This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
As an unexpected visitor.
A Poetic Description of Behavior Change
Autobiography in Five Short Chapters
By Portia Nelson, From There’s a Hole in My Sidewalk
Chapter One
I walk down the street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I fall in.
I am lost … I am helpless.
It isn’t my fault.
It takes me forever to find a way out.
5 Ways to Get Back On-Track Toward Achieving Your Goals
“Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan Press On! has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.” — Calvin Coolidge
So you got off-track with your goal. It happens. Behavior change takes time and perseverance. Research on people who quit smoking, for example, shows that it takes several attempts before they finally quit for good. Beating yourself up over a short-term setback will only keep you stuck. Instead, forgive yourself, and use these five tips to start fresh today.
How Behavior Patterns Can Change Your Life
“You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face … The danger lies in refusing to face the fear … You must do the thing you think you cannot do.”
Eleanor Roosevelt, You Learn by Living
As a musician and actor, Will Smith has built an impressive list of accomplishments. So much so that in 2007, Newsweek called him “the most powerful actor in Hollywood.”
No doubt he earned that distinction partly because of his multiple Grammy Awards, Golden Globe nominations and Academy Award nominations. Not to mention the fact that his movies have grossed over $6 billion worldwide. It’s safe to say he’s come a long way from the hard streets of West Philadelphia where he was born and raised.
30 Inspiring Quotes to Help You Develop More Perseverance and Persistence
Also see: The Science of Perseverance: How Your Beliefs Can Strengthen (or Weaken) Your Motivation.
Permanence, perseverance and persistence in spite of all obstacles, discouragements and impossibilities: It is this, that in all things distinguishes the strong soul from the weak.
Thomas Carlyle
You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it.
Maya Angelou
Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan Press On! has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.
Calvin Coolidge
Look at a stone cutter hammering away at his rock, perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred-and-first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not the last blow that did it, but all that had gone before.
Jacob A. Riis
It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer.
Albert Einstein