Will Power
The Will to Act and Embody Change
How to Change Your Habits
 

The Long Path to Self-Mastery, The Short Path to Self-Control
Scientific and psychological theories and methods for establishing positive habits or eliminating bad habits
Determination, Transformation, Effort, Perseverance, Resolve, Self-Discipline, Persistence, Change, Positive Habits
Creating a specific future state by making actual changes to our behaviors, actions, and thoughts with the hope/anticipation that the desired state will become a reality in the future. 

 

Quotations, Sayings, Aphorisms, Quips, Wisdom

Readings and Links


Compiled by Michael P. Garofalo
Green Way Research, Vancouver, Washington

 

Virtue Ethics     Process Philosophy     How to Live a Good Life     Epicureanism     Pragmatism    

Self-Reliance     Determination     Learning     Thinking     Moderation      Patience     Work

Happiness     Tranquility     Equanimity     Kindness     Pleasures     Hedonism     Moderation              

Touching     Seeing     Hearing     Smelling    Tasting    Senses     Hands     Somaesthetics

Gardening     Taijiquan     Qigong     Hatha Yoga     Walking     Main Index      

Cloud Hands Blog   

 

 

Cloud Hands Blog

 

 

"You should prepare to follow the program for 90 days.  Why?  Because behavioral research indicates that it takes 90 days to prepare for change, build a new behavior, become confident in the face of high-risk triggers, and move past the likelihood of relapse.  Brain research also suggests that it takes a few months of practicing a new behavior to create permanent change."
-  John C. Norcorss, Ph.D., Changeology, p. 7 

 

It takes about 66 to 100 days of continuous daily practice to make a new behavior more or less automatic. 

 

"There is nothing magical about time passing with regard to habit formation.  It doesn't matter if it's been twenty-one days or thirty days or three hundred days.  What matters is the rate at which you perform the behavior.  You could do something twice in thirty days, or two hundred times.  It's the frequency that makes the difference.  Your current habits have been internalized over the course of hundreds, if not thousands of repetitions.  New habits require the same level of frequency.  You need to string together enough successful attempts until the behavior is firmly embedded in you mind and you cross the Habit Line."
-  James Clear, Atomic Habits, p. 147

 

15 Ways to Get a New Habit to Stick Forever

 

"You are what your deep, driving desire is.
As your deep, driving desire is, so is your will.
As your will is, so is your deed.
As your deed is, so is your destiny."
-   Upanishads, 800 BCE

 

"It's not that some people have willpower and some don't.  It's that some people are ready to change and others are not."
-  James Gordon   

 

"A goal is not always meant to be reached, it often serves simply as something to aim at."
-  Bruce Lee

 

"Self-control is a short-term strategy, not a long-term one.  You may be able to resist temptation once or twice, but it's unlikely you can muster the willpower to override your desires every time.  Instead of summoning a new dose of willpower whenever you want to do the right thing, your energy would be better spent optimizing your environment.  This is the secret to self-control.  Make the cues of your good habits obvious and the cues of your bad habits invisible."
-  James Clear, Atomic Habits   

 

"Nothing in this 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."
-  Calvin Coolidge

 

"Leaders aren't born they are made.  And they are made just like anything else, through hard work.  And that's the price we have to pay to achieve that goal, or any goal."
-  Vince Lombardi

 

"A callused palm and dirty fingernails precede a Green Thumb"
-  Michael Garofalo

 

"The shortest answer is doing."
-  George Herbert

 

"To accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe."
-  Anatole France

 

Top 10 Mistakes in Behavior Change
 
1.  "Relying on willpower for long-term change
2.  Attempting big leaps instead of baby steps
3.  Ignoring how environment shapes behavior
4.  Trying to stop old behaviors instead of creating new ones
5.  Blaming failures on lack of motivation
6.  Underestimating the power of triggers (cues) 
7.  Believing that information leads to action 
8.  Focusing on abstract goals instead of concrete behaviors
9.  Seeking to change a behavior forever, not for a short time
10. Assuming that behavior change is difficult.”
-  Stanford University, Persuasive Tech Lab

 

 

How Your Habits Shape Your Identity (and Vice Versa)

"There are three levels of change: outcome change, process change, and identity change.
The most effective way to change your habits is to focus not on what you want to achieve, but on who you wish to become.
Your identity emerges out of your habits.  Every action is a vote for the type of person you wish to become.
Becoming the best version of yourself requires you to continuously edit your beliefs, and to upgrade and expand your identity.
The real reason habits matter is not because the can get you better results (although they can do that),
     but because they can change your beliefs about yourself.
The most practical way to change who you are is to change what you do.
Decide on the person you want to be.  Prove it to yourself with small wins.
Your habits are how you embody your identity."
-  James Clear, Atomic Habits, 2018, Chapter 2
 

 

“1) Psych: Getting Ready
2) Prep: Planning Before Leaping
3) Perspire: Taking Action;
4) Persevere: Managing Slips;
5) Persist: Maintaining Change.”
-  John Norcross, Changelology, 2012

 

 

 

Atomic Habits: An Easy and Proven Way to Build Good Habits and Break Bad Ones.  By James Clear.  Avery, 2018, 320 pages.  An excellent best seller. 
Clear writing style, positive, informative, practical, and inspiring.  Good coverage of scientific research on habit formation or changing habits.  Practical methods, tips, and techniques are provided for changing your ideas, cues, and responses to bad habits and using easy and effective methods for acquiring and establishing good habits.  The anecodotes are not overdone, and theories for actionable change are provided.  VSCL. 


Changing for Good: A Revolutionary Six-Stage Program for Overcoming Bad Habits and Moving Your Life Positively Forward
By James O. Prochaska, John Norcorss, and Carlo DiClemente.  William Morrow, 1995.  304 pages.  


The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business.  By Charles Duhigg. Random House, 2014, 416 pages. VSCL. 


Changeology: 5 Steps to Realizing Your Goals and Resolutions  By John C. Norcross.  Contributors: Kristin Loberg and Jonathon Norcross.  Simon and Schuster, 2012.  272 pages.  Transtheoretical model of behavioral change was first developed in the 1980s by James O. Prochaska and Carlo C. DiClemente.  John C. Norcross uses this model in his book Changeology.  VSCL. 


Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard  By Chip Heath and Dean Heath.  Crown Business, 2010.  320 pages.  ISBN: 978-0385528757. 


Rewire: Change Your Brain to Break Bad Habits, Overcome Additions, and Conquer Self-Destructive Behavior.  By Richard O'Connor, Ph.D..  New York, Hudson Street Press, c 2014.  Index, references, notes, 289 pages.  


Tiny Habits: The Small Changes That Change Everything.  By B. J. Fogg.  Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2019, 320 pages. 
 VSCL on Kindle ebook. 

 

 

                                                         

 

 

 

"It is easier to act yourself into a new way of feeling rather than feel your way into a new way of acting."
-  G. D. Morgan

 

"Willpower stands at the edge of three states: compulsions, habits, and novel adaptations.
Willpower is amoral.
Willpower is another name for intentions and useful habits.
Willpower is skill, like learning to play the piano. 
The will is rooted in the irrational― deeply rooted; with but a few fruits of reason in season."
-  Michael Garofalo, Pulling Onions

 

"Construct your determination with Sustained Effort, Controlled Attention, and Concentrated Energy.  Opportunities never come to those who wait... they are captured by those who dare to attack."
-  Paul J. Meyer

 

"Persistence and endurance will make you omnipotent."
-  Casey Neistat

 

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Quotes, Quotations, Quips, Sayings, Proverbs, Inspiration, Poems
Books, Bibliography, Links, Web Guide, References, Resources

 

"A vow is fixed and unalterable determination to do a thing, when such a determination is related to something noble which can only uplift the man who makes the resolve."
-  Mahatma Gandhi   

 

"Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal."
-  Henry Ford

 

"The man who goes farthest is generally the one who is willing to do and dare.  The sure-thing boat never gets far from shore."
-  Dale Carnegie 

 

"The difficulty lies not so much in developing new ideas as in escaping from old ones."
-  John Maynard Keynes
   

 

 

Creative Commons License

This webpage work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Compiled by Michael P. Garofalo, Green Way Research, Vancouver, Washington © 2003-2021 CCA 4.0

 

 

"No one is wise by birth.  Wisdom results from one's own efforts."
-  Krishnamacharya   

 

"Tomorrow is the only day in the year that appeals to a lazy man."
-  Jimmy Lyons

 

"Knowing trees, I understand the meaning of patience.  Knowing grass, I can appreciate persistence."
- Hal Borland

 

"Think little goals and expect little achievements. Think big goals and win big success."
-  David J. Schwartz

 

"There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure."
-  Colin Powell

 

"Nothing really worth having comes quickly and easily.  If it did, I doubt that we would ever grow."
-  Eknath Easwaran  

 

Patience: Quotations, Sayings, Poems

 

"Problems are only opportunities in work clothes."
-  Henry J. Kaiser

 

"Wishes are like seeds - few ever develop into something."
-  Michael Garofalo

 

"Nothing can withstand the power of the human will if it is willing to stake its very existence to the extent of its purpose."
-  Benjamin Disraeli  

 

"I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate."
-  Saint Paul to the Romans
  

 

"What may be done at any time will be done at no time."
-  Scottish Proverb

 

"If you have made mistakes, even serious ones, there is always another chance for you.  What we call failure is not the falling down, but the staying down."
-  Mary Pickford    

 

"It isn't sufficient just to want - you've got to ask yourself what you are going to do to get the things you want."
-  Franklin D. Roosevelt 

 

"Realizing your goal, resolution, or transformation is a journey.  Change, like any meaningful endeavor, proceeds sequentially through steps.  The journey begins with the contemplation stage of specifying realistic goals, getting ready, or getting psyched.  The planning stage is all about prepping.  How exactly will I do this thing?  At some point you will jump from preparing and planning to perspiring, the work of implementing the new, desired behavior.  Getting there is wonderful, but we need to keep you there, which entails persevering through slips and, finally, persisting over time."
-  John C. Norcross, Changeology, p.21

 

"Easy to say, hard to do."
-  Takeguchi Shihan 

 

"There is not great talent without great will power."
-  Honore de Balzac

 

"Put your heart, mind, intellect and soul even to your smallest acts.  This is the secret of success."
-  Swami Sivananda   

 

"What you have to do and the way you have to do it is incredibly simple.  Whether you are willing to do it, that's another matter."
-  Peter F. Drucker

 

"Willingness is essential in any initiation or in making any dream come true.  "I can't" often means "I won't."  You can change "I won't" to "I will" with will power."
-  Marcia Wieder

 

"As long as I have you there is just one other thing I'll always need — tremendous self control."
-  Ashleight Brilliant

 

"People do not lack strength, they lack will."
-  Victor Hugo   

 

"Gongfu is an ancient Chinese term describing work/devotion/effort that has been successfully applied over a substantial period of time, resulting in a degree of mastery in a specific field.  Although the term is synonymous in the West with martial arts (though it is most over rendered Kung Fu), it is equally applicable to calligraphy, painting, music, or other areas of endeavor."
-  Andy James

 

"What is success?  I think it is a mixture of having a flair for the thing that you are doing; knowing that it is not enough that you have got to have hard work and a certain sense of purpose."
-  Margaret Thatcher    

 

"The person without a purpose is like a ship without a rudder."
-  Thomas Carlyle  

 

"When the will is ready the feet are light."
-  Proverb

 

"Never give up on what you really want to do. The person with big dreams is more powerful than one with all the facts."
-  Life's Little Instruction Calendar   

 

"Desire is the key to motivation, but it's the determination and commitment to an unrelenting pursuit of your goal -- a commitment to excellence -- that will enable you to attain the success you seek."
-  Mario Andretti

 

"You miss 100% of the shots you don't take."
-  Wayne Gretzky   

 

"Self-will so ardent and active that it will break a world to pieces to make a stool to sit on."
-  Richard Cecil   

 

"The most essential factor is persistence -- the determination never to allow your energy or enthusiasm to be dampened by the discouragement that must inevitably come."
-  James Whitcomb Riley

 

Patience: Quotations, Sayings, Poems

 

"You are successful the moment you start moving toward a worthwhile goal."
-  Charles Carlson   

 

"Tomorrow is the day when idlers work, and fools reform."
-  Edward Young

 

"Strength does not come from physical activity.  It comes from an indomitable will."
-  Mahatma Gandhi   

 

 

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"We always overestimate the change that will occur in the next two years and underestimate the change that will occur in the next ten. 
Don't let yourself be lulled into inaction."
-  Bill Gates

 

"If you focus on results, you will never change.  If you focus on change, you will get results."
-  Jack Dixon


SMART
Specific
Measurable
Achievable
Relevant
Time-Bound

 

"What it boils down to is this - it's up to you to get hold of you mind, control  it, quiet it.  God does the rest.  And immediately, as Eckhart says,
"The being ready and the pouring in are all one act."
-  Nancy Pope, Mayorga

 

"Will is character in action."
-  William McDougall

 

"The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams."
-  Eleanor Roosevelt   

 

"We all have dreams.  But in order to make dreams come into reality, it takes an awful lot of determination, dedication, self-discipline, and effort."
-  Jessie Owens

 

 

How to Free Up More Time for Productive and Practical Success
Applied with Reason and Practical Wisdom


“Making excuses
Focusing on the negatives
Fearing failure
Looking for the easy way
Beating yourself up
Being ungrateful
Concentrating solely on your needs
Getting distracted
Living aimlessly
Giving up.”
– Mike Oppland, 10 Things You Need to Stop Doing to Be Successful, 2016

 

“Don’t work only in your comfort zone
Don’t do without first learning
Don’t be afraid of asking for advice
Don’t get lost in the small details
Don’t multitask
Don’t lie to yourself
Don’t procrastinate in asking for feedback
Don’t follow, do lead
Don’t let your past dictate your future
Don’t hang around negative people.”
– Carl Preston, Ten Habits to Give Up to Increase Productivity, 2016

 


“Don’t do the following:
Overlook the possibility to save money
Heavily rely on others
Act irresponsibly
Feel defeated just because you need to reevaluate your convictions
Dwell on your errors
Permit your past from holding you back
Rely on good luck to solve your problems
Neglect important aspects of your business
Hesitate to learn from your mistakes
Give up on your good ideas just because other people don’t agree with them
Make strong remarks that can make you look weak in the future
Lose the opportunity to broaden your experience
Back off from a good cause
Waste the potentials of their gadgets
Overestimate their abilities
Make redundant enemies
Allow their pride to get in the way
Put all your eggs in one basket
Lie to themselves that everything will be easy
Take unnecessary risks.”
– Djordje Todorovic, Things Smart People Don’t Do, 2016

 



“Watch less mundane television
Reduce internet browsing time
Avoid ignorant and negative people
Avoid organized religions
Stop using any recreational drugs
Avoid sitting for too long
Give up childish ideas and pipe dreams.”
– Michael P. Garofalo, Free Up More Time for Productive Activity, 2016

 

 

"Paralyze resistance with persistence."
-  Woody Hayes

 

“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used to create them.”
– Albert Einstein


“Before I do anything, I ask myself “would an idiot do that?” If the answer is yes, then I do not do that thing.”
– Dwight Schrute



“If you put yourself in a position where you have to stretch outside your comfort zone, then you are forced to expand your consciousness.”
– Les Brown
 

"The most important thing about having goals is having one."
-   Geoffrey F. Abert

 

"Great souls have wills; feeble ones have only wishes."
-  A Chinese Proverb  

 

"We know the past but cannot control it.  We control the future but cannot know it."
-  Claude Shannon

 

"A failure establishes only this, that our determination to succeed was not strong enough."   
-  John C. Bovee

 

"Will power is to the mind like a strong blind man who carries on his shoulders a lame man who can see."   
-  Arthur Schopenhauer    

 

"They must change often, who would be constant in happiness."
-  Confucius

 

"If your determination is fixed, I do not counsel you to despair.  Few things are impossible to diligence and skill.  Great works are performed not by strength, but perseverance."
-  Samuel Johnson

 

"I long to accomplish great and noble tasks, but it is my chief duty to accomplish humble tasks as though they were great and noble.  The world is moved along, not only by the mighty shoves of its heroes, but also by the aggregate of the tiny
pushes of each honest worker."
-  Helen Keller     

 

"Nothing is so fatiguing as the eternal hanging on of an uncompleted task."
-  William James

 

"It is really vain to express the nature of something.  We notice effects, and a complete account of these effects would perhaps comprise the nature of this thing.  We attempt in vain to describe the character of a man; but a description of his actions and his deeds will create for us a picture of his character."
-  Goethe, The Theory of Colors

 

  "Willpower is the art of replacing one habit for another."
-  Michael Garofalo

 

"The greatest waste in the world is the difference between what we are and what we could become."
-  Ben Herbster

 

"You may be disappointed if you fail, but you are doomed if you don’t try."
-  Beverly Sills

 

"A determined soul will do more with a rusty monkey wrench than a loafer will accomplish with all the tools in a machine shop."
-  Robert Hughes

 

"The only good luck many great men ever had was being born with the ability and determination to overcome bad luck."
-  Channing Pollock

 

"Men who are resolved to find a way for themselves will always find opportunities enough; and if they do not find them, they will make them."
-  Samuel Smiles   

 

"Success is simply a matter of luck. Ask any failure."
-   Earl Wilson

 

"The real issue is not talent as an independent element, but talent in relationship to will, desire, and persistence.  Talent without these things vanishes and even modest talent with those characteristics grows."
-  Milton Glaser

 

"Awareness by itself is not enough: it must be joined by mastery.  We need gradually to develop a steering ability to keep ourselves from slipping mechanically into this or that sub-personality. Thus we become able to identify with each part of our being as we wish. We can have more choice.  It is the difference between being impotently transported by a roller coaster and, instead, driving a car and being able to choose which way to go and for what purpose to make the journey."
-  Piero Ferrucci, What We May Be, p. 51

 

"Continuous, unflagging effort, persistence and determination will win.  Let not the man be discouraged who has these."
-  James Whitcomb Riley

 

"If one does not know to which port he is sailing, no wind is favorable."
-  Seneca

 

"We are a product of the choices we make, not the circumstances that we face."
-  Roger Crawford   

 

"A will finds a way."
-  Orison Swett Marden

 

"The secret of happiness lies in taking a genuine interest in all the details of daily life, and in elevating them to art."
-  William Morris   

 

"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

 

"Failure? I never encountered it. All I ever met were temporary setbacks." 
-  Dottie Walters   

 

"What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality."
-  Otto Rank

 

"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   

 

"It is a mistake to suppose that men succeed through success; they much oftener succeed through failures.  Precept, study, advice, and example could never have taught them so well as failure has done."
-  Samuel Smiles

 

"A man can do all things if he but wills them."
-  Leon Battista Alberti

 

"Goals are not only absolutely necessary to motivate us.  They are essential to really keep us alive."
-  Robert H. Schuller

 

"I'm a great believer in luck, and I find that the harder I work, the more I have of it."
-  Thomas Jefferson   

 

"In order to excel, you must be completely dedicated to your chosen sport. You must also be prepared to work hard and be willing to accept constructive criticism. Without a total 100 percent dedication, you won't be able to do this."
-  Willie Mays

 

"I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody."
-  Bill Cosby   

 

"The most useless are those who never change through the years."
-  James Barrie

 

"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

 

"Give me a stock clerk with a goal and I'll give you a man who will make history.  Give me a man with no goals and I'll give you a stock clerk."
-  J. C. Penney   

 

"It seems to me that perfection of means and confusion of goals seems to characterize our age."
-  Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

"Heaven is blessed with perfect rest but the blessing of earth is toil."
-  Henry van Dyke

 

"Effort only fully releases its reward after a person refuses to quit."
-  Napoleon Hill

 

"Life is like a game of cards.  The hand that is dealt you represents determinism; the way you play is your own will."
-  Jawaharial Nehru

 

"Build your life brick upon brick,
Live a life of truth,
And you will look back on a life of truth.
Live a life of fantasy,
And you will look back on delusion."
-  Deng Ming-Dao

 

"The world is moving so fast these days that the man who says it can't be done is generally interrupted by someone doing it."
-  Elbert Hubbard

 

"Good character is more to be praised than outstanding talent.  Most talents are, to some extent, a gift.  Good character, by contrast, is not given to us.  We have to build it piece by piece-by thought, choice, courage and determination."
-  John Luther

 

"Good thoughts are no better than good dreams, unless they are executed."
-   Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

 

Creative Commons License

This webpage work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Compiled by Michael P. Garofalo, Green Way Research, Vancouver, Washington © 2003-2021 CCA 4.0

 

 

"Achieving goals by themselves will never make us happy in the long term; it's who we become, as we overcome the obstacles necessary to achieve our goals, that can give us the deepest and most long-lasting sense of fulfillment."
-  Anthony Robbins

 

"In truth, people can generally make time for what they choose to do; it is not really the time."
-   John Lubbock

 

"Without continual growth and progress, such words as improvement, achievement, and success have no meaning."
-   Benjamin Franklin

 

"Setbacks add some salt to every sweet success."
-   Michael Garofalo   

 

  "If you want to reach a goal, you must 'see the reaching' in your own mind before you actually arrive at your goal."
-  Zig Ziglar

 

"Change is the law of life.  And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future."
-   John F. Kennedy

 

How to Support this Website

 


"Snowflakes are one of nature's most fragile things, but just look at what they can do when they stick together."
-   Vesta Kelly

 

"Failure will never overtake me if my determination to succeed is strong enough."
-  Og Mandino

 

"Positive anything is better that negative nothing."
-   Elbert Hubbard    

 

"One siupreme fact which I have discovered is that it is not willpower, but fantasy and imagination that creates.  Imagination is the creative force.  Imagination creates reality."
-  Richard Wagner

 

"The intelligent want self-control; children want candy."
-   Mevlana Rumi

 

"Success is the progressive realization of a worthy goal or ideal."
-   Earl Nightingale

 

"Venerable Teacher, I am now deeply aware that to know or to think about something is much different than actually aligning oneself with the reality of being and doing it.  To have a quick mind or tongue is not equal to real achievement.  A person may think he is a good rider, but once he takes up the horse's reigns, it takes time and practice in order to ride well.  To talk and think about the Universal Integral Way is merely talking and thinking, which do not go beyond the relative realm; to a universal being talking and thinking are irrelevant.  The Universal Way is not just a matter of speaking wisdom, but one of continual practice in order to reach universal realization.  If one hope to align oneself with it, one must practice it.  If one does not practice it, one will never reach it.  Although it takes years of practice to become one with the Universal Way, it takes but an instant to realize it.'
    "Kind prince, " said the master, "just relax your body and quiet your senses.  Forget that you are one among many.  Undo the mind and allow it to return to its virgin purity.  Loosen the spirits within you.  Thus all things return to their root, and because there is no separation between them and their source, their return goes unrecognized.  To know of the return is to depart from it.  Do not be curious about its name and do not be in awe of its forms.  Then the truth will present itself to you naturally of itself and you will join in oneness with deep and boundless reality.  This is what it means to be a Universal One."
Hua Hu Ching, Chapter 49, translated by Hua-Ching Ni.  A Taoist work from around 500 CE, questionably attributed to Lao Tzu.

 

"The world is full of willing people - some willing to work, the rest willing to let them."
-   Robert Frost   

 

Someday is not a day of the week.

 

"The only person who is educated is the one who has learned how to learn... and change."
-  Carl Rogers

 

"Most people would succeed in small things if they were not troubled with great ambitions."
-  Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

 

"The longer I live, the more I am certain that the great difference between the great and the insignificant, is energy -- invincible determination -- a purpose once fixed, and then death or victory."
-   Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton

 

"I am an idealist. I don't know where I am going, but I am on my way."
-   Carl Sandburg   

 

"The time to begin most things is ten years ago."
-   Mignon McLaughlin

 

"Yoga is a light which, once lit, will never dim.  The better you practice, the brighter the flame."
-  B. K. S. Iyengar

 

"To will is to select a goal, determine a course of action that will bring one to that goal, and then hold to that action till the goal is reached.  The key is action."
-   Michael Hanson   

 

"Let me tell you the secret that has led me to my goal: my strength lies solely in my tenacity."
-   Louis Pasteur

 

"You must either modify your dreams or magnify your skills."
-   Jim Rohn

 

"Vitality shows not only in the ability to persist, but in the ability to start over."
-   F. Scott Fitzgerald   

 

"When you see a thing clearly in your mind, your creative ''success mechanism'' within you takes over and does the job much better than you could do it by conscious effort or "willpower."
-   Maxwell Maltz

 

"You got to be careful if your don't know where you're going, because you might not get there."
-   Yogi Berra

 

"I generally avoid temptation unless I can't resist it."
-   Mae West   

 

"It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something."
-   Franklin Roosevelt   

 

"Failure is only postponed success as long as courage coaches ambition.  The habit of persistence is the habit of victory."
-   Herbert Kaufman

 

"Success is a state of mind.  If you want success, start thinking of yourself as a success."
-  Dr. Joyce Brothers   

 

"You may delay, but time will not."
-   Benjamin Franklin

 

"Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no help at all."
-   Dale Carnegie

 

"Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better."
-   Samuel Beckett 

 

"A plan relieves you of the torment of choice."
-  Saul Bellow

 

"So lay claim to your greatness.  Drive a stake into the ground to make your place under the sun.  Stop being a prisoner of your past and become the architect of your future.  And remember, it's never too late to become the person you have always dreamed of becoming."
-  Robin Sharma, The Greatness Guide

 

"You always pass failure on the way to success."
-  Micky Rooney

 

"Never give up, for this is just the place and time that the tide will turn."
-  Harriet Beecher Stowe

 

"Continuous, unflagging effort, persistence and determination will win.  Let not the man be discouraged who has these."
-   James Whitcomb Riley   

 

"Do not be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better. What if they are a little course, and you may get your coat soiled or torn? What if you do fail, and get fairly rolled in the dirt once or twice. Up again, you shall never be so afraid of a tumble."
-   Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

"The greater the obstacle, the more glory in overcoming it."
-   Moliere

  

"Don't worry about genius.  Don't worry about being clever.  Trust to hard work, perseverance and determination.  The best motto for a long march is: ''Don't grumble. Plug on!''
-   Sir Thomas Treves

 

"The world makes way for the man who knows where he is going."
-   Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

"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

 

"Determination that just won't quit -- that's what it takes."
-   A. J. Foyt   

 

"A little more persistence, a little more effort, and what seemed hopeless failure may turn to glorious success."
-  Elbert Hubbard

 

"Rather fail with honor than succeed by fraud."
-   Sophocles

 

"Attention is the beginning of devotion."
-  Mary Oliver

 

"Let’s ask God to help us to self-control for one who lacks it, lacks his grace."
-  Mevlana Rumi

 

"Let us not be content to wait and see what will happen, but give us the determination to make the right things happen."
-   Peter Marshall   

 

There are many illnesses that might plague us - for instance breast cancer.  Breast cancer can be a draining experience with treatments, surgery, breast implants before and after, and medications.  However through meditation one can stay strong not only in mind, but in body.  Some things are beyond preventing, however, this does not mean we should slow down or give up.  You need to stay strong and move forward.  Do not let life tear you down instead build with what ever it throws at you.
 

 

 

 

  
Months and Seasons
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The best way to get something done is to begin.

 

"In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock."
-   Thomas Jefferson

 

"Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life."
-   Confucius   

 

"Energy and persistence conquer all things."
-   Benjamin Franklin

 

"Nothing splendid has ever been achieved except by those who dared to believe that something inside of them was superior to circumstance."
-   Bruce Barton

 

"What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for some goal worthy of him.  What he needs is not the discharge of tension at any cost, but the call of a potential meaning waiting to be fulfilled by him."
-   Victor Frankl

 

"A thousand mile journey begins with one step."
-   Lao Tse

 

"Our goals can only be reached through a vehicle of a plan, in which we must fervently  believe, and upon which we must vigorously act.  There is no other route to success."
-   Stephan A. Brennan

 

"We shrink from change; yet is there anything that can come into being without it?"
-   Marcus Aurelius

 

Process Philosophy
 

 

"Determination is the wake-up call to the human will."
-   Anthony Robbins

 

"No problem is insurmountable. With a little courage, teamwork and determination a person can overcome anything."
-   B. Dodge

 

"Determination gives you the resolve to keep going in spite of the roadblocks that lay before you."
-   Denis Waitley

 

"Man is the only creature that refuses to be what he is."
-   Albert Camus

 

"Habit is a cable.  We weave a thread of it each day, and at last we cannot break it."
-   Horace Mann

 

Success is a ladder you cannot climb with your hands in your pockets.

 

"What really distinguishes this generation in all countries from earlier generations ... is its determination to act, its joy in action, the assurance of being able to change things by one's own efforts."
-  Hannah Arendt   

 

"Procrastination is the thief of time."
-   Edward Young

   

"If you set goals and go after them with all the determination you can muster, your gifts will take you places that will amaze you."
-  Les Brown

 

"Mind is all that counts."
-   Robert Collier

 

"Goals are discovered, not made."
-   Richard J. Foster   

 

"When you blame others, you give up your power to change."
-   Douglas Noel Adams

 

"Prudent, cautious self-control, is wisdom's root."
-   Robert Burns

 

A diamond is a chunk of coal that made good under pressure.  

 

"It's the constant and determined effort that breaks down all resistance and sweeps away all obstacles."
-  Claude Bristol  

 

"I honestly think it is better to be a failure at something you love than to be a success at something you hate."
-   George Burns

 

"A major part of successful living lies in the ability to put first things first.  Indeed the reason most major goals are not achieved is that we spend our time doing second things first."
-   Robert J. McKain   

 

"The first step toward success is taken when you refuse to a captive of the environment in which you first find yourself."
-   Mark Caine

 

"First say to yourself what you would be, and then do what you have to do."
-   Epictetus

 

 

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Contemplation     Desires     Dharmapada Sutra     Education     Epicureanism     Equanimity     Ethics

Feeling     Fitness     Five Senses     Friendship     Gardening     Generosity     Good Life 

Happiness     Hedonism    Hospitality     Independence     Index     Kindness    Learning     Lifestyle     Links    

Meditation     Memory     Mindfulness     Moderation     Neo-Paganism     Open Minded     Paramitas    

Patience     Philosophy     Play     Pleasures     Pragmatism     Qigong     Reading     Secular     Self-Reliance    

Sensory Pleasures     Simplicity     Solitude    Somaesthetics     Spirituality     Stoicism    Taijiquan    

Tao Te Ching     Thinking     Tolerance     Touching     Tranquility    Vigor     Virtues     Vision     Vitality    

Walking     Willpower     Wisdom     Wonder     Yoga     Zen Precepts    Process Philosophy     

 

 

"Success is going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm."
-   Winston Churchill

 

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Compiled by Michael P. Garofalo, Green Way Research, Vancouver, Washington © 2003-2021 CCA 4.0

  

"I know the price of success: dedication, hard work, and an unremitting devotion to the things you want to see happen."
-   Frank Lloyd Wright   

 

"Nothing stops the man who desires to achieve. Every obstacle is simply a course to develop his achievement muscle.  It's a strengthening of his powers of accomplishment."
-   Eric Butterworth

 

"It is good to have an end to journey toward, but it is the journey that really matters in the end."
-   Ursula K. LeGuin

 

"Being a warrior is not about the act of fighting, it’s about being so prepared to face a challenge and believing so strongly in a cause that you are fighting for that you refuse to quit."
-   Richard J. Machowicz   

 

"Success is never permanent, and failure is never final."
-   Mike Ditka

 

  "A dictionary is the only place that success comes before work.  Hard work is the price we must pay for success.  I think you can accomplish anything if you're willing to pay the price."
-   Vince Lombardi

 

"Knowing is not enough, we must apply.  Willing is not enough, we must do."
-  Johann von Goethe   

 

"The principle is competing against yourself. "
-   Steve Young

 

"Those that only take a nibble here and a nibble there will never attain anything ... Those who really want to be yogis must give up, once and for all, this nibbling at things.  Take up one idea.  Make that one idea your life - think of it, dream of it, live on that idea."
-   Swami Vivekananda    

 

"A man makes inferiors his superiors by heat; self-control is the rule."
-   Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

Patience: Quotations, Sayings, Poems

 

 

"Great minds have purpose. Others have wishes."
-   Washington Irving

 

  "Consider the postage stamp; its usefulness consists in the ability to stick to one thing till it gets there."   
-   Josh Billings 

 

"Procrastination is the art of keeping up with yesterday."
-   Don Marquis

 

"What's money anyhow? A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night and in between does what he wants to do."
-   Bob Dylan    

 

"Like a garden, the room for self-improvement grows each year."
-   Michael Garofalo   

 

"You have a very powerful mind that can make anything happen as long as you keep yourself centered."
-  Wayne W. Dyer    

 

"The time is always right to do what is right."
-   Martin Luther King Jr.   

 

"It is not because things are different that we do not dare; it is because we do not dare that they are difficult."   

 

"Strength is a matter of the made-up mind."
-   John Beecher

 

"You can clutch the past so tightly to your chest that it leaves your arms too full to embrace the present."
-   Jan Glidewell   

 

"There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power of our will."
-   Epictetus  

 

"To labor is to pray."
-   Motto of the Benedictines

 

"Progress in every age results only from the fact that there are some men and women who refuse to believe that what they know 
to be right cannot be done."
-   Russell W. Davenport   

 

"The most important attribute of man as a moral being is the faculty of self-control."
-   Herbert Spencer

 

"Whatever you can do or imagine, begin it; boldness has beauty, magic, and power in it."
- Goethe

 

"Abstainer, n.  A weak person who yields to the temptation of denying himself a pleasure."
-   Ambrose Bierce

 

"You can have anything you want if you want it desperately enough. You must want it with an inner exuberance that erupts through the skin and joins the energy that created the world."
- Sheila Graham

 

"A silly idea is current that good people do not know what temptation means.  This is an obvious lie.  Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is....  A man who gives in to temptation after five minutes simply does not know what it would have been like an hour later.  That is why bad people, in one sense, know very little about badness.  They have lived a sheltered life by always giving in."
-   C.S. Lewis

 

"Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion."
-   Parkinson's Law 

 

"If passion drives you, let reason hold the reins."
-   Benjamin Franklin

 

"The secret of health both for mind and body is not to mourn for the past, not to worry about the future, or not to anticipate troubles, but to live the present moment wisely and earnestly."
-   Buddha  

 

"We like slipping, but not falling; our real anxiety is to be tempted enough." 
-   Augustus William Hare

 

"Difficulties strengthen the mind, as does labor the body."
-   Seneca

 

Cloud Hands Blog

 

 

"Do not bite at the bait of pleasure till you know there is no hook beneath it."
-   Thomas Jefferson

 

"We must always change, renew, rejuvenate ourselves; otherwise we harden."
-   Goethe

 

"There is a charm about the forbidden that makes it unspeakably desirable."
-   Mark Twain

 

"We are what we think."
-   Buddha

 

"About the only time losing is more fun than winning is when you're fighting temptation."
-   Tom Wilson

 

"We must walk consciously only part way toward our goal, and then leap in the dark to our success."
-  Henry D. Thoreau

 

"Nothing makes it easier to resist temptation than a proper bringing-up, a sound set of values - and witnesses." 
-   Franklin P. Jones

 

"You must welcome change as the rule but not as your ruler."
-   Denis Waitley

 

"Commitment is healthiest when it it is not without doubt but in spite of doubt."
-  Rollo May 

 

"Most people want to be delivered from temptation but would like it to keep in touch."
-   Robert Orben

 

"The past cannot be changed, but the future is still in your power."
-   Hugh White 

 

"There is no allurement or enticement, actual or imaginary, which a well-disciplined mind may not surmount.  The wish to resist more than half accomplishes the object." 
-   Charlotte Dacre

 

"Watch your thoughts; they become words.
Watch your words; they become actions.
Watch your actions; they become habits.
Watch your habits; they become character.  
Watch your character; it becomes your destiny."
-   Frank Outlaw 

 

"Who is fit to govern others?  He who governs himself.  You might as well have said: nobody."
-   Augustus William Hare

 

"Imagination is the beginning of creation.  You imagine what you desire, you will what you imagine, and, at last, you create what you will."
-   George Bernard Shaw

 

Patience: Quotations, Sayings, Poems

 

 

"The trouble with resisting temptation is it may never come your way again."
-   Korman's Law

 

"See first that the design is wise and just; that ascertained, pursue it resolutely."
-   William Shakespeare 

 

"Not using faults does not mean that one does not have them."
-   Antonio Porchia

 

"It is not the strongest of the species who survive, not the most intelligent, but those who are the 
most adaptive to change."
-   Charles Darwin

 

"Conscience whispers, but interest screams aloud."
-   J. Petit-Senn

 

"It's easier to go down a hill than up it but the view is much better at the top."
-   Henry Ward Beecher

 

"An element of abstention, of restraint, must enter into all finer joys."
-   Vida D. Scudder

 

"A man may fulfill the object of his existence by asking a question he cannot answer 
and attempting a task he cannot achieve."   
-  Oliver Wendell Holmes

 

"If you have a positive attitude and constantly strive to give your best effort, eventually you will overcome your immediate problems and find you are ready for greater challenges."
-  Pat Riley

 

"The first attribute that characterizes the greater man from the moron
is his thicker layer of inhibition."
-   Martin H. Fischer

 

"Ninety-nine percent of the failures come from people 
who have the habit of making excuses."
-   George Washington

 

"Desire is the key to motivation, but it's determination and commitment to an unrelenting pursuit of your goal - a commitment to excellence - that will enable you to attain the success you seek."
-  Mario Andretti

 

"For every man there exists a bait which he cannot resist swallowing."
-   Friedrich Nietzsche

 

"Success is almost totally dependent upon drive and persistence.  The extra energy required to make another effort or try another approach is the secret of winning."
-  Denis Waitley

 

"Willpower is the strength of mind to carry out one's goals."
-   Sandy Anderson  

 

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"If we resist our passions, it is more because of their weakness than because of our strength." 
-   François, duc de La Rochefoucauld

 

"A resolute determination is the truest wisdom."
-  Napoleon

 

"I am, indeed, a king, because I know how to rule myself."
-   Pietro Aretino

 

"It seems to me that the term 'free will' is one of the most manipulated and exploited 
terms. The real explanation of free will is not that you have free will but that your will 
can eventually make you free, that will can liberate you, that will can release 
you from slavery."
-   Torkom Saraydarian 

 

"How to Break a Bad Habit

1.  Make it Invisible: Reduce exposure. Remove the cues of you bad habits from your environment.
2.  Make it Unattractive: Reframe your mindset.  Highlight the benefits of avoiding your bad habits.
3.  Make it Difficult: Increase friction.  Increase the number of steps between you and you bad habits.  Use a commitment device. 
                             Restrict you future choices to the ones that benefit you.
4.  Make it Unsatisfying:  Get an accountability partner.  Ask someone to watch you behavior.  Create a habit contract. 
                                    Make the costs of you bad habits public and painful.
-  James Clear, Atomic Habits 

 

"I bid you conquer in your warfare against your four great enemies, the world, the devil, the flesh, and above all, that obstinate and perverse self-will, unaided by which the other three would be comparatively powerless."
-   Augustus William Hare

 

"Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude."
-   Thomas Jefferson

 

"It's all right letting yourself go, as long as you can get yourself back." 
-  Mick Jagger

 

"It is in changing that things find purpose."
-  Heraclitus

 

"Do you really think it is weakness that yields to temptation?  I tell you that there are terrible temptations which it requires
strength, strength and courage to yield to."
-   Oscar Wilde

 

"Do not go through life; grow through life."
-   Eric Butterworth

 

"What makes resisting temptation difficult for many people is they don't want to discourage it completely." 
-   Franklin P. Jones

 

"There can be no real freedom without the freedom to fail."
-  Eric Fromm   

 

"You must admit you have self-control before you can use it."
-   Carrie Latet 

 

"Patience, persistence and perspiration make an unbeatable combination for success."
-  Napoleon Hill

 

 

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This webpage work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Compiled by Michael P. Garofalo, Green Way Research, Vancouver, Washington © 2003-2021 CCA 4.0

 

 

"Each new day beckons you to walk on the road of self-transcendence.  We transcend ourselves, we do not compete with others.  We compete only with our previous achievements, and we get joy.  Life is nothing but a perpetual possibility."
-  Sri Chinmoy

 

"The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it."
-   Oscar Wilde

 

Manage your pleasures and desires.
Be open to thinking and feeling in new ways.
Sometimes ignore what other people tell you to do or not to do.
Old values are not necessarily better values.
What is "bad" in one generation may be "good" in later times.
Enjoy the pleasure of eating apples.
When someone tells you not to ask, sometimes ask and ask again.
Text, try, experiment - within reason.
With only one life to live - be bolder.
Don't resist the temptation to improve, to change, to grow.
Like water, enjoy going downhill in new directions.
Embrace intellectual pleasures.
Be suspicious of people who talk too much about guilt and punishment.
Some failures are inevitable, just get up and move on.  
Thinking and doing are often more advantageous than believing.  
Many people associate sexual pleasure with 'sinfulness': nonsense.
Succumb to temptations to laugh more often.  
If you can't take advantage of temptations then your not free.  
Remember what works for you.  
Have to courage to follow some temptations.

- Mike Garofalo, Willpower

 

Process Philosophy
 

 

"In the confrontation between the stream and the rock, the stream always wins - not through strength but by perseverance."
-  Jackson Brown

 

"Being out of control is one of the worst feelings in the world, sometimes even worse than pain.  It is its own kind of pain." 
-   Danzae Pace

 

"I hear and I forget.
I see and I remember.
I do and I understand."
-   Confucius

 

"It's a man's own mind, not his enemy or foe, that lures him to evil ways." 
-   Buddha

 

"Being busy does not always mean real work. The object of all work is production or accomplishment and to either of these ends there must be forethought, system, planning, intelligence, and honest purpose, as well as perspiration. Seeming to do is not doing."
-   Thomas A. Edison

 

"Those who flee temptation generally leave a forwarding address." 
-  Lane Olinghouse

 

"The best way out is always through."
-   Robert Frost

 

"The cyclone derives its powers from a calm center.  So does a person."
-   Norman Vincent Peale

 

Patience: Quotations, Sayings, Poems

 

 

"If you're not failing every now and again, it's a sign you're not doing anything very innovative."
-   Woody Allen  

 

"All men are tempted.  There is no man that lives that can't be broken down, provided it is the right temptation, put in the right spot." 
-   Henry Ward Beecher

 

"You will soon realize that you create the mind in any way that you want, that you are master of your mind. To become master of your mind, you must realize that understanding is fifty percent of control of the mind, and you have to work at it as an accountant would work to balance his books, as a musician has to work to master his instrument."
Awakening Willpower   

 

"I have been my own disciple and my own master.  And I have been a good disciple but a bad master."
-   Antonio Porchia

 

"The Twelve Laws of Transformation

1.  Seek the Truth
2.  Be Willing to Come Apart
3.  Step Out of Your Comfort Zone
4.  Commit to Growth
5.  Shift Your Vision
6.  Drop What You Know
7.  Relax with What Is
8.  Remove the Rocks
9.  Don't Rush the Process
10.  Be True to Yourself
11.  Be Still and Know
12.  Understand that the Whole is the Goal"
-  Baron Baptiste, 40 Days to Personal Revolution, 2004, pp. 5-45. 

 

"The world makes way for the man who knows where he is going."
-   Ralph Waldo Emerson   

 

"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

 

 

                                                       

 

 

"The obstacles that distract thought are disease, apathy, doubt, carelessness, indolence, dissipation, false vision, failure to attain a firm basis in yoga, and restlessness."
-   Pantanjali, Yoga Sutra (1.30), 200 CE, Translated by Barbara Stoler Miller.    

 

"By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail."
-  Benjamin Franklin 

 

"How like herrings and onions our vices are in the morning after we have committed them."
-   Samuel Taylor Coleridge

 

"The first, sickness (vyadhi), is a physical obstacle, but the other eight can be considered mental.  These include languor (styana), doubt (samshaya), heedlessness (pramada), sloth (alasya), dissipation (avirati), false vision (bhranti-darshana), nonattainment of yogic states (alabdha-bhumikatva), and instability in these states (anavasthitatva)."
-  Richard Rosen, The Yoga of Breath, p. 39.  

 

"Not being able to govern events, I govern myself, and apply myself to them, if they will not apply themselves to me. 
-   Michel de Montaigne 

 

"If you want to live a happy life, tie it to a goal.  Not to people or things."
-   Albert Einstein 


"Working hard for something we don't care about is called stress.  Working hard for something we love is called passion."
-  Simon Sinek  

 

"Awareness without emotion is a flame without fuel."
-  John C. Norcorss 

 

"Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.'
-  Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

"To err is human, to repent divine, to persist devilish."
-   Benjamin Franklin

 

"Self-respect is the root of discipline:  The sense of dignity grows with the ability to say no to oneself."
-   Abraham Joshua Heschel

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bibliography and Links

Changing Yourself, Willpower for Action, Developing Good Habits

 

 

The Act of Will.   By Robert Assagioli.   Viking Press, 1983. 


Affirmations for Personal Growth and Self Improvement
.   By Thomas Yarnell.    


Atomic Habits: An Easy and Proven Way to Build Good Habits and Break Bad Ones.  By James Clear.  Avery, 2018, 320 pages.  A excellent best seller. 
Clear writing style, positive, informative, practical, and inspiring. VSCL. 


Atomic Habits Website.  By James Clear.  Download the Habits Cheat sheet. 


Attitude is Everything:  Change Your Attitude and You Change Your Life.  By Jeff Keller.  International Network Training Instituted, 1999. 


Changeology: 5 Steps to Realizing Your Goals and Resolutions  By John C. Norcross.  Contributors: Kristin Loberg and Jonathon Norcross.  Simon and Schuster, 2012.  272 pages.  Transtheoretical model of behavioral change was first developed in the 1980s by James O. Prochaska and Carlo C. DiClemente.  John C. Norcross uses this model in his book Changeology.  VSCL. 


Changing for Good: A Revolutionary Six-Stage Program for Overcoming Bad Habits and Moving Your Life Positively Forward
By James O. Prochaska, John Norcorss, and Carlo DiClemente.  William Morrow, 1995.  304 pages.  


Cloud Hands: Taijiquan and Qigong


Choice Theory: A New Psychology of Personal Freedom
.  By William Glasser.  Perennial, 1999.  368 pages. 
 

Cloud Hands Blog.  By Michael P. Garofalo.  Over 4,000 indexed posts on well being, philosophy, somaesthetics, taijiquan, qigong, walking, gardening, yoga, Taoism, hedonism, language, and spirituality.  Over 1.4 million page views as of 9/13/2020.    


"Desire and Destiny: Getting What We Want."   By Eknath Easwaran (1909-1999).   Yoga International, May 2004, pp.59-67.   


Discipline: Training the Mind to Manage Your Life.  By Harris Kern and Karen Willi.  Authorhouse, 2003.   200 pages.  


Eat That Frog!: 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time.  By Brian Tracy.  Berrett-Koehler Pub., 2002.  144 pages.    


Effort - Quotations


Elbow Room: The Varieties of Free Will Worth Wanting.  By Daniel C. Dennett.  Bradford Books, 1984.  248 pages. 


Empowerment: The Art of Creating Your Life as You Want It.  By David Gershon and Gail Straub.  High Point Press, 1989.  234 pages. 


Exercise Your Willpower for Fitness Seekers   A variety of articles.  


Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway.   By Susan Jeffers.   Ballantine Books, 1988.  240 pages.    


Finish: Give Yourself the Gift of Done.  By Jon Acuff.  Portfolio Press, 2017.  208 pages.  VSCL. 


Fitness and Well Being


Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity
.  By David Allen.  Penguin Books, 2003.  288 pages.     


Green Way Research


Grit: The Power and Passion of Perseverance.  By Angela Duckworkth.  Scribner, 2016.  352 pages.   

 

 

                                                           

 


A Guide to Rational Living.  By Albert Ellis.  Wilshire Book Company, 3rd Ed., Revised, 1975.  283 pages. 


Habits: Forming, Changing, Improving, Creating, Willpower


How to Be Organized in Spite of Yourself: Time and Space Management.  By Sunny Schlenger.  Signet Book, 1999.  256 pages. 


How to Get Control of Your Time and Your Life.   By Alan Lakein.  Signet Book, Reissue edition, 1996.   160 pages. 


Inspirational Quotations Index   


I Will Not Die and Unlived Life: Reclaiming Purpose and Passion.  By Dawna Markova.  Conari Press, 2000.  150 pages.    


Labor - Quotations

 

 

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Laziness - Quotations


Love and Will.   By Rollo May.   Originally published in 1969.  Delta, 1989.  352 pages. 


Mastery: The Keys to Success and Long-Term Fulfillment.  By George Leonard.  New York, Plume, Penguin Books, 1992.  176 pages.    


Maximum Achievement: Strategies and Skills that Will Unlock Your Hidden Powers to Succeed.  By Brian Tracy.  Simon and Schuster, Fireside Edition, 1995.  352 pages.    


Meditation Techniques


The Mysteries of Willpower.   By Torkom Saraydarian.   Tsg Foundation, 1995.  288 pages.   


The Myth of Willpower.   By Charles Henderson.    


The Now Habit: A Strategic Program for Overcoming Procrastination and Enjoying Guilt-Free Play.  By Neil Fiore.  Jeremy P. Tarcher, 1989.  224 pages. 


Optimal Thinking: How to Be Your Best Self.   By Rosalene Glickman.  Wiley, 2002.  256 pages. 


Patience: Quotations, Sayings, Poems


Perseverance - Quotations


Positive Addiction.   By William Glasser.   Perennial Currents.  1st Harper Edition, 1976.  176 pages.  


The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business.  By Charles Duhigg. Random House, 2014, 416 pages.  VSCL. 


Procrastination: How to Stop Procrastinating     


Procrastination Research Group


The Procrastination Workbook.   By William Knaus.  New Harbinger Pub., 2002.  170 pages.     


Procrastination: Why You Do It, What to Do About it Now.  By Jane B. Burka and Lenora M. Yuen.  25th Anniversary Edition.  De Capo Lifelong, 2008, index, 322 pages.  VSCL. 


Procrastinator's Handbook: Mastering the Art of Doing It Now.  By Rita Emmett.  Walker and Co., 2000.   224 pages.    


Pulling Onions.   By Michael P. Garofalo.   Over 888 quips and observations of a gardener.    


Procrastination: Why You Do It, What to Do About It.  By Jane Burka and Lenora Yuen.  Addison Wesley Pub. Col, 1990. 


Psychosynthesis: A Collection of Basic Writings.   By Roberto Assagioli.  Synthesis Center, 2000.  287 pages.      


Relaxation  


Rewire: Change Your Brain to Break Bad Habits, Overcome Additions, and Conquer Self-Destructive Behavior.  By Richard O'Connor, Ph.D..  New York, Hudson Street Press, c 2014.  Index, references, notes, 289 pages.   


The Roman Virtues  The 15 personal virtues include:  "Firmitas: "Tenacity" Strength of mind, the ability to stick to one's purpose.  Industria: "Industriousness" Hard work.  Prudentia: "Prudence" Foresight, wisdom, and personal discretion.  Severitas: "Sternness" Gravity, self-control."


Self-Control Has Limits   


Self-Discipline in 10 Days:  How to Go From Thinking to Doing.  By Theodore Bryant.  HUB Pub., 1999.  160 pages. 


Self-Help Motivation


Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard  By Chip Heath and Dean Heath.  Crown Business, 2010.  320 pages.   


Take Your Time: Finding Balance in a Hurried World
.  By Eknath Easwaran (1909-1999).  Hyperion Press, 1998.   240 pages.    


Tiny Habits: The Small Changes That Change Everything.  By B. J. Fogg.  Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2019, 320 pages. 
 VSCL on Kindle ebook. 


To-Do List Formula: A Stress Free Guide to Creating To-Do Lists That Work.  By Damon Zahariades.  CreateSpace Independent Pub., 2016.  107 pages.  


Ultimate Guide to Mental Toughness: How to Raise Your Motivation, Focus and Confidence Like Pushing a Button.   By Daniel Teitelbaum.  Mental Toughness, 1998.  277 pages. 


Unleash the Warrior Within: Develop the Focus, Discipline, Confidence and Courage You Need to Achieve Unlimited Goals.  By Richard J. Machowicz.  Marlowe and Co., 2002.  240 pages.    


The Virtues Project:  Honesty, Gratitude,
Perseverance, Generosity, Discipline, Compassion, Humility, Patience, Courage and Respect.


What We May Be
: Techniques for Psychological and Spiritual Growth Through Psychosynthesis.  By Piero Ferrucci.  New York, Jeremy P. Tarcher, Putnam Book, 1982.  Bibliography, appendices, index, 255 pages.  VSCL.    


Willpower!   By Gillian Riley.   Vermilion, 2003.  224 pages.  


Willpower and Self-Discipline.   By Remez Sasson.   


Willpower and Success.   By David V. Bush.  Originally published in 1916.  Kessinger Pubs., 2003.  276 pages. 


Willpower: How to Gain It and Maintain It.   By Sandy Anderson and Robert Anderson.  California Dream Publications, 1987.   100 pages. 


Willpower Killers: Self-doubt, Discomfort-dodging, and Resentment.  By Will Ross.  


Willpower Versus Making Resolutions    By Remez Sasson.   


Willpower - Why it Wanes     

 

 

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This webpage was last edited, improved, revised, expanded, modified or updated on September 28, 2020.       

This webpage was first distributed online on October 3, 2003.         

 

 

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Compiled by Michael P. Garofalo, Green Way Research, Vancouver, Washington © 2003-2021 CCA 4.0

 

 

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