100 Quotes to Inspire Humans in Progress

I asked my innovative community to share the quotes that inspire them—here are 100 that encourage them to make progress.

What community am I referring to? A mighty group of Innovators within my Map Your Progress community that is helping me create a new personal growth technology that will change the way we humans make progress. That's a big promise and I can't wait to deliver.

If you enjoy this post and want to contribute the quotes that inspire you, as well as be first to test the beta version of said technology, join our ever-growing Innovator community.

As a human obsessed with how we can best make progress, I spend my days in a near constant state of curiosity about what works and what doesn't. Just ask my family and friends how much fun that is to be around after an hour or two. It's like a have a raging crush on humans making progress and I can't stop gushing.

That's the beauty of posts like this: I don't need to hold back.

In addition to the 100 quotes promised, I also want to give you my best insight on making progress so that you, too, can amaze yourself.

1 // To make unprecedented progress in your life, courage is absolutely essential.

We tend to gloss over this part. But, truly, it's what is required to make meaningful progress of any kind. You need courage to begin and take that first step. Even when that first step seems so unimpressive and small. That's when you really need courage, otherwise, you stay stuck, talking about how you're going to maybe probably consider possibly taking that step when the time's right and the weather's good.

Bottom line: You need courage to go outside what is comfortable, known or familiar. Because unless you go outside of what your comfort zone, you can't make unprecedented progress.

Summon as much as you can stand. You'll build your courage muscles enough for the next right step.

Quotes about courage

Strong Back. Soft Front. Wild Heart. | Bréne Brown

She decided to start living the life she'd imagined. | Kobi Yamada

Yes—grow! Change! Evolve! | Elizabeth Gilbert

Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must first be overcome. | Samuel Johnson

Mistakes mean that you're trying. | Unknown

Don't let procrastination take over your life. Be brave and take risks. Your life is happening right now. | Roy Bennett

Sometimes letting things go is an act of far greater power than defending or hanging on. | Eckhart Tolle

There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you into action,?and because there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is, nor how valuable it is, nor how it compares with other expressions. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep open and aware directly to the urges that motivate YOU. Keep the channel open. | Martha Graham

Great people do things before they're ready. They do things before they know they can do it. Doing what you're afraid of, getting out of your comfort zone, taking risks like that—that's what life is. | Amy Poehler

Imagine what you'd do if it absolutely didn't matter what people thought of you. Got it? Good. Never go back. | Martha Beck

You must do the things you think you cannot do. | Eleanor Roosevelt

You will always be too much of something for someone: too big, too loud, too soft, too edgy. If you round out your edges, you lose your edge. | Danielle Laporte

Be who you are and say what you feel because people who mind don’t matter and people who matter don’t mind. | Unknown

Traveler, your footprints are the only road, nothing else. Traveler, there is no road; you make your own path as you walk. As you walk, you make your own road, and when you look back you see the path that you will never travel again. Traveler, there is no road; only a ship's wake on the sea. | Antonio Machado

Inhale courage, exhale fear. | Unknown

Courage is being scared to death, but saddling up anyway. | John Wayne

I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It’s when you know you’re licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do. | Harper Lee

We must all face the choice between what is right and what is easy. | J.K. Rowling

I am sorting out what *my life* looks like when it’s fully mine. It takes a certain bravery to do that. It means risking being misunderstood, perceived as alone and broken, having no one to focus on, fall into or hide behind, having to be my own support and having to stretch and find family love and connection outside of the traditional places. But, I want to do it. I want to be the Brave Me, the real me, the one whose life is my own. | Tracee Ellis Ross

2 // What you believe about yourself and the world has everything to do with the opportunities you can see and your belief that you can rise to meet them.

You know how often people talk about the importance of mindset? Turns out there's good reason for that! If you've ever been drunk, depressed, or in love (which may or may not be related to one another and describe the decade known as your 20's) then you know how different the world seems when you're in a different state of mind.

You can do all kinds of doing, but if your being is out of alignment with who you are and where you want to go, it's painful. No amount of doing can make up for compromised being. That's why I encourage us all to take care of our being before we jump into doing.

Quotes about mindset

Ask for what you want and be prepared to get it! | Maya Angelou

Magic is believing in yourself, if you can do that, you can make anything happen. | Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Creating and serving runs on love, hard work runs on fear. | Amy Jones

Every exit is an entry somewhere else. | Tom Stoppard

I think anything is possible if you have the mindset and the will and desire to do it and put the time in. | Roger Clemens

I only want to hit my targets if the aiming and the hitting both feel good. | Danielle Laporte

Whether you think you can, or you think you can't—you're right. | Henry Ford

Nothing will work unless you do. | Maya Angelou

It's better to be a loser than a spectator. | Garfunkel & Oates

Do. Or do not. There is no try. | Yoda

Seize the day. | Horace

The longer I love, the more I realize the impact of attitude on life. Attitude, to me, is more important than facts. It is more important than the past, than education, than money, than circumstances, than failures, than successes, than what other people think or say or do. It is more important than appearance, giftedness or skill. It will make or break a company...a church....a home. The remarkable thing is we have a choice every day regarding the attitude we will embrace for that day. We cannot change our past...we cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. We cannot change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude...I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it. And so it is with you...we are in charge of our attitudes. | Charles R. Swindoll

Keep moving forward! | Meet the Robinsons

Stop walking through the world looking for confirmation that you don’t belong. You will always find it because you’ve made that your mission. Stop scouring people’s faces for evidence that you’re not enough. You will always find it because you’ve made that your goal. True belonging and self-worth are not goods; we don’t negotiate their value with the world. The truth about who we are lives in our hearts. Our call to courage is to protect our wild heart against constant evaluation, especially our own. No one belongs here more than you. | Bréne Brown

Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better. | Maya Angelou

People need to be reminded more often than they need to be instructed. | Samuel Johnson

Tomorrow is tomorrow. Future cares have future cures and we must mind today. | Sophocles

3 // Progress is a practice; the practice is choosing what serves you moving in the direction you want to go.

When we practice enough, we create habits that can be a powerful current that moves us forward, without having to think about it. What I've learned about creating habits is that strategy matters. What works for one person will not work for another. Not that it will stop any of us from telling other people what they should do. Because it worked for us! Anyone with their eyebrow raised at the irony of this? I know. That's why I chose to build a business where I get paid to do it. Then it's not shouldy. It's high-touch, highly customized service.

That's why it's so important for us each to experiment with new approaches until we find what works best for us.

Quotes about practice + habits

Habits are the compound interest of self-improvement. | James Clear

You can't use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have. | Maya Angelou

My life works better when I do not need to come up with reasons for why I am late. | Bernard Roth

Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of. | Benjamin Franklin

Little by little, one goes far. | Spanish Proverb

The secret of change is to focus all your energy not on fighting the old, but on building the new. | Dan Millman

If anything is worth doing, it is worth doing it badly. | Martha Beck

Practice isn't the thing you do once you're good. It's the thing you do that makes you good. | Malcolm Gladwell

Profit is not an event. It's a habit. | Mike Michalowicz

Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become. | James Clear

Steal back your time to support your intentions. | Bernard Roth

4 // For truly sustainable progress, it must run more on love than fear.

Choosing to give ourselves love is the best way to create a sustainable fuel that can help us go further than we've gone before. For video game fans, self-care (which is really self-love in action) is kind of like those boosters that bloop-bloop and sparkle-pop, as they empower you with unparalleled energy.

Speaking from experience, pushing from fear is not something we can sustain. There's a price to be paid, usually in the form of our well-being or relationships. Really, most of the music we love is because someone didn't love themselves or another real well. While it makes for great playlists, it does not make for a great quality of life.

That's why the first thing I do with my clients is get (what might seem ridiculously) specific about what love feels like to them. Once you know how you receive it, you can choose to create a limitless supply of fuel to drive unprecedented progress.

Quotes about self-love

We must be our own before we can be another’s. | Melissa McPhail

Why fit in when you were born to stand out? | Dr. Seuss

Even if no one sees it for you, you must see it for yourself. | Unknown

When I’m sad, I deserve more love, not less. When I’m angry, I deserve more love, not less. When I’m frustrated, I deserve more love, not less. Whenever I’m hurt, heartbroken, ashamed, or feeling guilty, I deserve more love, not less. Even when I’m embarrassed by my actions, I deserve more love, not less. Equally so, when I’m proud of myself, I deserve more love, not less. No matter how I feel, I deserve more love, not less. Despite what I think, I deserve more love, not less. No matter the past that I’ve survived, I deserve more love, not less. No matter what remains up ahead, I deserve more love, not less. On my worst day, I deserve more love, not less. Even when life seems cruel and confusing, I deserve more love, not less. When no one is here to give me what I need, I deserve more love, not less. In remembering the greatest way I can serve the world, I deserve more love not less. No matter what I’m able to accept, whomever I cannot forgive, or whatever I’m unable to love for whatever reason, I deserve more love, not less. | Matt Kahn

5 // We can accelerate progress when we practice gratitude for what is working and appreciation for every tiny victory we have—especially the ones that don't seem worthy of celebration.

One of the common mistakes I see people make over and over is a reluctance (if not straight up resistance) to acknowledge what they're doing well. Simple things, like taking a shower (which for anyone like me, feels like a real accomplishment). Here's what most of us don't understand: We can't over-celebrate our progress.

Yet, our Clever Brain, that primal part of our brain that does whatever it can to convince us not to make progress of any kind (for it views anything not yet survived as a threat, even trying a new ice cream) swears too much celebration is suspect. Bullshit, really. We don't want to over-celebrate or appreciate ourselves, lest we become arrogant, narcissistic, or offensive.

This distinction that's important here is that true gratitude, appreciation, and celebration is pure, like love. It only empowers and amplifies the good. Your Clever Brain wants you to forget that.

My job is to help people remember what they're doing well. Because that sparks more well-being and well-doing. There's a lot of well that springs from that well of celebration. #verywellthen

Quotes about gratitude + appreciation

As the years pass, I am coming more and more to understand that it is the common, everyday blessings of our common everyday lives for which we should be particularly grateful. They are the things that fill our lives with comfort and our hearts with gladness -- just the pure air to breathe and the strength to breath it; just warmth and shelter and home folks; just plain food that gives us strength; the bright sunshine on a cold day; and a cool breeze when the day is warm. | Laura Ingalls Wilder

Turn your "got tos" into "get tos" | Melody Yeager Struthers

When you are grateful, fear disappears and abundance appears. | Tony Robbins

Anything that annoys you is for teaching you patience. Anyone who abandons you is for teaching you how to stand up on your own two feet. Anything that angers you is for teaching you forgiveness and compassion. Anything that has power over you is for teaching you how to take your power back. Anything you hate is for teaching you unconditional love. Anything you fear is for teaching you courage to overcome your fear. Anything you can’t control is for teaching you how to let go and trust the Universe. | Jackson Kiddard

Not until it gets really dark do the beautiful stars appear. | Norman Vincent Peale

The wound is the place where the Light enters you. | Rumi

There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle. | Albert Einstein

Life is brutiful. | Glennon Doyle

6 // Summoning enough courage to make meaningful progress requires faith.

Whether you have faith in a higher power or not—we need to have faith in our ability to keep going when there are countless reasons to doubt. I do mean countless. Few things are as relentless as the Clever Brain that fears you are about to risk going into the unknown. The only other that comes to mind is my dog when she's trying to get the peanut butter out of a sheep's horn. Your Clever Brain will pelt you relentlessly with "very good reasons" as to why making progress is a terrible idea.

That's where faith comes in. Faith is not rooted in tangible proof; it does not require a track record of success. That's why you need faith to create a track record of success. As you do, you'll trust yourself more and trust the forces outside of you to contribute to your progress in unexpected ways. This puts you in prime position to live an incredible and inspiring life with a never-ending cache of good stories.

That's why I don't recommend trying to make any kind of progress alone. Having test-driven that approach for decades, I can't say that it worked very well. Faith, however, does.

Quotes about faith

In our waiting, God is working. | Unknown

My cup runneth over. | Psalm 23:5

Darkness holds eternal sway over he who cannot first find the light within himself. | Melissa McPhail

Faith is taking the first step, even when you don’t see the whole staircase. | Martin Luther King, Jr.

Sometimes your only available transportation is a leap of faith. | Margaret Shepard

This too shall pass. | Unknown

I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. | Philippians 4:13

This place where you are right now God circled on a map for you. | Hafiz

7 // We need to have a purpose for making progress that inspires us to be brave enough to do and be what's required. Otherwise, there are too many reasons to give up.

That purpose may or may not have anything to do with money, status, or acquisition. Our purpose is what keeps us going no matter what and makes it worth everything it takes.

I think a lot of us struggle to find out what our purpose is and sometimes set very high expectations of discovering it. Like the light of God must shine upon us, angels singing in the background....this issssss ITTTTTTTTTT!

It's cool when it happens that way, but for most of us, our purpose can be found be listening to the very quiet voice in our head that mutters, "This, not that." It's kind of like trying to listen to an elderly librarian on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. It's hard to hear above the din of your Clever Brain and its very good reasons. Yet, it's the best source of knowing any of us has. So it's worth choosing a practice of listening to that Quiet Voice that no one can hear but you.

Quotes about purpose

Don't be pushed by your problems. Be led by your dreams. | Ralph Waldo Emerson

I really do think that any deep crisis is an opportunity to make your life extraordinary in some way. | Martha Beck

Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as you ever can. | John Wesley

If your goals aren’t synced with the substance of your heart, then achieving them won’t matter much. | Danielle Laporte

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. | Steve Jobs

What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make. | Jane Goodall

8 // For humans in progress, there will be no shortage of failure or very good reasons to turn back—especially when it comes to bigger goals that terrify us as much as they excite us.

The most important thing is to not give up. I know. I knowwwwwww how many times you've heard that and that your Clever Brain is rolling its eyes, mouthing "you should always give up when it gets hard or uncomfortable or just gets your heart rate up."

The truth is this: You can give up. There are occasions where "giving up" is really changing course because you've found a better way forward. But most of the time, it's learning how to talk yourself off the edge, because humans in progress get real scared real easily.

When we commit to making unprecedented progress and changing the trajectory of our life, we also feel the turbulence of going outside our comfort zone. That is the nature of progress and the nature of being human. There's not a way around the turbulence. We must be willing to tolerate the discomfort to get to the part that makes it worth it all in the end.

"Willing to tolerate the discomfort" is hardly a sexy sell. I can think of a million things that sound more appealing and Clever Brain will be up in your head, rattling them off like a caffeinated auctioneer. Yet, finding the sexiness of caring for yourself in that turbulence is a game-changer.

Quotes about tenacity

I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I've been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed. | Michael Jordan

You are never too old to set another goal or to dream a new dream. | Les Brown

Everything will be okay in the end. If it's not okay, it's not the end. | Fernando Sabino

Think of a car driving through the night: The headlights only go 100-200 feet forward, and you can make it all the way from California to New York driving through the dark, because all you have to see is the next 200 feet. And that's how life tends to unfold before us. If we just trust that the next 200 feet will unfold after that, and the next 200 feet will unfold after that, your life will keep unfolding. And it will eventually get you to the destination of whatever it is you truly want, because you want it. | Jack Canfield

Take your next right step. Your next right step is always one you can take. Otherwise, it's not your next right step. | Amy Jones

Few things are impossible to diligence and skill. Great works are performed not by strength, but perseverance. | Samuel Johnson

How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. | Unknown

Emotional discomfort, when accepted, rises, crests and falls in a series of waves. Each wave washes a part of us away and deposits treasures we never imagined. Out goes naivete, in comes wisdom; out goes anger, in comes discernment; out goes despair, in comes kindness. No one would call it easy, but the rhythm of emotional pain that we learn to tolerate is natural, constructive and expansive... The pain leaves you healthier than it found you. | Martha Beck

We are so caught in the myths of the best and the brightest and the self-made that we think outliers spring naturally from the earth. We look at the young Bill Gates and marvel that our world allowed that thirteen-year-old to become a fabulously successful entrepreneur. But that's the wrong lesson. Our world only allowed one thirteen-year-old unlimited access to a time-sharing terminal in 1968. If a million teenagers had been given the same opportunity, how many more Microsofts would we have today? | Malcolm Gladwell

The very existence of libraries affords the best evidence that we may yet have hope for the future of man. | T.S. Eliot

There is so much history yet to be made. | Michelle Obama

9 // Years of being obsessed with making progress have taught me that there are many things more important than reaching the goal or hitting the mark.

Chief among them, the priceless wisdom we gain along the way that we can share with other humans in progress. Again, I acknowledge the lack of superficial sexy here. We often would rather make more money or lose more weight and then be game for wisdom.

We humans love to believe we have control over things we don't. We love to believe that if we just do this or reach that, whatever hurts won't hurt anymore and we'll finally get to live the lives we see on scripted television. That's the game Clever Brain plays. It sells us on a promise that is almost always bullshit.

Clever Brain swears that reaching goals and hitting targets is what we should all be aiming for. Bliss can be found one benchmark at a time. As someone who was relentless with goal-setting for years, who sells artwork that helps people reach goals, who coaches inspiring people to reach their goals, I can say this without hesitation: What feels better than reaching any goal is developing your ability to make progress no matter what, in a way that feels good to you. That way, you get to feel good most every day instead of just the days you hit the target.

Quotes about wisdom

No man can achieve a praiseworthy life unless he listens to the whisper which is heard by him alone. | Melissa McPhail

Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin. | Mother Teresa

If you want to bring a fundamental change in people's belief and behavior...you need to create a community around them, where those new beliefs can be practiced and expressed and nurtured. | Malcolm Gladwell

Kindness is the spark that lights the whole world. | Unknown

Be the change you wish to see in the world. | Unknown

No matter what, expect the unexpected. And whenever possible BE the unexpected. | Lynda Barry

Someday you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again. | C.S. Lewis

Experience, that most brutal of teachers. But you learn, my God do you learn. | William Nicholson

You can't connect the dots looking forward. You can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something—your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever—because believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart, even when it leads you off the well-worn path. And that will make all the difference. | Steve Jobs

One's mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions. | Oliver Wendall Holmes, Sr.

No one can make you feel inferior without your consent. | Eleanor Roosevelt

Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving. | Albert Einstein

Intuition is really a sudden immersion of the soul into the universal current of life, where the histories of all people are connected, and we are able to know everything, because it's all written there. | Paulo Coelho

Life imitates art far more than art imitates life. | Oscar Wilde

I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. | Maya Angelou

Seek not to know where the path may lead, only to keep your feet upon it. | Melissa McPhail

10 // If you're tempted to criticize other people's way of making progress or should on anyone (including yourself), try being curious instead. It works much better for everyone involved.

I know I've said a lot here, fellow Human in progress. Some of it may resonate and feel good, other parts may trigger an avalanche of shoulds. Pro-Tip: Clever Brain loves keeping you distracted in judgment and criticism. That way, you'll dump your time and energy into hole that can never be filled. It's an excellent strategy for keeping you safe. Cranky, disappointed and disempowered, but safe.

The best news is, you get to choose.

***

If you are a fellow human in progress and are craving some meaningful and sustainable progress in your life, I feel you. And chances are very good I can help you do that.

Schedule a chat to find out