“People get so caught up in the fact that they have limits that they rarely exert the effort required to get close to them.”

A genius is not born, but is educated and trained.

I didn’t start out as a writer. I became one through my habits.

Being specific about what you want and how you will achieve it helps you say no to things that derail progress, distract your attention, and pull you off course.

The first mistake is never the one that ruins you. It’s the spiral of repeated mistakes that follows.

But perhaps the best way to measure your progress is with a habit tracker.

You should be far more concerned with your current trajectory than with your current results.

A very small shift in direction can lead to a very meaningful change in destination.

Professionals stick to the schedule; amateurs let life get in the way.

Men are born soft and supple; dead, they are stiff and hard. Plants are born tender and pliant; dead, they are brittle and dry. Thus whoever is stiff and inflexible is a disciple of death.

WHY IS IT so easy to repeat bad habits and so hard to form good ones?

Put another way, the costs of your good habits are in the present. The costs of your bad habits are in the future.

With outcome-based habits, the focus is on what you want to achieve. With identity-based habits, the focus is on who you wish to become.

When you fall in love with the process rather than the product, you don’t have to wait to give yourself permission to be happy.

Perseverance, grit, and willpower are essential to success, but the way to improve these qualities is not by wishing you were a more disciplined person, but by creating a more disciplined environment.

Motivation is overrated, environment often matters more.

You get what you repeat.

We only see what we want to see. Usually it is ourselves. Look closer. Tilt the mirror so you can see more. Beyond self.

The kingdom of God is just behind the darkness of closed eyes, and the first gate that opens to it is your peace.

Hard to sit here and be close to you, and not kiss you.

I closed a lot of doors, that used to be wide open. Bolted them shut so you couldn’t break them down again.

We never grow closer to God when we just live life. It takes deliberate pursuit and attentiveness.

Life can’t give to you if your hands are closed. Open your mind, open your heart, and open your arms.

Somewhere we know that without silence words lose their meaning, that without listening speaking no longer heals, that without distance closeness cannot cure.

Judge the Catholic Church not by those who barely live by its spirit, but by the example of those who live closest to it.