“Some restaurants keep a photo of the local reviewer in the kitchen. The thinking is that if someone notices she’s in the building, everyone can up their game. And some musicians wait eagerly for A&R person to be in the crowd. If they really kill it tonight, a record deal might ensue. The most resilient approach, of course, is to act as if. What if this is your most important post, or your last one? What if the email you’re sending is going to be forwarded to your boss? What if… We can’t know for sure. But we can act as if it’s going to happen.”
Seth Godin
Achievement Quotes
“Ambition is when you expect yourself to close the gap between what you have and what you want. Entitlement is when you expect others to close the gap between what you have and what you want.”
James Clear, Blog
“The problem is, the more you get, the more you want. It’s like drinking salt water to quench your thirst. We develop a tolerance that makes us need more just to get the same high. I started to recognize the game, the trick, the insanity, the carrot on the stick. I had never liked vampire movies, but I suddenly understood their mythology—they are a metaphor for insatiable human hunger, unquenchable thirsts, and chronic dissatisfaction—the attempt to fill a spiritual hole with external things. If unparalleled winning and achieving everything I’ve ever dreamed of does not secure perfect happiness and ultimate bliss, then what does?”
Will Smith, Will (Page 368)
“Before I met you, I’m this, like, wildly insecure kid, and I think success and awards will absolve me of the pain of life. So I work so hard to get to that Snapshot, and because of my privilege and luck, I got to go into that Snapshot relatively early, and when it didn’t cure any of that stuff, it made me beyond depressed.”
Jonah Hill, Stutz
“We often think of big achievements as a ‘get out of life easier’ card. They rarely are that. In fact, the opposite tends to happen. They level us up, force us into greater responsibilities, to think more deeply about big issues, to question ourselves and what we previously knew to be true. Big achievements actually pressure us to become increasingly better versions of ourselves. This is a net positive for our lives but can be just as uncomfortable as struggling was, if not more so.”
Brianna Wiest, The Mountain Is You (Page 119)
“One of the simplest ways to win is to always connect the small things you do to the larger thing you hope to accomplish. Five minutes can be spent working on something trivial or working on something life-changing. A brief session of work oriented toward a great cause is always time well spent. Most daily actions evaporate. Some accumulate.”
James Clear, Blog
“So much of power is not what you do but what you do not do—the rash and foolish actions that you refrain from before they get you into trouble. Plan in detail before you act—do not let vague plans lead you into trouble. Unhappy endings are much more common that happy ones—do not be swayed by the happy ending in your mind.”
Robert Greene, The Daily Laws (Page 337)
“Never take it for granted that your past successes will continue in the future. Actually, your past successes are your biggest obstacle: every battle, every war, is different, and you cannot assume that what worked before will work today.”
Robert Greene, The Daily Laws (Page 335)
“Believe me that in every big thing or achievement there are always obstacles, big or small, and the reaction one shows to such obstacles is what counts, not the obstacle itself. There is no such thing as defeat until you admit so yourself, but not until then!”
Bruce Lee, Striking Thoughts (Page 102)
“I want you to be horrified—terrified—of sitting on the sidelines and doing nothing. That is what I want you to be afraid of: waking up in six days or six weeks or six year or sixty years and being no closer to your goal… you have made no progress. That is the horror. That is the nightmare. That is what you really need to be afraid of: being stagnant.”
Jocko Willink, Discipline Equals Freedom (Page 41)
“Accomplished people have an obsession with completing tasks. Once a project falls into their horizon, they crave, almost compulsively, to finish it. […] It’s this constant stream of finishing that begins, over time, to unlock more and more interesting opportunities and eventually leads to their big scores.”
Cal Newport
“It seems to us that the most important work in the world is the work which is visible, which we can see: building a house, plowing the land, feeding cattle, gathering fruits; and that the work which is invisible, the work done by our soul, is not important. But our invisible work at the improvement of our soul is the most important work in the world, and all other visible kinds of work are useful only when we do this major work.”
Leo Tolstoy, A Calendar of Wisdom (Page 33)
“If we want and need desperately to sleep, we are less likely to fall asleep. If we absolutely must give the best talk possible at some conference, we become hyper-anxious about the result, and the performance suffers. If we desperately need to find an intimate partner or make friends, we are more likely to push them away. If instead we relax and focus on other things, we are more likely to fall asleep or give a great talk or charm people. The most pleasurable things in life occur as a result of something not directly intended and expected.”
Robert Greene, The Daily Laws (Page 19)
