Quotes About Dedication

mastery often involves working and working and showing little improvement

Remember that deliberate practice has one objective: to improve performance. "People who play tennis once a week for years don't get any better if they do the same thing each time

When the reward is the activity itself—deepening learning, delighting customers, doing one's best—there are no shortcuts. The only route to the destination is the high road. In some sense, it's impossible to act unethically because the person who's disadvantaged isn't a competitor but yourself.

A little kid's life bursts with autotelic experiences. Children careen from one flow moment to another, animated by a sense of joy, equipped with a mindset of possibility, and working with the dedication of a West Point cadet. They use their brains and their bodies to probe and draw feedback from the environment in an endless pursuit of mastery. Then—at some point in their lives—they don't. What happens?

You need not see what someone is doing to know if it is his vocation,   you have only to watch his eyes: a cook mixing a sauce, a surgeon   making a primary incision, a clerk completing a bill of lading,   wear the same rapt expression, forgetting themselves in a function.   How beautiful it is, that eye-on-the-object look.   —W. H. Auden

Many characteristics once believed to reflect innate talent are actually the results of intense practice for a minimum of 10 years."11 Mastery—of sports, music, business—requires effort (difficult, painful, excruciating, all-consuming effort) over a long time (not a week or a month, but a decade).

Talent Is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else BY GEOFF COLVIN

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

Talent Is Overrated: What Really Separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else BY GEOFF COLVIN     What's

Effort means you care about something, that something is important to you and you are willing to work for it. It would be an impoverished existence if you

But the teacher works to convince his class to part with resources—time, attention, effort—and if they do, they will be better off when the term ends than they were when it began.

Not always, but a lot of the time, when you are doing a piece for someone else it becomes more "work" than joy. When I work for myself there is the pure joy of creating and I can work through the night and not even know it.

The most deeply motivated people—not to mention those who are most productive and satisfied—hitch their desires to a cause larger than themselves. Motivation

Children careen from one flow moment to another, animated by a sense of joy, equipped with a mindset of possibility, and working with the dedication of a West Point cadet. They use their brains and their bodies to probe and draw feedback from the environment in an endless pursuit of mastery. Then—at some point in their lives—they don't. What happens? "You start to get ashamed that what you're doing is childish," Csikszentmihalyi explained.

Those artists who pursued their painting and sculpture more for the pleasure of the activity itself than for extrinsic rewards have produced art that has been socially recognized as superior," the study said. "It is those who are least motivated to pursue extrinsic rewards who eventually receive them.

I'd ruin any day, all my days, for those long nights with you, and I did.

Daniel Ichbiah

Conscientiousness comprises industriousness, self-control, stick-to-itiveness, and a desire for order.

I'm a grinding actor. That's how I've always viewed myself. You go from one job to the next.

I guess, at the end of the day, I want to be viewed as a musician.

There's successes you have in your career. For me, for example, as a guitar player, as somebody in a band putting out albums, the success that we have in our field and how we're viewed by our fans; that type of success means more than anything to us.

Most people I run into say, I haven't missed an episode. Either you like Survivor or you don't, but if you do, you're a loyal viewer.

I'm very fortunate in the things I've done and I've worked really hard at them. It's always ultimately up to the viewers whether they like it or not.

My films may not have a great opening, but I am not bothered about it. Whatever the numbers be, I want those viewers who come for my films to be excited about watching the movie.