30 Motivational Quotes to Help Strengthen Your Willpower and Self-Discipline

Willpower is what separates us from the animals. It’s the capacity to restrain our impulses, resist temptation – do what’s right and good for us in the long run, not what we want to do right now. It’s central, in fact, to civilization.

— Dr. Roy Baumeister, Ph.D.

My will shall shape my future. Whether I fail or succeed shall be no man’s doing but my own. I am the force; I can clear any obstacle before me or I can be lost in the maze. My choice; my responsibility; win or lose, only I hold the key to my destiny.

— Elaine Maxwell

This quality of self-denial in pursuit of a longer-term goal and, indeed, the willpower to maintain the denial, is excellent training for the boardroom.

— John Viney

It doesn’t matter whether you are pursuing success in business, sports, the arts, or life in general: The bridge between wishing and accomplishing is discipline.

— Harvey Mackay

Rule your mind or it will rule you.

— Horace

In essence, if we want to direct our lives, we must take control of our consistent actions. It’s not what we do once in a while that shapes our lives, but what we do consistently.

— Tony Robbins

Success is actually a short race—a sprint fueled by discipline just long enough for habit to kick in and take over.

— Gary Keller

We should every night call ourselves to an account; What infirmity have I mastered today? What passions opposed? What temptation resisted? What virtue acquired? Our vices will abort of themselves if they be brought every day to the shrift.

― Seneca

Success is a matter of understanding and religiously practicing specific, simple habits that always lead to success.

— Robert J. Ringer

The individual who wants to reach the top in business must appreciate the might and force of habit. He must be quick to break those habits that can break him—and hasten to adopt those practices that will become the habits that help him achieve the success he desires.

— J. Paul Getty

Your ability to discipline yourself to set clear goals, and then to work toward them everyday, will do more to guarantee your success than any other single factor.

― Brian Tracy

The ability to subordinate an impulse to a value is the essence of the proactive person.

― Stephen Covey

Freedom is born of self-discipline. No individual, no nation, can achieve or maintain liberty without self-control. The undisciplined man is a slave to his own weaknesses.

— Alan Valentine

He who is living without discipline is exposed to grievous ruin … Who hath a harder battle to fight than he who striveth for self-mastery? And should be our endeavor, even to master self, and thus daily to grow stronger than self and go on unto perfections.

— Thomas à Kempis

You will never have a greater or lesser dominion than that over yourself … the height of a man’s success is gauged by his self-mastery; the depth of his failure by his self-abandonment … And this law is the expression of eternal justice. He who cannot establish dominion over himself will have no dominion over others.

― Leonardo da Vinci

The best day of your life is the one on which you decide your life is your own. No apologies or excuses. No one to lean on, rely on, or blame. The gift is yours – it is an amazing journey – and you alone are responsible for the quality of it. This is the day your life really begins.

— Bob Moawad

We may think there is willpower involved, but more likely change is due to want power. Wanting the new addiction more than the old one. Wanting the new me in preference to the person I am now.

— George Sheehan

The difference between great people and everyone else is that great people create their lives actively, while everyone else is created by their lives, passively waiting to see where life takes them next. The difference between the two is the difference between living fully and just existing.

— Michael E. Gerber

I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who overcomes his enemies, for the hardest victory is victory over self.

— Aristotle

Our destiny changes with our thoughts; we shall become what we wish to become, do what we wish to do, when our habitual thoughts correspond with our desires.

— Orison Swett Marden

Willpower is the key to success. Successful people strive no matter what they feel by applying their will to overcome apathy, doubt or fear.

— Dan Millman

The conquest that man is destined to make in this world is not, as he often supposes, a material, warlike conquest; but is instead the conquest of his own inner world and the mastery of his own God-given inner powers.

— Ernest C. Wilson

I don’t believe that an all-wise and loving God would implant in us destructive behaviors. Those behaviors or habits were learned after we were born. The package we were born with did not include those items. Most of our habits, behaviors and personality traits were learned and I believe that anything that can be learned can be unlearned or changed.

— Garold N. Larson

The true value of the human being is determined by the measure and the sense in which one has attained liberation from the self.

— Albert Einstein

A man has to learn that he cannot command things, but that he can command himself; that he cannot coerce the wills of others, but that he can mold and master his own will: and things serve him who serves Truth; people seek guidance of him who is master of himself.

— James Allen

Any significant long-term change requires long-term practice, whether that change has to do with playing the violin or learning to be a more open, loving person. We all know people who say that they have been permanently changed by experiences of a moment or a day or a weekend. But when you check it out you’ll generally discover that those who ended up permanently changed had spent considerable time preparing for their life-changing experience or had continued diligently practicing the new behavior afterward.

— Michael Murphy and George Leonard

Personal mastery is the discipline of continually clarifying and deepening our personal vision, of focusing our energies, of developing patience, and of seeing reality objectively.

— Peter Senge

Psychology has identified two main traits that seem to produce an immensely broad range of benefits: intelligence and self-control. Despite many decades of trying, psychology has not found much one can do to produce lasting increases in intelligence. But self-control can be strengthened. Therefore, self-control is a rare and powerful opportunity for psychology to make a palpable and highly beneficial difference in the lives of ordinary people.

— Dr. Roy Baumeister, Ph.D.

Before complaining that you are a slave to another, be sure that you are not a slave to self. Look within … You will find there, perchance, slavish thoughts, slavish desires, and in your daily life and conduct slavish habits. Conquer these; cease to be a slave to self, and no man will have the power to enslave you.

— James Allen

Self-discipline, the key to eternal life, is doing something that needs to be done whether or not you find it convenient. Self-discipline is usually motivated by our convictions, our internal hopes, and our desires.

— Robert L. Simpson

There are 9 brilliant comments

  1. Most of us get self-discipline wrong.

    Most of us think self-discipline is about willpower and the mental game of “controlling” our mind and ourselves. However, I’ve found that it’s often much easier and effective to control our environment.
    For example, if you don’t see candies on the counter, you don’t think about them.
    If you don’t see your phone on your desk, you don’t pick it up.

    Or, as James Clear in Atomic Habits would say, we need to make the triggers less obvious or invisible. This way, we control the environment, thus we have more control of our willpower.

    “The senses have been conditioned by attraction to the pleasant and aversion to the unpleasant. Do not be ruled by them.” -Bhagavad Gita

    “Avoid things the best version of yourself will regret.” -Shane Parrish

  2. Thanks So Much,these Quotes Are The Real Food To Whoever Likened To Success,they Contain The Romanticism Of Success,thanks.

  3. Thank you for sharing such a great list! I’m in the process of creating new material on self-discipline and these quotes definitely helped. Added a few to my collection 🙂

    Have a great day and keep spreading the good word!!

  4. Hello Michael, thank you for sharing this wonderful quotes. This list is really encouraging. Love each of them :))

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