Five Motivational Quotes to Inspire You to Build Good Habits

GreatQuotes

Quotes sim­ply inspire us. When we’re feel­ing down or unmo­ti­vat­ed, they can reflect what we’re feel­ing inside and lift us up when we need it. If we’re unen­thu­si­as­tic or we’ve lost inspi­ra­tion, a thought­ful quote can moti­vate us because we relate to it — espe­cial­ly when it’s expressed in a poet­ic way by a knowl­edgable role mod­el. We use quotes to keep us going when we’re com­plet­ing big projects, achiev­ing health mile­stones, learn­ing new skills, or reach­ing oth­er achieve­ments.

We’re always busier than ever and we feel less moti­vat­ed to keep up with our good habits. Now is a great time to reflect upon our goals, which include build­ing good habits and break­ing bad ones. Quotes can push us for­ward when we’re on a jour­ney to be suc­cess­ful dur­ing busy times.

The quo­ta­tions below are meant to inspire you to stay moti­vat­ed. I hope they give you the inspi­ra­tion that you need.

Mahatma Gandhi

Your beliefs become your thoughts, Your thoughts become your words, Your words become your actions, Your actions become your habits, Your habits become your val­ues, Your val­ues become your des­tiny. — Mahat­ma Gand­hi

Portrait Gandhi

Mahat­ma Gand­hi (1869–1948) is one of the most inspi­ra­tional lead­ers of our time. He was a spir­i­tu­al and polit­i­cal leader — well known for lead­ing India to inde­pen­dence and his tech­niques of non-vio­lent protest.

With this inspi­ra­tional quote, Gand­hi com­mu­ni­cates the pow­er of our beliefs and how our beliefs can spring us into action. Our actions lead us to desired suc­cess. It sug­gests that beliefs (good or bad) can be self-ful­fill­ing prophe­cies. Gandhi’s quo­ta­tion can inspire us to devel­op empow­er­ing beliefs. For exam­ple, when a lim­it­ing belief pops into your head, replace it with an empow­er­ing belief. In your mind, replace thoughts such as “I’m not good enough to par­tic­i­pate in the [fill in the blank] com­pe­ti­tion” with “I can win the [fill in the blank] com­pe­ti­tion with prac­tice.” With time and ener­gy, your goal can become a real­i­ty.

Eleanor Roosevelt

I have dis­cov­ered that, impor­tant as self-dis­ci­pline is to a child, it is increas­ing­ly impor­tant as one grows old­er. Then it is real­ly essen­tial for your well-being to reg­u­late your life and habits in a sen­si­ble way. — Eleanor Roo­sevelt

Eleanor Roosevelt portrait 1933Eleanor Roo­sevelt (1884–1962) was the First Lady of the Unit­ed States from 1933 to 1945. She was an author, politi­cian, civ­il rights activist, and human­i­tar­i­an. She’s well known for her work with the Unit­ed Nations and over­see­ing the Uni­ver­sal Dec­la­ra­tion of Human Rights. In 1960, Roo­sevelt pub­lished “You Learn by Liv­ing: Eleven Keys for a More Ful­fill­ing Life,” which is a guide to liv­ing a full life based on her unique expe­ri­ences.

Eleanor Roo­sevelt was extreme­ly well-accom­plished, and she is one of the most beloved fig­ures of the twen­ti­eth cen­tu­ry. It’s dif­fi­cult not to admire Roosevelt’s prac­ti­cal advice about reg­u­lat­ing your life and habits in order to main­tain well being. Remind­ing our­selves to form healthy habits to main­tain our ener­gy lev­el is essen­tial to being and stay­ing pro­duc­tive — espe­cial­ly as we mature.

Aristotle

Qual­i­ty is not an act, it is a habit. — Aris­to­tle

Aristoteles LouvreAris­to­tle was an ancient Greek philoso­pher, sci­en­tist, and teacher — born in 384 B.C. He was a pupil of Pla­to and a teacher of Alexan­der the Great. He’s con­sid­ered one of the most sig­nif­i­cant philoso­phers in West­ern phi­los­o­phy.

Aristotle’s quote indi­cates that con­sis­tent­ly per­form­ing at a qual­i­ty lev­el makes it a repeat­able feat, rather than just a one-time action. Con­sid­er the def­i­n­i­tion of a habit. Mer­ri­am-Web­ster defines it as “a behav­ior pat­tern acquired by fre­quent rep­e­ti­tion or phys­i­o­log­ic expo­sure that shows itself in reg­u­lar­i­ty or increased facil­i­ty of per­for­mance.” For exam­ple, if you take Aris­totle’s advice, you will only see the rewards of good habits if you per­form the act con­sis­tent­ly. Visu­al­ize this thought — aver­age is not good enough, I can have con­sis­tent, qual­i­ty results if I repeat qual­i­ty actions over and over.

Stephen Covey

Our char­ac­ter is basi­cal­ly a com­pos­ite of our habits. Because they are con­sis­tent, often uncon­scious pat­terns, they con­stant­ly, dai­ly, express our char­ac­ter. — Stephen Cov­ey

Stephen Covey 2010Stephen Cov­ey (1932–2012) was an inspi­ra­tional busi­ness per­son, author, and pub­lic speak­er. He’s well known for author­ing the book, “The 7 Habits of High­ly Effec­tive Peo­ple,” which out­lines a frame­work for per­son­al suc­cess and has sold more than 25 mil­lion copies world­wide.

A post about habits would not be com­plete with­out men­tion­ing Stephen Cov­ey. Cov­ey makes a great point in his quote — we absolute­ly don’t want our bad habits to define us. For exam­ple, do you want to be known as the per­son who’s always late, dis­or­ga­nized, or flaky? How do you want oth­ers to per­ceive you? Do you want to be known as a healthy per­son? Per­haps you want to be known as a reli­able per­son? Build good habits that become pat­terns and they will even­tu­al­ly express your char­ac­ter in a pos­i­tive way. Essen­tial­ly, if you want to improve your life, you must mod­i­fy your habits in a pos­i­tive way. As Cov­ey points out, our char­ac­ter is a made up of an assem­bly of our habits.

George Lois

Cre­ativ­i­ty can solve almost any prob­lem. The cre­ative act, the defeat of habit by orig­i­nal­i­ty, over­comes every­thing. — George Lois

George Lois is con­sid­ered one of the most cre­ative art direc­tors of our time. He’s known for mold­ing both Amer­i­can and inter­na­tion­al cul­ture through cam­paigns such as, “I want my MTV.” He’s well known for the famous cov­ers he designed for Esquire mag­a­zine. His book, “The Art of Adver­tis­ing” (Abrams, 1976) is some­times referred to as “the bible of mass com­mu­ni­ca­tions.” Lois is often com­pared to “Don Drap­er” from the TV series, Mad Men.

This is one of my per­son­al favorite quotes. It inspires me to think of a cre­ative solu­tion when busi­ness as usu­al just won’t make an impact. It forces me to break out of old habits and pat­terns and dis­cov­er new paths. I hope it inspires you to solve prob­lems by look­ing at them with a fresh per­spec­tive.

Please Share Your Thoughts

Keep in mind as you devel­op new good habits, it’s impor­tant to log your progress to moti­vate you to keep going. Habits don’t form overnight; remind your­self to repeat good habits and they will even­tu­al­ly become part of your dai­ly or week­ly rou­tines. I hope this post inspires and moti­vates you to push through and to build good habits.

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Cheers!

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3 replies
  1. George L. Rosario says:

    Thank you for these won­der­ful quotes. I am a Real­tor in NYC, which means that I do not receive a week­ly pay­check as do most peo­ple. I have to rely on com­mis­sions, which are gen­er­at­ed only after I close a deal. So I rely great­ly on good habits to keep my busi­ness going and keep my large fam­i­ly well tak­en care of. If you know any­thing about New York, know that it is expen­sive to live here. Now imag­ine the dilem­ma that I, George L. Rosario face when pro­vid­ing for my wife, 5 under-aged chil­dren, dis­abled par­ents and still be able to help my 2 old­er sons who now have chil­dren of their own. It isn’t easy, but it is doable as long as my habits are direct­ed towards suc­cess. I stay focused by read­ing quotes like the ones you includ­ed in this post. I med­i­tate on them. I look for ways of mak­ing my habits more con­ducive towards suc­cess.

    Reply

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