Quotes about Personal Growth

WE'VE BEEN TALKING about meaningful pursuits, but there are meaningful experiences as well. Here the bar is dropped somewhat. These can be more passive and don't necessarily involve achieving a goal. What seems to be key here is that they will change you in some way.

I've always wanted to get as far as possible from the place where I was born. Far both geographically and spiritually. To leave it behind ... I feel that life is very short and the world is there to see and one should know as much about it as possible. One belongs to the whole world, not just one part of it.

The distinguished psychologist Martin Seligman has conducted a sustained programme of research on the attainment of well-being. His conclusion is unambiguous: 'If you want well-being, you will not get it if you only care about accomplishment . . . Close personal relationships are not everything in life, but they are central.'14

Every time you ask for forgiveness, you recognize that the biggest problems you face in life exist inside of you, not outside of you.

Self-control is a fruit of his work.

Self-improvement is important, but it needs to be conducive to your happiness. If an ambition will not make you or those you care about any happier, then there really is no point in striving to be someone else. You should carefully consider your reasons for the ideal self you construct and then select goals and ambitions that are sensible and conducive to your happiness.

At commencement you wear your square-shaped mortarboards. My hope is that from time to time you will let your minds be bold, and wear sombreros.

if you can imagine someone surpassing you, you should do it yourself.

Feeling sorry for yourself is a universal solvent of salvation.

I know everything I know about.

Relationships don't only fail because the person you're with turns out to be the wrong person; they also fail when you yourself aren't yet the person you need to be.

Goal setting is the most important aspect of all improvement and personal development plans. Confidence is important, determination is vital, certain personality traits contribute to success, but they all come into focus in goal setting.

A single day is enough to make us a little larger.

You raise your child the best you can. You release the child into the world, like launching a toy sailboat in a pond. Except the world is not a placid pond. More often, it is a raging sea, and life a perfect storm of the unexpected crashing head-on into the unbearable. There is no way to prepare the child for such a world because your own personal crises, traumas and failures are just that, your own. Your child, as you will belatedly learn, is not you.

unpossessive. Before his parents left, Al once again paid him the highest compliment about his relationship with me. "You boys are the best friends I've ever seen," he said. "You're like Damon and Pythias." It's a long way for a man to come who couldn't look me in the face for a year after Roger finally told him he was gay. A century

When you finally come out, there's a pain that stops, and you know it will never hurt like that again, no matter how much you lose or how bad you die.

You only grow when you are alone.

I never ask my wife about my flaws. Instead I try to get her to ignore them and concentrate on my sense of humor. You don't want any woman to look under the carpet, guys, because there's lots of flaws underneath. Joanne believes my character in a film we did together, 'Mr. and Mrs. Bridge' comes closest to who I really am. I personally don't think there's one character who comes close . . . but I learned a long time ago not to disagree on things that I don't have a solid opinion about.

most people looking for help with relationship problems react all day to the actions of other people and thereby generate their own negative reactions to people. This, he insists, is a habit, and like any other habit, it can be changed.

By feeling secure in my defenselessness, I am able to be my own person. I behave like a successful member of A.A., like a person who practices the Twelve Steps in all his affairs and has ceased fighting everything and everybody. I literally win by not taking the bait, by not fighting.

you have chosen the person most able to help you grow in emotional maturity.

What would your life be like if you had the courage and wisdom to take charge? What if you made up your mind that from now on for the rest of your life, you alone would decide how you were going to feel? What kind of emotional life would you choose for yourself?

As we grow in the program, we realize that assigning blame is not only a waste of time, it is a serious impediment to emotional independence and peace of mind. It really doesn't matter who is to blame. That's not the important question. The important question is who will be the first to take a leadership role in recovery? Who will be the first to surrender, to call a truce, to bring joy and love back into the relationship?

They displayed more emotional independence, more emotional sobriety, more maturity. I, on the other hand, allowed a person whose actions I didn't like to control my emotional sobriety.