Inspirational Quotes

1. Whatever the mind of man can conceive and believe, it can achieve. –Napoleon Hill
2. Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value. –Albert Einstein
3. Two roads diverged in a wood, and I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.  –Robert Frost
4. I attribute my success to this: I never gave or took any excuse. –Florence Nightingale
5. You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take. –Wayne Gretzky
6. I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed. –Michael Jordan
7. The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity. –Emelia Earhart
8. Every strike brings me closer to the next home run. –Babe Ruth
9. Definiteness of purpose is the starting point of all achievement. –W. Clement Stone
10. The past is a ghost, the future a dream. All we ever have is now. –Bill Cosby
11. Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans. –John Lennon
12. We become what we think about. –Earl Nightingale
13. Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do, so throw off the bowlines, sail away from safe harbor, catch the trade winds in your sails.  Explore, Dream, Discover. –Mark Twain
14. Life is 10% what happens to me and 90% of how I react to it. –Charles Swindoll
15. The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any. –Alice Walker
16. The mind is everything. What you think you become.  –Buddha
17. The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now. –Chinese Proverb
18. An unexamined life is not worth living. –Socrates
19. Eighty percent of success is showing up. –Woody Allen
20. Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. –Steve Jobs
21. Winning isn’t everything, but wanting to win is. –Vince Lombardi
22. I am not a product of my circumstances. I am a product of my decisions. –Stephen Covey
23. Every child is an artist.  The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up. –Pablo Picasso
24. You can never cross the ocean until you have the courage to lose sight of the shore. –Christopher Columbus
25. I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. –Maya Angelou
26. Either you run the day, or the day runs you. –Jim Rohn
27. Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right. –Henry Ford
28. The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why. –Mark Twain
29. Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it.  Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. –Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
30. The best revenge is massive success. –Frank Sinatra
31. People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing.  That’s why we recommend it daily. –Zig Ziglar
32. Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage. –Anais Nin
33. If you hear a voice within you say “you cannot paint,” then by all means paint and that voice will be silenced. –Vincent Van Gogh
34. There is only one way to avoid criticism: do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing. –Aristotle
35. Ask and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock and the door will be opened for you. –Jesus
36. The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be. –Ralph Waldo Emerson
37. Go confidently in the direction of your dreams.  Live the life you have imagined. –Henry David Thoreau
38. When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left and could say, I used everything you gave me. –Erma Bombeck
39. Few things can help an individual more than to place responsibility on him, and to let him know that you trust him.  –Booker T. Washington
40. Certain things catch your eye, but pursue only those that capture the heart. – Ancient Indian Proverb
41. Believe you can and you’re halfway there. –Theodore RooseveltEverything you’ve ever wanted is on the other side of fear. –George Addair
42. We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light. –Plato
43. Teach thy tongue to say, “I do not know,” and thous shalt progress. –Maimonides
44. Start where you are. Use what you have.  Do what you can. –Arthur Ashe
45. When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life.  When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up.  I wrote down ‘happy’.  They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, and I told them they didn’t understand life. –John Lennon
46. Fall seven times and stand up eight. –Japanese Proverb
47. When one door of happiness closes, another opens, but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one that has been opened for us. –Helen Keller
48. Everything has beauty, but not everyone can see. –Confucius
49. How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world. –Anne Frank
50. When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be. –Lao Tzu
51. Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away. –Maya Angelou
52. Happiness is not something readymade.  It comes from your own actions. –Dalai Lama
53. If you’re offered a seat on a rocket ship, don’t ask what seat! Just get on. –Sheryl Sandberg
54. First, have a definite, clear practical ideal; a goal, an objective. Second, have the necessary means to achieve your ends; wisdom, money, materials, and methods. Third, adjust all your means to that end. –Aristotle
55. If the wind will not serve, take to the oars. –Latin Proverb
56. You can’t fall if you don’t climb.  But there’s no joy in living your whole life on the ground. –Unknown
57. We must believe that we are gifted for something, and that this thing, at whatever cost, must be attained. –Marie Curie
58. Too many of us are not living our dreams because we are living our fears. –Les Brown
59. Challenges are what make life interesting and overcoming them is what makes life meaningful. –Joshua J. Marine
60. I have been impressed with the urgency of doing. Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Being willing is not enough; we must do. –Leonardo da Vinci
61. If you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else. –Booker T. Washington
62. Limitations live only in our minds.  But if we use our imaginations, our possibilities become limitless. –Jamie Paolinetti
63. You take your life in your own hands, and what happens? A terrible thing, no one to blame. –Erica Jong
64. What’s money? A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night and in between does what he wants to do. –Bob Dylan
65. I didn’t fail the test. I just found 100 ways to do it wrong. –Benjamin Franklin
66. In order to succeed, your desire for success should be greater than your fear of failure. –Bill Cosby
67. A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new. – Albert Einstein
68. The person who says it cannot be done should not interrupt the person who is doing it. –Chinese Proverb
69. There are no traffic jams along the extra mile. –Roger Staubach
70. It is never too late to be what you might have been. –George Eliot
71. You become what you believe. –Oprah Winfrey
72. I would rather die of passion than of boredom. –Vincent van Gogh
73. A truly rich man is one whose children run into his arms when his hands are empty. –Unknown
74. It is not what you do for your children, but what you have taught them to do for themselves, that will make them successful human beings.  –Ann Landers
75. If you want your children to turn out well, spend twice as much time with them, and half as much money. –Abigail Van Buren
76. Build your own dreams, or someone else will hire you to build theirs. –Farrah Gray
77. The battles that count aren’t the ones for gold medals. The struggles within yourself–the invisible battles inside all of us–that’s where it’s at. –Jesse Owens
78. Education costs money.  But then so does ignorance. –Sir Claus Moser
79. I have learned over the years that when one’s mind is made up, this diminishes fear. –Rosa Parks
80. It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop. –Confucius
81. If you look at what you have in life, you’ll always have more. If you look at what you don’t have in life, you’ll never have enough. –Oprah Winfrey
82. Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck. –Dalai Lama
83. You can’t use up creativity.  The more you use, the more you have. –Maya Angelou
84. Dream big and dare to fail. –Norman Vaughan
85. Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter. –Martin Luther King Jr.
86. Do what you can, where you are, with what you have. –Teddy Roosevelt
87. If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten. –Tony Robbins
88. Dreaming, after all, is a form of planning. –Gloria Steinem
89. It’s your place in the world; it’s your life. Go on and do all you can with it, and make it the life you want to live. –Mae Jemison
90. You may be disappointed if you fail, but you are doomed if you don’t try. –Beverly Sills
91. Remember no one can make you feel inferior without your consent. –Eleanor Roosevelt
92. Life is what we make it, always has been, always will be. –Grandma Moses
93. The question isn’t who is going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me. –Ayn Rand
94. When everything seems to be going against you, remember that the airplane takes off against the wind, not with it. –Henry Ford
95. It’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years. –Abraham Lincoln
96. Change your thoughts and you change your world. –Norman Vincent Peale
97. Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing. –Benjamin Franklin
98. Nothing is impossible, the word itself says, “I’m possible!” –Audrey Hepburn
99. The only way to do great work is to love what you do. –Steve Jobs
100. If you can dream it, you can achieve it. –Zig Ziglar

Acheive your Goals.......Perserverance

Mental Toughness

http://www.forbes.com/sites/cherylsnappconner/2013/11/18/mentally-strong-people-the-13-things-they-avoid/

1.    Waste Time Feeling Sorry for Themselves. You don’t see mentally strong people feeling sorry for their circumstances or dwelling on the way they’ve been mistreated. They have learned to take responsibility for their actions and outcomes, and they have an inherent understanding of the fact that frequently life is not fair. They are able to emerge from trying circumstances with self-awareness and gratitude for the lessons learned. When a situation turns out badly, they respond with phrases such as “Oh, well.” Or perhaps simply, “Next!”

2. Give Away Their Power. Mentally strong people avoid giving others the power to make them feel inferior or bad. They understand they are in control of their actions and emotions. They know their strength is in their ability to manage the way they respond.

3.    Shy Away from Change. Mentally strong people embrace change and they welcome challenge. Their biggest “fear,” if they have one, is not of the unknown, but of becoming complacent and stagnant. An environment of change and even uncertainty can energize a mentally strong person and bring out their best.

4. Waste Energy on Things They Can’t Control. Mentally strong people don’t complain (much) about bad traffic, lost luggage, or especially about other people, as they recognize that all of these factors are generally beyond their control. In a bad situation, they recognize that the one thing they can always control is their own response and attitude, and they use these attributes well.

5. Worry About Pleasing Others. Know any people pleasers? Or, conversely, people who go out of their way to dis-please others as a way of reinforcing an image of strength? Neither position is a good one. A mentally strong person strives to be kind and fair and to please others where appropriate, but is unafraid to speak up. They are able to withstand the possibility that someone will get upset and will navigate the situation, wherever possible, with grace.

6. Fear Taking Calculated Risks. A mentally strong person is willing to take calculated risks. This is a different thing entirely than jumping headlong into foolish risks. But with mental strength, an individual can weigh the risks and benefits thoroughly, and will fully assess the potential downsides and even the worst-case scenarios before they take action.

7. Dwell on the Past. There is strength in acknowledging the past and especially in acknowledging the things learned from past experiences—but a mentally strong person is able to avoid miring their mental energy in past disappointments or in fantasies of the “glory days” gone by. They invest the majority of their energy in creating an optimal present and future.

8. Make the Same Mistakes Over and Over. We all know the definition of insanity, right? It’s when we take the same actions again and again while hoping for a different and better outcome than we’ve gotten before. A mentally strong person accepts full responsibility for past behavior and is willing to learn from mistakes. Research shows that the ability to be self-reflective in an accurate and productive way is one of the greatest strengths of spectacularly successful executives and entrepreneurs.

9. Resent Other People’s Success. It takes strength of character to feel genuine joy and excitement for other people’s success. Mentally strong people have this ability. They don’t become jealous or resentful when others succeed (although they may take close notes on what the individual did well). They are willing to work hard for their own chances at success, without relying on shortcuts.

10. Give Up After Failure. Every failure is a chance to improve. Even the greatest entrepreneurs are willing to admit that their early efforts invariably brought many failures. Mentally strong people are willing to fail again and again, if necessary, as long as the learning experience from every “failure” can bring them closer to their ultimate goals.

11. Fear Alone Time. Mentally strong people enjoy and even treasure the time they spend alone. They use their downtime to reflect, to plan, and to be productive. Most importantly, they don’t depend on others to shore up their happiness and moods. They can be happy with others, and they can also be happy alone.

12. Feel the World Owes Them Anything. Particularly in the current economy, executives and employees at every level are gaining the realization that the world does not owe them a salary, a benefits package and a comfortable life, regardless of their preparation and schooling. Mentally strong people enter the world prepared to work and succeed on their merits, at every stage of the game.

13. Expect Immediate Results. Whether it’s a workout plan, a nutritional regimen, or starting a business, mentally strong people are “in it for the long haul”. They know better than to expect immediate results. They apply their energy and time in measured doses and they celebrate each milestone and increment of success on the way. They have “staying power.” And they understand that genuine changes take time. Do you have mental strength? Are there elements on this list you need more of? With thanks to Amy Morin, I would like to reinforce my own abilities further in each of these areas today. How about you?