Let’s face it, we’re all searching for the secret to success to get the edge, secure that promotion, and move effortlessly toward the direction of our aspirations. If this sounds like you, rest assured it’s human nature to want more and to look for shortcuts to self-mastery.
The truth is that finding the motivation to build good habits is what differentiates the mediocre from the extraordinary. If you are willing to apply disciplined daily action in pursuit of your goals with consistency, you will see remarkable results. But we all know this, there’s nothing new here.
When we dig a little deeper, it turns out that it’s the rituals we create in our daily lives that keep us ascending the stairway to success, which sees us rise to our fullest potential and produce at an elite level.
Research conducted by University College London demonstrates that it takes 66 days to install a habit or to reach automaticity—the point where a habit has been integrated and can be performed automatically without willpower.[1]
The key to attaining this is maintaining the willpower to succeed in the days and weeks preceding automaticity, and this is where most people fail. Sometimes, all you need is a little push or flash of insight from an inspirational quote.
Below are 70 of the most potent, life-changing quotations about habits that will supercharge your focus, keep you locked on building good habits, and give you that extra boost to create radical transformation in your life.
Let’s get started…
Find Your Deeper Why’s (What’s Driving You?)
“People tell me all the time, well I’m just not a morning person. You either hate waking up because you go to bed way too late, or because you don’t know the reason you’re getting out of bed.”
―Ryan Serhant
“Definiteness of purpose is the starting point from which one must begin”
―Napoleon Hill
“It’s not about who you are today, it’s about who you want to become and the price you are willing to pay to get there.”
―Tom Bilyeu, Founder Impact Theory
“And actually, it’s not repetition that creates habits. It’s emotions that creates habits.”
―Rangan Chatterjee
“The mystery of human existence lies not in just staying alive, but in finding something to live for.”
―Fyodor Dostoyevsky
“He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.”
―Nietzsche
“The person without a purpose is like a ship without a rudder.”
―Thomas Carlyle
“It’s not enough to have lived. We should be determined to live for something.”
―Winston S. Churchill
“The two most important days in life are the day you born and the day you discover the reason why.”
―Mark Twain
“The great thing in this world is not so much where we are, but in what direction we are going.”
―Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.
The Bigger Picture (What Do You Want for Your Life?)
“Success, like happiness, cannot be pursued. It must ensue. And it only does so as the unintended side of one’s personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself.”
―Viktor Frankl
“I’d tell men and women in their mid-twenties not to settle for a job or a profession or even a career. Seek a calling. Even if you don’t know what that means, seek it. If you’re following your calling, the fatigue will be easier to bear, the disappointments will be fuel, the highs will be like nothing you’ve ever felt.”
―Phil Knight, Shoe Dog
“Do the best you can, until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.”
―Maya Angelou
“If you set your goals ridiculously high and it’s a failure, you will fail above everyone else’s success.”
―James Cameron
“I can and I will. Watch me.”
―Carrie Green, Female Entrepreneur Association
“To bring anything into your life, imagine that it’s already there.”
―Richard Bach
“Successful people do what unsuccessful people are not willing to do. Don’t wish it were easier; wish you were better.”
―Jim Rohn
“Would you like me to give you a formula for success? It’s quite simple, really: Double your rate of failure. You are thinking of failure as the enemy of success. But it isn’t at all. You can be discouraged by failure or you can learn from it, so go ahead and make mistakes. Make all you can. Because remember that’s where you will find success.”
―Thomas J. Watson
“See yourself living in abundance and you will attract it.”
―Rhonda Byrne
Visualizing Your Future Self (Who Will You Become?)
“Success is not to be pursued; it is attracted by the person you become.”
―Jim Rohn
“I’m going to make a difference in the world, you don’t believe it, but say it a million times and you’re going to end up believing it. I’m meant to do something special with my life, there’s no way in the world god put me on this planet to just be a regular guy, no way, the blood in here’s boiling, I want to do some big with my life. This guy was put on the planet to make a difference. Say it over, and over, and over, and over, and over again, convince everybody in the world, the entire time you’re just trying to convince one person, and that is you.”
―Patrick Bet David, Valuetainment
“Set a goal, not only to follow world-class role models, but to become a world-class role model.”
―Steve Siebold, Author
“Always do your best. Your best is going to change from moment to moment; it will be different when you are healthy as opposed to sick. Under any circumstance, simply do your best, and you will avoid self-judgement, self-abuse and regret.”
―Don Miguel Ruiz
“Winners make a habit of manufacturing their own positive expectations in advance of the event.”
―Brian Tracy
“You manifest what you believe, not what you want.”
―Sonia Ricotti
“We become what we think about. Energy flows where attention goes.”
―Rhonda Byrne
“I had a clear vision of myself winning the Mr. Universe contest. It was a very spiritual thing, in a way, because I had such faith in the route, the path, that there was never a question in my mind that I would make it.”
―Arnold Schwartzenegger
“I don’t care how much power, brilliance or energy you have, if you don’t harness it and focus it on a specific target, and hold it there you’re never going to accomplish as much as your ability warrants.”
―Zig Ziglar
“A person is only limited by the thoughts that he chooses.”
―James Allen
The Heart of the Matter (Action Inspires Motivation)
“The price of greatness is responsibility.”
―Winston Churchill
“Each day is an opportunity to craft your best life. Each day brings a chance to choose your greatness.”
―Robin Sharma
“Many people want to change their life, but they are not will to change their choices, and ultimately this changes nothing.”
―MJ DeMarco, The Millionaire Fastlane
“What you do every day matters more than what you do once in a while”.
―Gretchen Rubin
“I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.”
―Nelson Mandela
“The secret of getting ahead is getting started.”
―Mark Twain
“Whether you think you can or think you can’t, you’re right.”
―Henry Ford
“You can’t hit a home run unless you step up to the plate. You can’t catch a fish unless you put your line in the water. You can’t reach your goals if you don’t try.”
―Kathy Seligman
“Destiny is not a matter of chance, it is a matter of choice.”
―William Jennings Bryan
“Good things come to people who wait, but better things come to those who go out and get them.”
―Abraham Lincoln
How to Play the Game (of Life)
“We must be willing to roll the dice and lose. Prepare, at the end of the day, for none of it to work.”
―Ryan Holiday
“As long as you live, keep learning how to live.”
―Seneca
“The Goldilocks Rule states that humans experience peak motivation when working on tasks that are right on the edge of their current abilities. Not too hard. Not too easy. Just right.”
―James Clear, Atomic Habits
“I think goals should never be easy, they should force you to work, even if they are uncomfortable at the time.”
—Michael Phelps
“The law of life is the law of belief.”
―Joseph Murphy, Ph.D.
“Go the extra mile, it’s never crowded.”
―Jay Shetty
“Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth that ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favour all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now.”
―Goethe
“Wheresoever you go, go with all your heart.”
―Confucius
“I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life and that is why I succeed.”
―Michael Jordan
“One of the secrets of life is to make stepping stones out of stumbling blocks.”
―Jack Penn
“Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.”
―Abraham Lincoln
“The key to life is accepting challenges. Once someone stops doing this, he’s dead.”
―Bette Davis
Give Your Gift to the World
“There will never be anyone exactly like you. You were given special gifts and talents to share with the world, and even though everybody has special gifts and talents, nobody will use theirs quite the same way you do.”
―Jen Sincero
“At some point, the pain of not doing it becomes greater than the pain of doing it.”
―Steven Pressfield, The War of Art
“You have a masterpiece inside you, you know. One unlike any that has ever been created, or ever will be. If you go to your grave without painting your masterpiece, it will not get painted. No one else can paint it. Only you.”
―Gordon Mackenzie
“There is a place that you are to fill and no one else can fill, something you are to do, which no one else can do.”
―Florence Scovel Shinn, The Game of Life
“Don’t be in the business of playing it safe. Be in the business of creating possibilities for greatness.”
―Robert Iger, Chairman of Disney
“Remember that the happiest people are not those getting more, but those giving more.”
―H. Jackson Brown Jr.
“You have not lived today until you have done something for someone who can never repay you.”
―John Bunyan
“Try not to become a man of success. Rather become a man of value.”
―Albert Einstein
“The purpose of life is to contribute in some way to make things better.”
―Robert F. Kennedy
“You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late.”
―Ralph Waldo Emerson
Having Faith (in the Journey)
“May you see a clear sign that your prayers are working and unfolding.”
―Idil Ahmed
“I let go of my need to control and allow the universe to do her thing.”
―Gabrielle Bernstein
“When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.”
―Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist
“The only impossible journey is the one you never begin.”
―Tony Robbins
“Do not wait; the time will never be ‘just right.’ Start where you stand, and work with whatever tools you may have at your command, and better tools will be found as you go along.”
―Napoleon Hill
“Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap, but by the seeds that you plant.”
―Robert Louis Stevenson
“Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.”
―Andre Gide
“Life is a journey, and if you fall in love with the journey, you will be in love forever.”
―Peter Hagerty
“Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on earth.”
―Muhammad Ali
Final Remarks
I hope you find these quotations about habits useful and inspirational. As we’ve discovered, finding the motivation to sustain the practice of building good habits is worth it. The difference is a multifactorial approach that combines your deepest desires, playing the game of life, connecting with your future self, and believing it is all possible for you.
Installing good habits is where you’ll create your ultimate advantage. The good news is that if you can keep it up for 66 days despite the constant demands of life, you’ll reach automaticity.
When you acknowledge this powerful driver within yourself and tap into it daily, you become an unstoppable force for good and open the doorway for remarkable things to happen.
Now is the time to take charge of your life and step through the doorway to success daily.
More Tips About Building Good Habits
- 18 Tricks to Make New Habits Stick
- How to Build Good Habits
- 14 Books About Building Better Habits That Will Change Your Life
Featured photo credit: Pietro De Grandi via unsplash.com
Reference
| [1] | ^ | UCL News: How long does it take to form a habit? |
