“Careful what you wish for. Because wishes don’t always come true, but wishing takes a lot of time and energy and focus. What you wish for determines how you’re spending a juicy part of your day. If you wish for something you can’t control, that might fill you with frustration or distract you from wishing that could lead to productive work. Better to wish for something where the wishing itself is a useful act, one that shifts your attitude and focus.”
Seth Godin
“Exerting more effort doesn’t help if you’re on the wrong trajectory.
– Working harder on the wrong thing just wastes more time.
– Learning more from a biased source will lead you further from the truth.
– Doubling down on a toxic relationship only sets you up for more headaches.
Before you try harder, make sure you are walking a path that leads where you want to go.”
James Clear
“There’s so much messaging today about how you always have to be yourself and trust your feelings. But I tell people, ‘be un-you.’ Like, what is the opposite of what you feel like doing right now? Or who is someone you really admire—what would they do in this moment? And I actually think that can get us closer to the versions of ourselves that we would like to be…Separating oneself from one’s impulse, taking a healthy step back and gaining some distance between what you feel like doing and what’s actually going to help you—you’ll make a better choice.”
Dr. Samantha Boardman
“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves… Live the questions now. Perhaps you will gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”
Bessel van der Kolk, The Body Keeps The Score (Page 89) | ★ Featured on this book list.
“Our definitions of ‘success’ are maybe the most common way we torture ourselves with arbitrary standards and made-up problems. It’s one reason I advise people to be careful and hold their goals lightly—because while goals may motivate you in the short run, a poorly defined version of success can really make you suffer in the long run.”
Mark Manson
“When I think back to my childhood, I visualize my father, my mother, and Gigi arranged as a philosophical triangle. My father was one side of the triangle: discipline. He taught me how to work, how to be relentless. He instilled in me an ethic that ‘It’s better to die than to quit.’ My mother: education. She believed that knowledge was the irrevocable key to a successful life. She wanted me to study, to learn, to grow, to cultivate a deep and broad understanding, to either ‘know what you’re talking about or be quiet.’ Gigi: love (God). Whereas I tried to please my mother and father so I wouldn’t get into trouble, I wanted to please Gigi so that I could bathe in that transcendent ecstasy of divine love. These three ideas—discipline, education, love—would fight for my attention throughout the rest of my life.”
Will Smith, Will (Page 39)
“No action should be undertaken without aim, or other than in conformity with a principle affirming the art of life.”
Marcus Aurelius, Meditations (Page 23)
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“Feelings do not inform you of the right decisions to make. Right decisions create the right feelings. Your feelings are not intended to guide you throughout life; that is what your mind is for. If you were to honestly follow your every impulse, you would be completely stuck, complacent, and possibly dead or at the very least in severe trouble. You aren’t, because your brain is able to intervene and instruct you on how to make choices that reflect what you want to be experiencing long-term.”
Brianna Wiest, The Mountain Is You (Page 94)
“What are the chances that the busiest person you know is actually the most productive? We tend to associate busyness with goodness and believe that spending many hours at work should be rewarded. Instead, evaluate what you are doing, why you are doing it, and where accomplishing it will take you. If you don’t have a good answer, then stop.”
Ryan Holiday, The Daily Stoic (Page 164)