Quotes About Motivation

There's always a gap between "what I have now" and "what I would like." And that gap is all of your excuses.

When I was at my worst, the first thing I had to do was convince myself that I could succeed again. Then, and only then, could I take the first step back—the tiniest step that would release me from my fears and anxieties and allow me to move forward, if not to mastery, then at least to success.

Get Paid, Get Laid, Lose Weight"—because those are the three things people will pay for.

When I was at my worst, the first thing I had to do was convince myself that I could succeed again.

There's always a gap between "what I have now" and "what I would like." And that gap is all of your excuses. All it takes to close the gap is to be creative and work your way through the excuses. I repeat: this is all it takes.

I was too demoralized to stop it or to start anything new. I would lie around, unable to get myself back up and start generating new ideas.

At any point in your career, you are either a thermostat or a thermometer. You either define the temperature of the people around you and help them achieve their goals and dreams, or you simply do as you're told and be a follower and never inspire. How do you become the thermostat?

In other words, just do it. Leave behind everyone else's definitions or else you will drown in them. Why listen to him? He made 50,000 works of art in his life. On average two per day.

When an idea has electricity in it you will have no choice but to move into action. And you will love it because it will set your heart on fire.

When you have ideas, you'll quickly get freedom. When you get freedom, you'll have the energy to build more ideas, to generate more abundance, to live the life you want to live.

In order to act, you must be somewhat insane. A reasonably sensible man is satisfied with thinking.

And: the only way anything ever gets done is when you make up your mind to do it.

I remember feeling dimly that there was a kind of blackmail in it. People, I felt, ought to love the Lord because they loved Him, and not because they were afraid of going to Hell.

Burke is a great man by nature, and is expected soon to attain civil greatness. I am grown greater too, for I have maintained the newspapers these many weeks; and what is greater still, I have risen every morning since New-year's day, at about eight; when I was up, I have indeed done but little; yet it is no slight advancement to obtain for so many hours more, the consciousness of being.

The envisioned future should be so exciting in its own right that it would continue to keep the organization motivated even if the leaders who set the goal disappeared.

We find out who they are by asking them why they made decisions in their life. The answers to these questions give us insight into their core values.33

because expending energy trying to motivate people is largely a waste of time.

Second, if you have the right people on the bus, the problem of how to motivate and manage people largely goes away.

A true BHAG (Big, Hairy, Audacious Goals) is clear and compelling, serves as a unifying focal point of effort, and acts as a catalyst for team spirit. It has a clear finish line, so the organization can know when it has achieved the goal; people like to shoot for finish lines. A BHAG engages people—it reaches out and grabs them. It is tangible, energizing, highly focused. People get it right away; it takes little or no explanation.

As people decide among themselves to turn the fact of potential into the fact of results, the goal almost sets itself.

Level 5 leaders are fanatically driven, infected with an incurable need to produce sustained results.

Spending time and energy trying to "motivate" people is a waste of effort. The real question is not, "How do we motivate our people?" If you have the right people, they will be self-motivated. The key is to not de-motivate them. One of the primary ways to de-motivate people is to ignore the brutal facts of reality.

This brings us to a central truth about organizations: they are inherently messy. There are no panaceas, no structures that solve all problems. Any attempts to completely eliminate the mess are doomed to failure. Yes, there are costly inefficiencies in decentralization, but the fire of personal ownership—of being our own little business—elevates human motivation and stimulates innovation in powerful, albeit somewhat chaotic, ways.

Leaders of great companies are always moving forward—progressing—as individuals (personal growth) and they pass this ever forward psychology along to the company. They have a high energy level and never become complacent.