James Clear Quotes

There are many elements of living a good life, but the first and most foundational is to love yourself and enjoy spending time with yourself.

Go do things on your own so you learn to trust your mind and view it as a welcome companion. If someone declared, "Tomorrow you must spend the day alone" the hope is that you would reply, "That sounds like a good day!"

The person who is at ease within finds every other space larger and more enjoyable.

One of the more effective ways to force yourself to have better ideas is to create an artificial constraint.

For many years, I wrote two articles per week and it would often take me over 20 hours to complete each article. Then I said, "If I only had 2 to 4 hours per week to write my newsletter, what would I do?"

That artificial constraint led to the creation of the 3-2-1 newsletter, which has become an incredibly popular format. Sometimes you can improve by cutting your options off.

Your first attempt might not be very good, but nobody's early work is good. There will always be a gap between where you are and where you want to be. And the bridge between that gap is courage. The courage to look foolish in the beginning. The courage to show up again when your early work is criticized. The courage to look yourself in the mirror and say, “I realize I'm not good enough yet, but the only way to get better is to keep working on it.

A phrase I overheard the other day:

“If you choose not to find joy in the snow, you will have less joy in your life but still the same amount of snow.”

Getting what you want out of life largely boils down to
(1) the story you tell yourself and
(2) where you direct your attention.

What story do you tell yourself about what has happened to you, what you're capable of, and what you hope to achieve? Is the conversation in your head each day empowering and encouraging you, or holding you back?

And are you taking control and directing your attention toward what matters or merely letting inertia pull you along? Most things don't matter and most actions won't deliver a result. Focus.

Master your internal monologue and master your daily attention. Most tips, tricks, and tactics ultimately come back to these two things.

If you are bummed by the state of the world, go build something.

You don't need to solve every problem right now, only those that stand in your way.

A lovely blend: Always reaching. Already enough.

Compete against yourself.

When you look outside — your rivals, your industry, your luck — there is always something to blame.

When you look inside — your process, your effort, your rate of learning — there is always something to improve.

Average looks out. Elite looks in.

I try to live to a standard, not the circumstances of the day. Some days it is easy. Some days it is hard. But I do it either way because that's who I want to be, not because it is always easy to do.

It's not my job to tell myself no. The world will offer plenty of obstacles. I don't need to add to them. My mind is my friend. I am my own biggest believer.

I'm adaptable. I don't need the day to go perfectly to make it a good one.

I recently found this note to myself:

“No sense in thinking small. Don't water down your vision. A remarkable amount can be accomplished if you are willing to think longer term than most and work hard each day.”

When you are creating something, you will usually find that once things appear 90 percent done, you are actually about halfway there. But you have to create the first 90 percent in order to see the half that needs to be revised.

When you lose a game, the score doesn't transfer to the next contest but your habits certainly will.

Circumstances are temporary. Sometimes you're winning, sometimes you're losing. Hot, cold. Lucky, unlucky. But your habits travel with you. This is why you want to execute the same way whether the score is 10-0 or 0-10. Not because the score doesn't matter, but because the score isn't what you're actually building.

It's not about winning or losing any given round. It's about doing things the right way. If you have a chance to practice your craft, you want to do it as well as you can (even if you end up losing that day). Your previous reps can save you or betray you. The habits always translate to the next round.