I believe that most people have quotes they use time and time again. Do you have such?

The awesome and terrible thing about using quotes is that they are verbal shortcuts. Therein lies the rub. The awesome thing is that a quote will quickly convey myriad meanings fast. The terrible thing about quotes is that they can become rather annoying especially when someone talks in quotes or uses the same ones all the time.

I like to use quotes some times. I want to share with you the ones I like the most because they are expressive.

1 – If you always do what you have always done you will always get what you always got.

I came across this one when I did my NLP Practitioners course a good few years ago. It’s a descriptive presupposition of how we as human can be. You might tell someone to get out of their comfort zone, or highlight that if they want a different outcome then they need to change their behaviour. All of that can be long-winded.

2 – You are never only ‘just’.

I feel concerned when people refer to themselves using the adverb ‘just’. I wrote some time ago that the road to hell is paved with adverbs. The context was writing and it applies to people as well. Adverbs, like the passive voice, seem to have been created with the timid writer in mind. Replace the word writer with the word ‘person’. How does this sound? Not nice right? So stop using the word ‘just’ to qualify your needs, wants and desires. They are important. Stop using it to refer to you or anyone else. No one is ever only ‘just’.

3 – There’s no such thing as perfection

By its very nature perfection is a never-ending only-losing game. Do you know what perfection is? I thought I did but this is a game I’ve played often and lost. Each time I thought I reached perfection there was always something missing because it was not what I imagined it to be. So I continued, seeking this illusive thing that I didn’t know what it was but that I thought I wanted. Here’s the news folks – perfection is an illusion. It doesn’t exist. What does exist is continuous learning and improvement, getting satisfaction from the journey rather than getting to a perceived end. Perfection is the game a fixed mindset plays. The growth mindset prefers a different game all together – that of learning.

Well there you have it! These three quotes are powerful to me. They help me become a better version of myself each and every day. What are your favourite quotes?

As I wrote this Julie Andrew’s singing My Favourite Things from The Sound of Music started up in my music player of the mind. Enjoy!

 

Writing prompt from The Imagination Prompt Generator.