Quotes About Persistence

Q: Why is targeted, mistake-focused practice so effective? A: Because the best way to build a good circuit is to fire it, attend to mistakes, then fire it again, over and over. Struggle is not an option: it's a biological requirement.

As Wooden also said, "Don't look for the big, quick improvement. Seek the small improvement one day at a time. That's the only way it happens—and when it happens, it lasts.

Q: Why is targeted, mistake-focused practice so effective? A: Because the best way to build a good circuit is to fire it, attend to mistakes, then fire it again, over and over. Struggle is not an option: it's a biological requirement. Q: Why are passion and persistence key ingredients of talent? A: Because wrapping myelin around a big circuit requires immense energy and time. If you don't love it, you'll never work hard enough to be great.

Deep practice is not simply about struggling; it's about seeking out a particular struggle, which involves a cycle of distinct actions. Pick a target. Reach for it. Evaluate the gap between the target and the reach. Return to step one. Judging

As Vladimir Horowitz, the virtuoso pianist who kept performing into his eighties, put it, "If I skip practice for one day, I notice. If I skip practice for two days, my wife notices. If I skip for three days, the world notices.

Deep practice is not simply about struggling; it's about seeking out a particular struggle, which involves a cycle of distinct actions. Pick a target. Reach for it. Evaluate the gap between the target and the reach. Return to step one.

Repetition is the key to learning.

I genuinely believe that if you want to get in the film business, get in the film business.

When I've gone back to work, it's always with that sense of inevitability. That may be a complete delusion, but it's the one that I need to get out of bed and go about my business. That sense that I can't avoid this thing. I better just get on with it.

if we stick with a task too long, we lose sight of the goal

Sales and theater have much in common. Both take guts. Salespeople pick up the phone and call strangers; actors walk onto the stage in front of them. Both invite rejection—for salespeople, slammed doors, ignored calls, and a pile of nos; for actors, a failed audition, an unresponsive audience, a scathing review. And both have evolved along comparable trajectories.

The most successful people, the evidence shows, often aren't directly pursuing conventional notions of success. They're working hard and persisting through difficulties because of their internal desire to control their lives, learn about their world, and accomplish something that endures.

mastery often involves working and working and showing little improvement

According to a cluster of recent behavioral science studies, autonomous motivation promotes greater conceptual understanding, better grades, enhanced persistence at school and in sporting activities, higher productivity, less burnout, and greater levels of psychological well-being.3

I used to believe that the best way to overcome a bad start at work, at school, or at home was to shake it off and move on. Now I believe the better approach is to start again or start together.

This is one of the central findings on regret: it can deepen persistence, which almost always elevates performance.

mastery—the desire to get better and better at something that matters.

How to stay afloat amid that ocean of rejection is the second essential quality in moving others. I call this quality "buoyancy.

As they explained, "Whereas the importance of working harder is easily apprehended, the importance of working longer without switching objectives may be less perceptible . . . in every field, grit may be as essential as talent to high accomplishment."14

They're working hard and persisting through difficulties because of their internal desire to control their lives, learn about their world, and accomplish something that endures.

The more you explain bad events as temporary, specific, and external, the more likely you are to persist even in the face of adversity.

Building a prayer culture takes time. . . and relentless pressure over time. I often say that it is much more a crock pot than a microwave.

Daniel Ichbiah

I did graduate with a bachelor's degree in civil engineering in 1948.