Martin Meadows

When you’re struggling, remind yourself that it’s your struggles which will make you a stronger, more resilient, and more successful person.

However, while you’re working on developing your self-efficacy, it might be a good idea to minimize the risk of failures and focus on achieving small, safe goals.

You won’t lose anything by making yourself as ready as possible to tackle the challenge, while you’ll lose a lot by letting negative self-talk instill a seed of doubt.

Successful people don’t have fewer problems. They have determined that nothing will stop them from going forward.

If you finish a non-fiction book and don’t act upon any of its suggestions, you’ve wasted time. When reading, always think about how you can apply the teachings in your own life — not about how you can finish the book faster so you can begin reading another one.

Inverse paranoid: someone who believes the world is conspiring to do him good. Sees every situation as being heaven-sent to teach some valuable lesson or make him successful. This is the most outwardly identifiable quality of a high-performing person

Very often in everyday life one sees that by losing one’s temper with someone who has already lost his, one does not gain anything but only sets out upon the path of stupidity. He who has enough self-control to stand firm at the moment when the other person is in a temper, wins in the end. It is not he who has spoken a hundred words aloud who has won; it is he who has perhaps spoken only one word

While people usually associate self-discipline with the ability to resist temptations (such as laziness or overeating), another equally (if not more) important benefit of self-control is the increased ability to control your emotions.

Don’t do anything you don’t want to do. When you agree to do something you don’t want to do, you will resent the person who asked you to do it.

—James Altucher

Saying yes to something you don’t want to do can save you the discomfort of saying no, but ultimately it’s like cheating on a diet. You get fleeting pleasure (or in the case of saying yes, temporarily escape discomfort) now at the expense of your long-term well-being. In addition to that, in the case of saying yes, you risk feeling resentful toward the person who asked you to do something you didn’t want to do.