James Clear Quotes

A recipe for getting more out of what you read:

Start more books. Quit most of them. Read the great ones twice.

Beware the student of one teacher. A good idea spirals into dogma when it gets applied to everything and stretched beyond the areas where it is useful. Remain open and embrace a lot of teachers.

Boredom is a filter. Common ideas come before it. Uncommon ideas come after it. Sit with a project long enough to get bored with it, then sit a little more. The most useful insights bubble up after you get bored.

Good habits make time your ally. Bad habits make time your enemy.

You should always be rooting for the people you know. Not only because you may need their support tomorrow, but also because it feels good to celebrate something.

Celebration can rescue your day—even if it is someone else's victory. Envy will ruin your day—even if you're actually winning.

It can be a great advantage to
(1) be somewhat restless and
(2) have very high standards.

Holding yourself to a high standard prevents you from jumping into whatever new thing comes your way. It encourages you to be thoughtful and ensures you remain patient for the right opportunity.

However—because you are somewhat restless—you are always digging around and watching for opportunities. When most people stop searching, you continue to explore. And when an opportunity comes your way that meets your standard, you'll be more likely to notice it and more likely to act upon it immediately.

The goal in any sport is to finish with the best score, but it would be ridiculous to spend the whole game staring at the scoreboard. The only way to actually win is to get better each day. In the words of three-time Super Bowl winner Bill Walsh, “The score takes care of itself.” The same is true for other areas of life. If you want better results, then forget about setting goals. Focus on your system instead.

There are nearly endless opportunities to improve each day and finding them largely boils down to being curious.

People who are better in the end are usually curious in the beginning.

Be great in small ways.

Writing 100 words today doesn't seem worthwhile when you see people publishing bestsellers.

Exercising for 10 minutes doesn't seem valuable when you see world records posted on Instagram.

But winning the next 10 minutes is its own form of greatness.

People are so busy wishing for more time and better resources that they fail to make the most of the time and resources they have. Be great in small ways and you may be surprised by what you've achieved within a year or two.

When nothing seems to help, I go and look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock, perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it.19 Yet at the hundred and first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not that last blow that did it — but all that had gone before.

Patience is a competitive advantage.

In a surprising number of fields, you can find success if you are simply willing to do the reasonable thing longer than most people.

Some things are a job, others are a craft. The primary difference is not the task, but the enthusiasm and curiosity put into the task. The more engaged and interested you are, the more it becomes a craft.

How to see opportunities others miss:

1) Study a totally different field, then return to the original problem. Apply insights from other domains.
2) Invert the problem. Try to achieve the opposite.
3) Talk to hyper-creative people. Their thinking will rub off.

The imperfect project you actually complete is worth more than the perfect project you never finish.

The most satisfying form of freedom is not a life without responsibilities, but a life where you are free to choose your responsibilities.