Life-changing ideas and insights from some of the world's greatest thinkers.
The only way to avoid temptation is to know that there are higher things than temptation. When temptation comes, first stop the action or the force. When the temptation is gone, then reason, for temptation will overcome all reason.
None of us is immune from life's pain and disappointment. But if you doubt for even a second that you have the courage necessary to confront the evil in the world or that weakness that resides deep inside all of us - you're wrong.
When you are in the lag, the only thing that keeps you moving forward are (a) confidence in your vision and ability to bring it to fruition, (b) a willingness to say no to other things that tempt you to divert from your course, and (c) daily, diligent, urgent progress.
They have to go outside their comfort zone over and over to get where they want, all the while with no guarantee of success. That doesn’t stop them, though; they’d rather bet on themselves than accept a life in which they’ll never know what might have been.
If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself but to your own estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.
Anybody, any person whatsoever, under any circumstance whatsoever, can be a psychological success—at least in the sense of doing the best that one can and doing fully what one can—to be himself or herself and to accept the reality of himself or herself.
We fail to realize that mastery is not about perfection. It’s about a process, a journey. The master is the one who stays on the path day after day, year after year. The master is the one who is willing to try, and fail, and try again, for as long as he or she lives.
For a master, the rewards gained along the way are fine, but they are not the main reason for the journey. Ultimately, the master and the master’s path are one. And if the traveler is fortunate—that is, if the path is complex and profound enough—the destination is two miles farther away for every mile he or she travels.
Just because you have a clear goal and you work hard at it doesn’t mean you will always achieve the goal—the first time. The path to success is paved with disappointments and defeats along the way. You pick yourself up, refocus on the goal, and go back to work with even greater determination. That’s what winners do.
Ultimately, your success will depend on your commitment. As self-help and management advice books will often say, setting a goal and committing to it are vitally important. Without the commitment, we never find out if the goal is achievable. By diluting the commitment and allowing us to compromise, we never know.