Quotes About Commitment

Honesty, like any inclination, can become a ruling passion, a monomania almost.

If your organization requires success before commitment, it will never have either. Part of leadership (a big part of it, actually) is the ability to stick with the dream for a long time. Long enough that the critics realize that you're going to get there one way or another...so they follow.

Heretics must believe. More than anyone else in an organization, it's the person who's challenging the status quo, the one who is daring to be great, who is truly present and not just punching a clock who must have confidence in her beliefs. Can you imagine Steve Jobs showing up for the paycheck? It's nice to get paid. It's essential to believe.

Stick with the Dips that are likely to pan out, and quit the Cul-de-Sacs to focus your resources

You get to keep making art as long as you are willing to make the choices that let you make your art.

Writers write. Runners run. Establish your identity by doing your work.

Here's a quote from ultramarathoner Dick Collins: Decide before the race the conditions that will cause you to stop and drop out. You don't want to be out there saying, "Well gee, my leg hurts, I'm a little dehydrated, I'm sleepy, I'm tired, and it's cold and windy." And talk yourself into quitting. If you are making a decision based on how you feel at that moment, you will probably make the wrong decision.

The habit of doing more than is necessary can only be earned through practice.

Once you've engaged with an organization or a relationship or a community, you owe it to your team to start. To initiate. To be the one who makes something happen. To do less is to steal from them.

The challenge, it turns out, isn't in perfecting your ability to know when to start and when to stand by. The challenge is getting into the habit of

strategy is empty without change, empty without passion, and empty without people willing to confront the void.

Everything gets easier when you walk away from the hubris of everyone. Your work is not for everyone. It's only for those who signed up for the journey.

The job is not your work; what you do with your heart and soul is the work.

Your work is too important to be left to how you feel today.

Extraordinary benefits accrue to the tiny minority of people who are able to push just a tiny bit longer than most.

You and your organization have the power to change everything. To create remarkable products and services. To over deliver. To be the best in the world. How dare you squander that resource by spreading it too thin. How dare you settle for mediocre just because you're busy coping with too many things on your agenda, racing against the clock to get it all done.

Success comes from doing the hard part. When the hard part is all you've got, you're more likely to do it. And this is precisely why it's difficult to focus. Because focusing means acknowledging that you just signed up for the hard part.

Short-term pain has more impact on most people than long-term benefits do, which is why it's so important for you to amplify the long-term benefits of not quitting. You need to remind yourself of life at the other end of the Dip because it's easier to overcome the pain of yet another unsuccessful cold call if the reality of a successful sales career is more concrete.

Then a deadline arrives and you have to cut it short. Is shipping that important? I think it is. I think the discipline of shipping is essential in the long-term path to becoming indispensable.

The opportunity cost of investing your life in something that's not going to get better is just too high.

Winners quit all the time. They just quit the right stuff at the right time.

You really can't try to do everything, especially if you intend to be the best in the world.

If your organization requires success before commitment, it will never have either. Part of leadership (a big part of it, actually) is the ability to stick with the dream for a long time. Long enough that the critics realize that you're going to get there one way or another…so they follow.

Here's an assignment for you: Write it down. Write down under what circumstances you're willing to quit. And when. And then stick with it.