“If we want to be high-functioning and happy, we need to re-learn how to be still. When we feel like there isn’t enough time in the day for us to get everything done, when we wish for more time… we don’t actually need more time. We need more stillness. Stillness to recharge. Stillness so that we can feel whatever it is that we feel. Stillness so that we can actually enjoy this life that we are living.” ~ Christine Carter, Greater Good
“You and I must realize that the English language is filled with words that, in addition to their literal meanings, convey distinct emotional intensity. For example, if you develop a habit of saying you ‘hate’ things – you ‘hate’ your hair; you ‘hate’ your job; you ‘hate’ having to do something – do you think this raises the intensity of your negative emotional states more than if you use a phrase like ‘I prefer something else’?” ~ Anthony Robbins, Awaken the Giant Within
“People with an impoverished vocabulary live an impoverished emotional life; people with rich vocabularies have a multihued palette of colors with which to paint their experience, not only for others, but for themselves as well.” ~ Anthony Robbins, Awaken the Giant Within
“Throughout human history, our greatest leaders and thinkers have used the power of words to transform our emotions, to enlist us in their causes, and to shape the course of destiny. Words can not only create emotions, they create actions. And from our actions flow the results of our lives.” ~ Anthony Robbins, Awaken the Giant Within
“There’s a big difference between an affirmation and a question. When you say to yourself, “I’m happy; I’m happy; I’m happy,” this might cause you to feel happy if you produce enough emotional intensity, change your physiology and therefore your state. But in reality, you can make affirmations all day long and not really change how you feel. What will really change the way you feel is asking, “What am I happy about now? What could I be happy about if I wanted to be? How would that make me feel?” If you keep asking questions like this, you’ll come up with real references that will make you begin to focus on reasons that do in fact exist for you to feel happy. You’ll feel certain that you’re happy.” ~ Anthony Robbins, Awaken the Giant Within
“If you want access to the files of valuable information in a computer, you must understand how to retrieve the data by asking for it with the proper commands. Likewise, what enables you to get anything you want from your own personal databanks is the commanding power of asking questions.” ~ Anthony Robbins, Awaken the Giant Within
“It’s not the events that shape my life that determine how I feel and act, but, rather, it’s the way I interpret and evaluate my life experiences. The meaning I attach to an event will determine the decisions I make, the actions I take, and therefore my ultimate destiny.” ~ Anthony Robbins, Awaken the Giant Within
“All that you really want in life is to change how you feel. Again, all your emotions are nothing but biochemical storms in your brain, and you are in control of them at any moment in time. You can feel ecstasy right now, or you can feel pain or depression or overwhelmed – it’s all up to you. You don’t need drugs or anything else to do it.” ~ Anthony Robbins, Awaken the Giant Within
“Experience is not what happens to a man; it is what a man does with what happens to him.” ~ Aldous Huxley, via Awaken the Giant Within
“As the fletcher whittles and makes straight his arrows, so the master directs his straying thoughts.” ~ The Buddha, via Awaken the Giant Within
“If you see children walking along the sidewalk after a rain, and there’s a puddle in front of them, what are they going to do when they get to that puddle? They’re going to jump in! They’re going to laugh, splash around, and have a good time. What does an older person do? Walk around it? No, they won’t just walk around it – they’ll complain the whole time! You want to live differently. You want to live with a spring in your step, a smile on your face. Why not make cheerfulness, outrageousness, playfulness a new priority for yourself? Make feeling good your expectation. You don’t have to have a reason to feel good – you’re alive; you can feel good for no reason at all!“ ~ Anthony Robbins, Awaken the Giant Within
“To paraphrase the philosopher Nietzsche, he who has a strong enough why can bear almost any how. I’ve found that 20 percent of any change is knowing how; but 80 percent is knowing why. If we gather a set of strong enough reasons to change, we can change in a minute something we’ve failed to change for years.” ~ Anthony Robbins, Awaken the Giant Within
“We’ve got to remember that we get whatever we focus on in life. If we keep focusing on what we don’t want, we’ll have more of it. The first step to creating any change is deciding what you do want so that you have something to move toward.” ~ Anthony Robbins, Awaken the Giant Within
“The beginning of a habit is like an invisible thread, but every time we repeat the act we strengthen the strand, add to it another filament, until it becomes a great cable and binds us irrevocably, thought and act.” ~ Orison Swett Marden, via Awaken the Giant Within
“Each time you indulge in the emotion of anger or the behavior of yelling at a loved one, you reinforce the neural connection and increase the likelihood that you’ll do it again.” ~ Anthony Robbins, Awaken the Giant Within
“Remember: courage, unused, diminishes. Commitment, unexercised, wanes. Love, unshared, dissipates.” ~ Anthony Robbins, Awaken the Giant Within
“The professional does not wait for inspiration; he acts in anticipation of it.” ~ Steven Pressfield, Turning Pro
“The amateur has a long list of fears. Near the top are two: Solitude and silence. The amateur fears solitude and silence because she needs to avoid, at all costs, the voice inside her head that would point her toward her calling and her destiny. So she seeks distraction. The amateur prizes shallowness and shuns depth. The culture of Twitter and Facebook is paradise for the amateur.” ~ Steven Pressfield, Turning Pro