Quotes About Achievement

never dreamed about winning a national championship. It happened before I even thought it was possible. What I was dreaming about each year, if you want to call it that, was trying to produce the best basketball team we could be.

Set your standards high; namely, do the absolute best of which you are capable. Focus on running the race rather than winning it. Do those things necessary to bring forth your personal best and don't lose sleep worrying about the competition. Let the competition lose sleep worrying about you. Teach your organization to do the same.

I never dreamed about winning a national championship. What I was dreaming about was trying to produce the best basketball team we could be. My thoughts were directed toward preparation, our journey, not the results of the effort. That would simply have shifted my attention to the wrong area, hoping for something out of my control.

You must define success as making the complete effort to maximize your ability, skills, and potential in whatever circumstances—good or bad—may exist.

Remember That Success Can Take Months—or Years—to Achieve but Can Be Undone in Minutes.

Never mistake mere activity for accomplishment

Personal greatness is not determined by the size of the job, but by the size of the effort one puts into the job. This applies to everyone on the team.

And that, in my opinion, is the first goal of leadership—namely, getting the very best out of the people in your organization, whether they have talent to spare or are spare on talent.

Failing to prepare is preparing to fail . . . Never mistake activity for achievement . .

Even at 94, I want to be the best I can be, and hard work is the only way to make this happen.

Long-Term Success Requires Short-Term Focus.

Make Every Day Your Masterpiece!

A Successful Journey Is the Destination

Mix idealism with realism and add hard work. This will often bring much more than you could ever hope for.

I'm very proud of the fact that while all the records were being set at UCLA by our basketball teams, I felt exactly the same way. Family is first. Always. Always.

Our teams at UCLA had four perfect seasons, but we never played a perfect game, never played as well as we could. That's perfection. We didn't reach perfection, but we constantly strove toward it.

It is most difficult in my mind, to seperate success, whether it be in your profession, your family, or as in my case, in basketball, from religion.

Peace of mind attained only through self-satisfaction in knowing you made the effort to do the best of which you're capable.

Achievement will continue at the same or a greater level only if you do not permit the infection of success to take hold of you and your organization. The symptom of that infection is called complacency. Contentment with past accomplishments or acceptance of the status quo can derail an organization quickly. In sports or business, getting to the top is difficult. One of the reasons staying there is so rare is because the infection sets in.

Try your hardest in all ways and you are a success.

Ultimately, I believe that's what leadership is all about: helping others to achieve their own greatness by helping the organization to succeed.

You never fail if you know in your heart that you did the best of which you are capable. I did my best. That is all I could do.

Success is having to worry about every damn thing in the world, except money.

But if I had lived to be twenty-nine years old like I am, and with all my chances made no enemy, I'd feel myself a failure.