James Clear Quotes

On funerals, loss, grief, friendship, and support:

It's not about knowing what to say. It's about being there when nobody knows what to say. The only thing people need to hear is, "You are not alone." And that doesn't require words. It just requires your presence.

When accessing all information is common, paying attention to important information is rare.

People can sometimes be held hostage by their expectations. They have a dream of something they would like to achieve or a path they intend to follow, but their mindset falls apart when things don't work out how they had hoped.

The key is to reach for an extremely high bar, but to be adaptable enough to reframe the failures, disappointments, and defeats into fuel for the next thing. Give your best effort, but no matter how it works out, trust that life will be good for you. Focus on how the world is working with you, not against you.

Everything you are given is material for the next move. Everything.

Your best performances will come when you are working in a way that is a full expression of you. The work becomes a natural display of your personality. This is when you not only get better results, but also love the activity — because in doing the craft, you feel alive.

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.

A surefire way to make a bad situation worse is to continue replaying it in your mind.

The damage is done. The only thing that matters now is making the best choice given your current position.

Next play mentality.

In theory, consistency is about being disciplined, determined, and unwavering.

In practice, consistency is about being adaptable. Don't have much time? Scale it down. Don't have much energy? Do the easy version. Find different ways to show up depending on the circumstances. Let your habits change shape to meet the demands of the day.

Adaptability is the way of consistency.

In today's issue, I'm sharing three ideas to help you stick with better habits as we head deeper into January…

“Nearly everything awesome takes longer than you think.

Get started and don't worry about the clock.”

People who rarely receive criticism often take feedback too personally and miss opportunities to learn.

People who frequently receive criticism get used to ignoring what others say and also miss opportunities to learn.

The thing to focus on is the pattern. If you hear something once, don't let it wreck your mindset. There are many ways to view the world and not everyone will agree with your approach.

But if you're hearing something repeatedly, think carefully about whether the feedback is right.

Caring about everything is a disaster.

Caring about nothing is also a disaster.

Nurture the small pocket of things that truly matter to you.

The source of healthy boundaries is self-love and self-respect. When you learn to love yourself, you are less likely to put up with people who don't love you back.

If you keep showing up, you'll almost certainly break through — but probably not in the way you expected or intended. You need enough persistence to keep working and enough flexibility to enjoy success when it comes in a different form than you imagined.

Savor the little victories as much as you criticize the little mistakes.

At any moment, you are one good choice away from a meaningfully better life.

Writing is the superpower of humankind. It is our truest form of magic.

Writing allows you to conjure up something of value where nothing previously existed. It costs little for you to write down the lessons of your life and yet those few minutes spent writing can be life-altering for the right reader. As I once saw it put: "there is someone out there with a wound in the exact shape of your words."

Furthermore, writing is the foundation of nearly every technology and innovation because we have to record what we know before we can build upon it. And these innovations are passed down from generation to generation, allowing our children to inherit a richer intellectual fortune than what we were born into. The world is richer because we write and nobody is made poorer in the process.