Quotes About Self-improvement

It is a huckleberry above my persimmon to cipher out how it is, with six months' schooling only, I, David Crockett, find myself the most popular bookmaker of the day, and such is the demand for my works that I cannot write them half fast enough, no how I can fix it.

The way to write is well, and how is your own business.

If I had to rank my skills, I have a long way to go before I can write a good graphic novel.

If I have any regrets, I could say that I'm sorry I wasn't a better writer or a better singer.

There's no reason you shouldn't, as a writer, not be aware of the necessity to revise yourself constantly.

I'm a poor artist. Through brute force, I brought myself up to mediocre. I've never taken a writing class, but I can write okay.

But he found himself rounding syllables like stones in his mouth, silently. He knew he was shy, and thought to be stupid; he was beginning to suspect, thought, that he wasn't stupid. Perhaps not even slow. Merely uneducated. But not, he hoped, uneducable.

Benjamin Franklin]identified thirteen virtues he wanted to cultivate--temperance, silence, order, resolution, frugality, industry, sincerity, justice, moderation, cleanliness, tranquility, chastity and humility--and made a chart with those virtues plotted against the days of the week. Each day, Franklin would score himself on whether he practiced those thirteen virtues.

you have to do that kind of work for yourself. If you do it for other people, you end up wanting them to acknowledge it and to be grateful and to give you credit. If you do it for yourself, you don't expect other people to react in a particular way.

I should pursue only those habits that would make me feel freer and stronger.

How about this," I suggested. "Instead of feeling that you've blown the day and thinking, 'I'll get back on track tomorrow,' try thinking of each day as a set of four quarters: morning, midday, afternoon, evening. If you blow one quarter, you get back on track for the next quarter. Fail small, not big.

It's a Secret of Adulthood: I can't make people change, but when I change, others may change; and when others change, I may change.

The happiest, healthiest, most productive people aren't those from a particular Tendency, but rather they're the people who have figured out how to harness the strengths of their Tendency, counteract the weaknesses, and build the lives that work for them.

You hit> a goal, you keep a resolution.

It's been freeing to focus on what works for me rather than what's wrong with me.

I wasn't as happy as I could be, and my life wasn't going to change unless I made it change.

Secret of Adulthood: Make sure the things we do to make ourselves feel better don't make us feel worse.

My happiness project was both. I wanted to perfect my character, but given my nature, that would probably involve charts, deliverables, to-do lists, new vocabulary terms, and compulsive note taking.

It's a Secret of Adulthood: Make sure the things we do to make ourselves feel better don't make us feel worse.

I was comforted by the words of my model Benjamin Franklin, who reflected of his own chart: On the whole, though I never arrived at perfection I had been so ambitious of obtaining, but fell far short of it, yet as I was, by the endeavor, a better and a happier man that I otherwise should have been had I not attempted it.

I've noticed that some people are serial goal setters, rather than habit formers.

I sat on that crowded bus, I grasped two things: I wasn't as happy as I could be, and my life wasn't going to change unless I made it change. In that single moment, with that realization, I decided to dedicate a year to trying to be happier.

When we try to form a new habit, we set an expectation for ourselves. Therefore, it's crucial to understand how we respond to expectations.

For a happy life, it's important to cultivate an atmosphere of growth—the sense that we're learning new things, getting stronger, forging new relationships, making things better, helping other people.