Quotes About Effort

The goal in life is just the same as in basketball: make the effort to do the best you are capable of doing

Did I win? Did I lose? Those are the wrong questions. The correct question is: Did I make my best effort? That's what matters. The rest of it just gets in the way.

Perfection is what you are striving for, but perfection is an impossibility. However, striving for perfection is not an impossibility. Do the best you can under the conditions that exist. That is what counts.

If a player appeared to be taking it easy in practice, I told him, Don't think you can make up for it by working twice as hard tomorrow. If you have it within your power to work twice as hard, why aren't you doing it now?

I wanted to win every single game I ever played in or coached. Absolutely. I wanted to win. But, I understood that ultimately the winning or losing may not be under my control. What was under my control was how I prepared myself and our team. I judged my success, my "winning," on that. It just made more sense.

Coach Wooden never mentioned winning. It was always, "Fellas, we've got to play to our best. Let's do that." That's a lot different from saying, "Fellas, we've got to win." A lot different.

The heights by great men reached and kept, Were not attained by sudden flight. But they, while their companions slept, Were toiling upward in the night." –Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Competitiveness must be focused exclusively on the process of what you are doing rather than the result of that effort (the so-called winning or losing).

Succeeding is performing at your best when your best is required

Work without joy is drudgery. Drudgery does not produce champions, nor does it produce great organizations.

The teams that compete at the highest level love the thrill of the contest. They may have winning in their heads, but they have a love for the effort and struggle in their hearts.

Success is peace of mind which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you made the effort to become the best of which you are capable.

I've always believed that hustle can make up for a lot of mistakes.

Success is peace of mind that is the direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you did your best to become the best that you are capable of becoming.

The past cannot change what is to come. The work that you do each and every day is the only true way to improve and prepare yourself for what is to come. You cannot change the past, but you can influence the future by what you do today." —

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. Are you going to make mistakes? Of course. But it is not failure if you make the full effort.

To my way of thinking, when you give your total effort—everything you have—the score can never make you a loser. And when you do less, it can't somehow magically turn you into a winner.

If you prepare properly, you may be outscored but you will never lose.

will do the best I am capable of doing today to bring out my best tomorrow.

How hard you work at correcting your faults reveals your character.

Does worrying about it, complaining about it, change it? Nope, it just wastes your time. And if you complain about it to other people, you're also wasting their time. Nothing is gained by wasting all of that time.

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.

Condition Your Team to Love the Struggle.