James Clear Quotes

Greatness takes guts. And often, it's the courage to eliminate the things you can do fairly well so you have the capacity to do one thing exceptionally well. Have the courage to take more off your plate.

The secret is not to find the meaning of life, but to use your life to make things that are meaningful.

Two truths that can be at odds:

1) There are no bonus points in life for doing it the hard way.
2) There is a lot to be gained in life by acting fast and giving your best effort.

Don't let the excuse of searching for a better way prevent you from taking action.

Rome wasn't built in a day, but they were laying bricks every hour.

I think about decisions in three ways: hats, haircuts, and tattoos.

Most decisions are like hats. Try one and if you don't like it, put it back and try another. The cost of a mistake is low, so move quickly and try a bunch of hats.

Some decisions are like haircuts. You can fix a bad one, but it won't be quick and you might feel foolish for awhile. That said, don't be scared of a bad haircut. Trying something new is usually a risk worth taking. If it doesn't work out, by this time next year you will have moved on and so will everyone else.

A few decisions are like tattoos. Once you make them, you have to live with them. Some mistakes are irreversible. Maybe you'll move on for a moment, but then you'll glance in the mirror and be reminded of that choice all over again. Even years later, the decision leaves a mark. When you're dealing with an irreversible choice, move slowly and think carefully.

If you want a recipe for unhappiness, spend your time accumulating a lot of money and let your health and relationships deteriorate.

The way to help someone is not to critique what makes them smaller, but to encourage what makes them larger.

It's more fun to be a fan than a critic. I'm not looking to spend my life tearing things down, when it can be so satisfying to build things up.

Habit formation is incredibly useful because the conscious mind is the bottleneck of the brain. It can only pay attention to one problem at a time. As a result, your brain is always working to preserve your conscious attention for whatever task is most essential. Whenever possible, the conscious mind likes to pawn off tasks to the non conscious mind to do automatically. This is precisely what happens when a habit is formed. Habits reduce cognitive load and free up mental capacity, so you can allocate your attention other tasks.

Enough courage to get started + enough sense to focus on something you're naturally suited for + enough persistence to stay in the game long enough to catch a few lucky breaks + a lot of hard work. There's your recipe.

Revising a book before it is published is incredibly useful. The extra polish improves the first impression.

Publishing a second edition a few years after publishing, even if it involves the same revisions, is less useful. The brand has already been established.

Refine at the right time.

Distance and time are the two wedges that separate relationships.

When it really matters, get in the car (or on the plane) and meet them face-to-face.

When you want it to last, don't wait to talk about it. Solve it now before the gap becomes too wide.

It’s only by making the fundamentals of life easier that you can create the mental space needed for free thinking and creativity.

Your behaviors are usually a reflection of your identity.

Success is never due to one thing, but failure can be.

Sleeping well won't make you successful, but not sleeping enough will hold you back. Hard work is rarely enough without good strategy, but even the best strategy is useless without hard work.

Many things are necessary, but not sufficient for success.