We all have that voice inside our head that says we can’t do something. And so we don’t do it, which only proves the voice in our head was right. This quote, by Vincent Van Gogh, is about silencing that voice the best way we can–by doing the thing it says we can’t. “If you hear a voice within you say ‘you cannot paint,’ then by all means paint.” By simply doing that thing, we literally invalidate the word can’t. And that is just the first step. Once we do that thing, we may get to do it well.
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PositLive Music: “It’s All Right”
“There is neither happiness nor misery in the world; there is only the comparison of one state with another, nothing more. He who has felt the deepest grief is best able to experience supreme happiness.”
“Doubt kills more dreams than failure ever will.”
“The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity.”
This quote, by Ameilia Earhart, reminds us that when we’re faced with something scary, the hardest part of it is usually deciding to face it. To act. So often, we avoid facing this decision altogether. Unfortunately, the longer we don’t decide to act, the further that action drifts away from happening. We must be reminded that the actual act (outside of a decision) may not be easy. It will take tenacity. However, once we do make up our mind, it has an effect. It can give us a dose of strength and courage amid fear and uncertainty, which we won’t discover until our decision to act is made.
“Action may not always bring happiness, but there is no happiness without action.”
This quote, by Benjamin Disraeli, really speaks to me as I reflect on some difficult choices I’ll need to make–Choices that will ultimately result in action. Doing nothing and staying in a place of familiarity, i.e. inaction, is often our easiest and most popular decision. Most of us don’t venture into the unknown without a bit of trepidation. However, while doing nothing feels safest, it can have a negative effect on our happiness depending on our current state of affairs. Yet, doing something can also have a negative effect. So what do we do when the result of both action and inaction can have equally negative results? As this quote…
“Do not wait until the conditions are perfect to begin. Beginning makes the conditions perfect.”
We often wait for conditions to be perfect to begin certain things. So, those things end up being procrastinated indefinitely. However, this quote, by Alan Cohen, reminds us that simply beginning helps make the conditions perfect. When we begin and not wait, we may not have all the pieces perfectly in place. But once we begin, we may find that’s the exact moment the pieces do start to fall into place.
“Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is a quiet voice at the end of the day saying, ‘I will try again tomorrow.'”
This quote, by Mary Anne Radmacher, reminds us that sometimes the most courageous thing we can do is hope. Courage isn’t always loud, bold, and obvious. Sometimes it’s just that quiet voice from within that tells us to keep going when we want to give up–to try again tomorrow. That too is courage.
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“You are the sum total of everything you’ve ever seen, heard, eaten, smelled, been told, forgot – it’s all there. Everything influences each of us, and because of that, I try to make sure that my experiences are positive.”
“Joy does not simply happen to us. We have to choose joy and keep choosing it every day.”
Necessity: The Mother of Invention AND Introspection
