61 Powerful Keep Moving Forward Quotes To Help You During Hard Times

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Excerpt: Moving forward can be hard—especially when life is hard. These 61 keep moving forward quotes are powerful and will help you do just that.

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Introduction: You Can’t Steer A Stationary Ship

I remember as a kid, sitting in the driver’s seat of my parent’s car and pretending to drive. My little hands would hang on the steering wheel as I would speed down the streets and drift through turns with Fast & Furious precision. Contrast that with what was actually happening and you would’ve laughed as you saw little me making exhaust noises with my mouth and yanking on the immovable steering wheel.

Put that car in motion, however, and the steering wheel loosens right up. You could drive with your pinky fingers if you wanted to—although I would strongly advise against that. It’s motion that gives us the power to direct. Idleness is what takes that power away. And even with all of our might, child or adult, we can’t steer a parked car. Which is exactly what so many of us are trying to do with the cars of our lives: we’re living our dreams in our heads.

We plan and plot and envision and goal set and try to come up with the perfect course that will take us precisely from where we are to where we want to be. And we’re also sitting in our cars, hanging from the steering wheel, making exhaust noises with our mouths, and whipping through turns with Fast and Furious precision. We’re trying to drive a parked car. And you wonder why people giggle sometimes when they hear you?

Course correction can only happen when you’re on a course. You can’t adjust the direction of a single dot plotted on a map. You need a second dot, a plot of where the dot has moved to, in order to understand and adjust the trajectory. And so it is with all of your goals and aspirations in life. You get there by driving your car—steering your ship—in the direction of your dreams and making adjustments as you go. As you experience the world and as you get feedback from your actions.

The journey never works out to be the straight line that we envision in our heads anyways. There are always unaccounted for (and many times spontaneous) twists and turns and bumps and driving hazards that come up. Thankfully, straight isn’t the only direction forward and there’s a steering wheel that comes with the car of your life that you can use to navigate those obstacles. So long as you keep your car in drive, that is.

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The Motto: Why “Forward” Is The Only Direction

Life is going to happen—sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse. The one true thing that we will always have 100% control over is our response to these events.

When we adopt a mindset of constant and never-ending improvement by always looking for the opportunity in any and all situations—how could we not move forward? “Motivating you to Keep Moving Forward – the ONLY direction!”—is our way of reminding you that something can always be learned from any given outcome or event in life.

Below you will find more than just 61 powerful keep moving forward quotes that will help you during hard times. We wanted you to be motivated to keep moving forward even after you finish this post, so we included application exercises for you as well. Take your time checking out the insights and spend a little extra time on those application exercises at the end. Remember, to know and not apply, is the same as not to know. Good luck!

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Keep Moving Forward Even When (Especially When) Times Are Hard

“Where you are, right here and now, this is how bad stories end.  But it’s also how the best stories, begin.”

Iain Thomas, I Wrote This For You

“Only he who has the courage to write the word ‘end’ can find the strength to write the word ‘beginning.’”

Zen Proverb

“In life we do things. Some we wish we had never done. Some we wish we could replay a million times in our heads. But they all make us who we are. And in the end they shape every detail about us. If we were to reverse any of them we wouldn’t be the person we are. So just live. Make mistakes. Have wonderful memories. But never ever second guess who you are, where you have bee, and most importantly where it is you’re going.”

Unknown

“All life is either moving forward and evolving or shrinking back and dying.  If you want to evolve in your own life, you have to push through the obstacles instead of running from them.  Obstacles and challenges are the agents of growth.  Nobody gets to be large and in charge without facing challenges and moving through them.  Birth is messy, painful, scary, uncertain, and freaky.  Birth is also a glorious miracle that leads to new life.  If you want the new life you say you want, you have to do the work instead of just studying and discussing and wishing and wanting.”

Jen Sincero, You Are a Badass

“If terrible things have happened to you, you ought to have grown wise. If the worst possible events have befallen you, you should be the wisest of the lot. But instead of growing wise, most people become wounded. In a state of conscious response, it is possible to use every life situation—however ugly—as an opportunity for growth. But if you habitually think, ‘I am the way I am because of someone else,’ you are using life situations merely as an opportunity for self-destruction or stagnation.”

Sadhguru, Inner Engineering (Page 56)

“When there is no way out, there is still always a way through. So don’t turn away from the pain. Face it. Feel it fully. Feel it—don’t think about it! Express it if necessary, but don’t create a script in your mind around it. Give all your attention to the feeling, not to the person, event, or situation that seems to have caused it. Don’t let the mind use the pain to create a victim identity for yourself out of it. Feeling sorry for yourself and telling others your story will keep you stuck in suffering. Since it is impossible to get away from the feeling, the only possibility of change is to move into it; otherwise, nothing will shift. So give your complete attention to what you feel, and refrain from mentally labeling it. As you go into the feeling, be intensely alert. At first, it may seem like a dark and terrifying place, and when the urge to turn away from it comes, observe it but don’t act on it. Keep putting your attention on the pain, keep feeling the grief, the fear, the dread, the loneliness, whatever it is. Stay alert, stay present—present with your whole Being, with every cell of your body. As you do so, you are bringing a light into this darkness. This is the flame of your consciousness.”

Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now (Page 222)

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We Are Imperfect Beings In An Imperfect World—Mistakes Must Be Accepted As Part Of The Forward Process

“As products of an imperfect world, all of us are imperfect.  Every one of us has done some wrong.  There are things we regret—things we have done or things we should have done.  Acknowledging our wrongdoings with a genuine sense of remorse can serve to keep us on the right track in life and encourage us to rectify our mistakes when possible and take action to correct things in the future.  But if we allow our regret to degenerate into excessive guilt, holding on to the memory of our past transgressions with continued self-blame and self-hatred, this serves no purpose other than to be a relentless source of self-punishment and self-induced suffering.”

Dalai Lama, The Art of Happiness

“You will fail at some point in your life. Accept it. You will lose. You will embarrass yourself. You will suck at something. There is no doubt about it. …Never be discouraged. Never hold back. Give everything you’ve got. And when you fall throughout life—and maybe even tonight after a few too many glasses of champagne—fall forward.”

Denzel Washington

“You have to come to your closed doors before you get to your open doors… What if you knew you had to go through 32 closed doors before you got to your open door? Well, then you’d come to closed door number eight and you’d think, ‘Great, I got another one out of the way’ …Keep moving forward.”

Joel Osteen

“Life is full of disappointments, failures, and setbacks. None of those things can permanently stop you. You have the power in you to overcome anything that life throws at you. There is nothing as powerful as a made up mind. Surround yourself with people who remind you that you matter, and support you in the ways that matter most to you. No person, situation, or circumstance can define who you are. Don’t give up, cave in, or stop believing that it’s possible. It’s not over until you win.”

Unknown

“It doesn’t matter where you stand in relation to your friends, your family, your colleagues, or clients.  All that matters is your personal journey.  It’s tempting to look at others as a yardstick and convince yourself that you’re all the way out in front, with the appearance of a lead, or resign yourself to the back of the pack.  But that’s not the point.  The race of life is a marathon, not a sprint.  The only thing to do is focus on the path in front of you.  Look ahead.  Establish your own pace.  Keep moving forward.  And then create that plan.”

Tony Robbins, Money: Master the Game

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Sometimes “Forward” Is Away

“Sometimes walking away has nothing to do with weakness and everything to do with strength. We walk away not because we want others to realize our worth and value, but because we finally realize our own.”

Unknown (See Picture Quote Version)

“If you cannot find a good companion to walk with, walk alone, like an elephant roaming the jungle. It is better to be alone than to be with those who will hinder your progress.”

Buddha (See Picture Quote Version)

“Less and less memories will come as the time moves.  There will be gaps—you would like to relive something but nothing is coming—and those gaps are beautiful.  Then a day will come when you will not be able to move backwards because everything is complete.  When you cannot move backwards, only then do you move forwards.  Be finished with the past.  As you become freer from the past, the mountain starts disappearing.  And then you will attain unison: you will become, by and by, one.”

Osho, The Art of Living and Dying

“The most horrific things in life can be a source of nourishment if you accept, ‘I am responsible for the way I am now.’ It is possible to transform the greatest adversity into a stepping-stone for personal growth. If you take one hundred percent responsibility for the way you are now, a brighter tomorrow is a possibility. But if you take no responsibility for the present—if you blame your parents, your friend, your husband, your girlfriend, your colleagues for the way you are—you have forsaken your future even before it comes.”

Sadhguru, Inner Engineering (Page 58)

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We Move Forward Despite The Challenges, Not When We Are Free Of Them

“Everything worthwhile in life is won through surmounting the associated negative experience.  Any attempt to escape the negative, to avoid it or quash it or silence it, only backfires.  The avoidance of suffering is a form of suffering.  The avoidance of struggle is a struggle.  The denial of failure is a failure.  Hiding what is shameful is itself a form of shame.”

Mark Mason, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck

“The world will always wear you down, so let it wear you down until only the good remains.  Hold on to the incredible parts of you that survive.”

Iain Thomas, Every Word You Cannot Say (Page 93) (Read Matt’s Blog On This Quote)

“Turn your demons into art, your shadow into a friend, your fear into fuel, your failures into teachers, your weaknesses into reasons to keep fighting. Don’t waste your pain. Recycle your heart.”

Andréa Balt (See Picture Quote Version)

“The heart is a muscle like any other and the best exercise you can do for it is called picking yourself up off the floor.”

Iain Thomas, I Wrote This For You

“if you were born with
the weakness to fall
you were born with
the strength to rise”

Rupi Kaur, Milk and Honey (Page 156)

“Similar to using an opponent’s energy to gain an advantage, leaning on your calloused mind in the heat of battle can shift your thinking as well.  Remembering what you’ve been through and how that has strengthened your mindset can lift you out of a negative brain loop and help you bypass those weak, one-second impulses to give in so you can power through obstacles.”

David Goggins, Can’t Hurt Me

“I’m not stuck in this belief that challenges are given to us to hold us back.  I am lifted up by the belief that challenges are here to help us move forwards—and that is the difference.  That is the only difference between people who are living a passionate, proud life and people who feel sad—or people who get older and feel like they don’t know what they’re doing anymore.”

Claire Wineland (15), TEDxMalibu

“There are no mistakes in life, only lessons.  There is no such thing as a negative experience, only opportunities to grow, learn and advance along the road of self-mastery.  From struggle comes strength.  Even pain can be a wonderful teacher.”

Robin S. Sharma, The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari

“Without suffering and doubts, the mind will come to rest on clichés and stay there, until the spirit dies as well.  You must continually start over and challenge yourself.”

Robert Greene, Mastery

“Whatever happens, keep moving. Get through it. Choose to live. ‘Cause even on the worst day, there are people who love you. There’s new music waiting for you to hear; something you haven’t seen before that will blow your mind in the best way. Even on the worst day, life is a pretty spectacular thing.”

Clay Jensen, Graduation Speech, 13 Reasons Why (Season 4) (Read Matt’s Blog On This Quote)

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Moving Forward Is About Resilience—Not Privilege

“Those people who tried to bury you didn’t know you were a seed.”

Unknown

“May the flowers remind us why the rain was necessary.”

Xan Oku

“there’s comfort
knowing that
today
i am the worst
i will ever
be
i will keep
growing and
i will be
kinder and
stronger and
braver tomorrow”

breanna morgan (Read Matt’s Blog On This Quote)

“And even if I was struggling yesterday, I am new today. Who I once was does not define who I am becoming.”

Unknown

“The wind does not stop being the wind when it stops blowing.  A wave does not stop being a wave when it crashes against the shore.  A story does not stop being a story when you turn the page.”

Iain Thomas, Every Word you Cannot Say (Page 25)

“One day you will tell your story of how you overcame what you went through and it will be someone else’s survival guide.”

Brené Brown

“If you don’t like how things are, change it! You’re not a tree.”

Jim Rohn (Read Matt’s Blog On This Quote Here)

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Moving Forward Has Everything To Do With Mindset

“Most of the pain you’re dealing with are really just thoughts… ever think of that?

Unknown

“The ultimate thing that stops most of us from making significant progress in our lives is not somebody else’s limitations, but rather our own limiting perceptions or beliefs.  No matter how successful we are as human beings, no matter how high we reach personally, professionally, spiritually, emotionally, there’s always another level.  And to get there, we have to be honest with ourselves; honest about our unconscious fears.”

Tony Robbins, Money: Master the Game

“I believe the world is chaotic and destiny favors the prepared.  Unfortunately, sometimes chaos just refuses the harness, no matter how well you bulletproof your mission and how committed you are to finding a way.  Moving forward despite chaotic conditions—and sometimes because of them—is inherently risky, and since we don’t shy away from risk, you will inevitably experience failure, probably more often than you succeed, actually.”

Mark Divine, The Way of the Seal

“You’re so hard on yourself. Take a moment. Sit back. Marvel at your life: at the grief that softened you, at the heartache that wisened you, at the suffering that strengthened you. Despite everything, you still grow. Be proud of this.”

Unknown (Read Matt’s Blog On This Quote)

“Whatever you’re feeling, be good to yourself. If you feel lost, be patient with yourself while you find your way. If you feel scared, be gentle with yourself while you find the strength to face your fear. If you feel hurt, be kind to yourself while you grieve and slowly heal. You can’t bully yourself into clarity, courage, or peace, and you can’t rush self-discovery or transformation. Some things simply take time, so take the pressure off and give yourself space to grow.”

Lori Deschene

“Anger is like gasoline.  If you spray it around and somebody lights a match you’ve got an inferno.  [But] if we can put our anger inside an engine, it can drive us forward.”

Scilla Elworthy (Read Matt’s Blog On This Quote)

“Breathe in the future, breathe out the past. No matter where you are or what you’re going through, always believe that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Never expect, assume, or demand. Just do your best, control the elements you can control, and then let it be. Because once you have done what you can, if it is meant to be, it will happen, or it will show you the next step that needs to be taken.”

Marc Chernoff

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Forward Is Forward—No Matter The Pace:

“It’s better to do less than you hoped than nothing at all. No zero days.”

James Clear

“Some days life is all about your dreams, hopes and visions for the future. But there are some days where life is just about putting one foot in front of the other. And that’s okay.”

Unknown (See Picture Quote Version)

“It is better to make many small steps in the right direction than to make a great leap forward only to stumble backward.”

Proverb (Read Matt’s Blog On This Quote)

“Can one tiny change transform your life?  It’s unlikely you would say so.  But what if you made another?  And another?  And another?  At some point, you will have to admit that your life was transformed by one small change.  The holy grail of habit change is not a single 1 percent improvement, but a thousand of them.”

James Clear, Atomic Habits

The French have an expression: Reculer pour mieux sauter. This means that you have to step back, retreat a little, if you’re going to successfully jump over something. Want to jump across a ditch? You don’t just walk to the edge and then leap. You walk to the edge, gauge the distance, and then retreat a bit to give yourself room to get a full running start before you leap. Sometimes we can’t take the next leap forward unless we take the time to step back first. Where will you get the strength to sauter (leap forward) if you can’t allow yourself to reculer (pull back)?”

Mira Kirshenbaum, The Gift of a Year (Page 87) (Read Matt’s Blog On This Quote)

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Here Is A Great Place To Start Your Journey Forward

“The journey has moulded you for your greater good, and it was exactly what it needed to be. Don’t think you’ve lost time. There is no short-cutting to life. It took each and every situation you have encountered to bring you to the now. And now is right on time.”

Unknown

“If your head is in the clouds, let your feet be in the dirt. It’s okay to feel your laughter and to also feel your hurt. If they tell you to dream smaller, just hold on a little more, while still being okay with not knowing what’s in store. It’s in the grit and grace you will start to find your place. Under skies blue and grey, you are still well on your way.”

Morgan Harper Nichols (See Picture Quote Version)

“What got us to where we are today is not going to get us to where we need to go tomorrow.”

Blake Mycoskie

“Beginning today, I will create a new future by creating a new me.  No longer will I dwell in a pit of despair, moaning over squandered time and lost opportunity.  I can do nothing about the past.  My future is immediate.  I will grasp it in both hands and carry it with running feet.  When I am faced with the choice of doing nothing or doing something, I will always choose to act!  I seize this moment.  I choose now.”

Andy Andrews (Read Matt’s Blog On This Quote)

“I am fundamentally an optimist. Whether that comes from nature or nurture, I cannot say. Part of being optimistic is keeping one’s head pointed toward the sun, one’s feet moving forward. There were many dark moments when my faith in humanity was sorely tested, but I would not and could not give myself up to despair. That way lays defeat and death.”

Nelson Mandela

“This world is your best teacher. There is a lesson in everything. There is a lesson in each experience. Learn it and become wise. Every failure is a stepping stone to success. Every difficulty or disappointment is a trial of your faith. Every unpleasant incident or temptation is a test of your inner strength. Therefore nil desperandum. March forward hero!”

Swami Sivananda

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Keep Moving Forward Picture Quotes To Share:

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Keep Moving Forward Exercises:

Level 1 Challenge:  Make a firm commitment to yourself right now that regardless of what happens to you in life you’re always going to do your best to keep moving forward.  All you have to do is get in the habit of asking yourself this one question after anything happens to you in your life: “What good can come from this?”  By doing that your mindset will completely change and it will start to give you new, more empowering answers…

Level 2 Challenge:  Pick one quote from the collection above that stood out to you the most and tell us how that quote relates to you and your life.  Tell us why you think it stood out to you so much and what you think others can learn from your unique life experience(s) in relation to it? This exercise will help you internalize the idea of moving forward by connecting it to your life.

Level 3 Challenge:  Share with us a time in your life when you were able to keep moving forward in spite of a very challenging situation that you were facing.  You never know who might relate to your story and find value in what you share!