You must take personal responsibility.
You cannot change the circumstances, the seasons,
or the wind, but you can change yourself.
That is something you have charge of.
You don’t have charge of the constellations,
but you do have charge of whether you read,
develop new skills, and take new classes.
—Jim Rohn (1930–2009) American Entrepreneur, Author, Motivational Speaker
People with a high level of personal mastery are able to consistently realize the results that matter most deeply to them—in effect, they approach their life as an artist would approach a work of art. The do that by becoming committed to their own lifelong learning.
—Peter Senge (b.1947) American Management Consultant, Author, Scientist
A long, healthy, and happy life is the result of making contributions, of having meaningful projects that are personally exciting and contribute to and bless the lives of others.
—Stephen Covey (1932–2012) American Self-help Author
All the great performers I have worked with are fueled by a personal dream.
—John Eliot (b.1971) American Psychologist, Academic
Personal relationships are the fertile soil from which all advancement, all success, all achievement in real life grows.
—Ben Stein (b.1944) American Lawyer, Writer, Economist, Humorist
The personal power that comes from principle-centered living is the power of a self-aware, knowledgeable, proactive individual, unrestricted by the attitudes, behaviors, and actions of others or by many of the circumstances and environmental influences that limit other people.
—Stephen Covey (1932–2012) American Self-help Author
Effective people stay out of Quadrants III and IV because, urgent or not, they aren’t important. They also shrink Quadrant I down to size by spending more time in Quadrant II…Quadrant II is the heart of effective personal management.
—Stephen Covey (1932–2012) American Self-help Author
When you work in the inner mind, you invoke and receive the help of the impersonal, unlimited resources of the universe.
—Roger McDonald (b.1941) Australian Novelist, Poet, Screenwriter, Writer
A successful person realizes his personal responsibility for self-motivation. He starts with himself because he possesses the key to his own ignition switch.
—Kemmons Wilson (1913–2003) American Entrepreneur, Hotelier
I have come to the frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element. It is my personal approach that creates the climate. It is my daily mood that makes the weather. I possess tremendous power to make life miserable or joyous. I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration, I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal. In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis is escalated or de-escalated, and a person is humanized or de-humanized. If we treat people as they are, we make them worse. If we treat people as they ought to be, we help them become what they are capable of becoming.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German Poet
Happiness is yours in the here and now. The painful states of anxiety and loneliness are abolished permanently. Financial affairs are not financial problems. You are at ease with yourself. You are not at the mercy of unfulfilled cravings. Confusion is replaced with clarity. There is a relieving answer to every tormenting question. You possess a True Self. Something can be done about every unhappy condition. While living in the world you can be inwardly detached from its sorrows to live with personal peace and sanity.
—Vernon Howard (1918–92) American Spiritual Teacher, Philosopher
Impeccability of the word can lead you to personal freedom, to huge success and abundance; it can take away all fear and transform it into joy and love.
—Miguel Angel Ruiz (b.1952) Mexican Spiritualist Author
What one thing could you do in your personal and professional life that, if you did on a regular basis, would make a tremendous positive difference in your life? Quadrant II activities have that kind of impact. Our effectiveness takes quantum leaps when we do them.
—Stephen Covey (1932–2012) American Self-help Author
As one studies these preconditions, one becomes saddened by the ease with which human potentiality can be destroyed or repressed, so that a fully-human person can seem like a miracle, so improbable a happening as to be awe-inspiring. And simultaneously one is heartened by the fact that self-actualizing persons do in fact exist, that they are therefore possible, that the gauntlet of dangers can be run, that the finish line can be crossed.
—Abraham Maslow (1908–70) American Psychologist, Academic, Humanist
Personally, I now aim for one month of overseas relocation or high-intensity learning (tango, fighting, whatever) for every two months of work projects.
—Tim Ferriss (b.1977) American Self-help Author
Your first duty to God, to yourself, and to the world is to make yourself as great a personality, in every way, as you possibly can.
—Wallace Wattles (1860–1911) American New Thought Author
The yoga we practice is not for ourselves alone, but for the Divine; its aim is to work out the will of the Divine in the world, to effect a spiritual transformation and to bring down a divine nature and a divine life into the mental, vital and physical nature and life of humanity. Its object is not personal Mukti, although Mukti is a necessary condition of the yoga, but the liberation and transformation of the human being. It is not personal Ananda, but the bringing down of the divine Ananda—Christ’s kingdom of heaven, our Satyayuga—upon the earth.
—Sri Aurobindo (1872–1950) Indian Mystic, Philosopher, Poet
Your programming leads to your thoughts; your thoughts lead to your feelings; your feelings lead to your actions; your actions leads to your results. Therefore, just as is done with a personal computer, by changing your programming, you take the first essential step to changing your results.
—T. Harv Eker (b.1954) American Motivational Speaker, Lecturer, Author
In effective personal leadership, visualization and affirmation techniques emerge naturally out of a foundation of well thought through purposes and principles that become the center of a person’s life.
—Stephen Covey (1932–2012) American Self-help Author
The benefits of becoming fluent in a foreign tongue are as underestimated as the difficulty is overestimated. Thousands of theoretical linguists will disagree, but I know from research and personal experimentation with more than a dozen languages that (1) adults can learn languages much faster than children when constant 9-5 work is removed and that (2) it is possible to become conversationally fluent in any language in six months or less. At four hours per day, six months can be whittled down to less than three months.
—Tim Ferriss (b.1977) American Self-help Author
To excel means to reach beyond the best you have ever given because doing so matters to you personally, for its own sake. It means to run your own race—as an individual, team, or organization. To excel is to know your greatest strengths and passions, and to emphasize them while honestly admitting and managing your weaknesses.
—Robert Cooper (b.1947) British Diplomat
A human being is a part of the whole, called by us “Universe,” a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest—a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. Nobody is able to achieve this completely, but the striving for such achievement is in itself a part of the liberation and a foundation for inner security.
—Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born Physicist
Cast out envy; you can have all that you want, and you need not envy any man what he has. Above all things, see to it that you do not hold malice or enmity toward any one; to do so cuts you off from the mind whose treasures you seek to make your own. Lay aside all narrow personal ambition and determine to seek the highest good.
—Wallace Wattles (1860–1911) American New Thought Author
I recognize thart even you, yourself, will change. Your ideals will change, your tastes will change, your desires will change. Your whole understandings of who you are had better change, because if it doesn’t change, you’ve become a very static personality over a great many years, and nothing would displease me more. And so I recognize that the process of evolution will produce changes in you.
—Neale Donald Walsch (b.1943) American Spiritual Writer
Each man has his own vocation. The talent is the call. There is one direction in which all space is open to him. He has faculties silently inviting him thither to endless exertion. He is like a ship in a river; he runs against obstructions on every side but one; on that side all obstruction is taken away, and he sweeps serenely over a deepening channel into an infinite sea. This talent and this call depend on his organization, or the mode in which the general soul incarnates itself in him. He inclines to do something which is easy to him, and good when it is done, but which no other man can do. He has no rival. For the more truly he consults his own powers, the more difference will his work exhibit from the work of any other. His ambition is exactly proportioned to his powers. The height of the pinnacle is determined by the breadth of the base. Every man has this call of the power to do somewhat unique, and no man has any other call. The pretence that he has another call, a summons by name and personal election and outward “signs that mark him extraordinary, and not in the roll of common men,” is fanaticism, and betrays obtuseness to perceive that there is one mind in all the individuals, and no respect of persons therein.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
Then, accepting the help of God and of God’s signs, he allows his personal legend to guide him toward the tasks that life has reserved for him.
—Paulo Coelho (b.1947) Brazilian Songwriter, Novelist
Personal mastery is the discipline of continually clarifying and deepening our personal vision, of focusing our energies, of developing patience, and of seeing reality objectively.
—Peter Senge (b.1947) American Management Consultant, Author, Scientist
I believe that a life of integrity I the most fundamental source of personal worth. I do not agree with the popular success literature that says that self-esteem is primarily a matter of mind set, of attitude—that you can psych yourself into peace of mind. Peace of mind comes when your life is in harmony with true principles and values and in no other way.
—Stephen Covey (1932–2012) American Self-help Author
One cannot choose wisely for a life unless he dares to listen to himself, his own self, at each moment of his life.
—Abraham Maslow (1908–70) American Psychologist, Academic, Humanist
Enthusiasm is one of the most powerful engines of success. When you do a thing, do it with all your might. Put your whole soul into it. Stamp it with your own personality. Be active, be energetic, be enthusiastic and faithful, and you will accomplish your object. Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher