25 Extraordinary Self-Help Quotes from Non-Famous Books

I was ripping through short books in kindergarten and reading longer books for adults by the time I was 6 or 7. I was one of those kids who would go to the library and check out 8 books at a time. Over the course of my life, I’ve probably read somewhere between 1,500 and 2,000 books, although I have slowed down to somewhere around 12-15 books a year at this point in my life.

Of course, not every book is a memorable, life-changing tome that you’re still talking about decades after you’ve read it. There are a lot of books that are very good that still don’t rise to that highest level.

That brings me to another habit I’ve had for roughly two decades, which is highlighting any good quote, excerpt, factoid, or statistic I run across. That was always useful, but once I finally got a Kindle that allowed me to look at all my excerpts from a book in one spot, it became much easier to make use of those quoted areas.

One thing that always bothered me about that was that many books had some great information in them, but if they weren’t an all-time classic, there weren’t enough quotes present for me to make a list of them, or they weren’t one of the greatest quotes of all time, they were lost. They were filled with nuggets of useful information and it felt like people should be able to see it.

That’s why I wanted to go back and compile some of those quotes. Granted, this won’t be a comprehensive list, but these are extraordinary quotes that can make your life better or change the way you look at the world.

I hope they do.

1) “Each choice sets a precedent — and when you make the same wrong choice several times in a row, it becomes your standard modus operandi.” -- 365 Days with Self-Discipline: 365 Life-Altering Thoughts on Self-Control, Mental Resilience, and Success by Martin Meadows

2) “...If you’re not willing to risk the unusual, you’ll have to settle for the ordinary.” -- The Alter Ego Effect: The Power of Secret Identities to Transform Your Life by Todd Herman

3) “As one of my first mentors in magic liked to say: ‘Very little is impossible with ten years’ practice.’” -- The Art of Impossible: A Peak Performance Primer by Steven Kotler

4) “Interestingly, psychologists found that people prefer things, not because of internal reasons, but simply because they’ve been repeatedly exposed to them. This idea is known as the mere-exposure effect. Your desires are often the result of simply being exposed to something. For instance, research shows that people who were frequently exposed to cigarette commercials reported a more positive attitude toward smoking. This is true of your peer group. The proximity effect predicts that you’re more likely to be friends with the person who sits next to you in class than the person who sits two rows ahead.” -- Be Your Future Self Now: The Science of Intentional Transformation by Benjamin Hardy

5) “Taking a break is the one thing I put off until tomorrow. And if — when tomorrow comes — you still feel like you need rest or you need a break — then go ahead: Take it. Chances are you won’t — you won’t need that rest.” -- Discipline Equals Freedom: Field Manual by Jocko Willink

6) “An average person who develops the habit of setting clear priorities and getting important tasks completed quickly will run circles around a genius who talks a lot and makes wonderful plans but who gets very little done.” Eat That Frog!: 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time by Brian Tracy

7) “Human beings are not born once and for all on the day their mothers give birth to them, but... life obliges them over and over again to give birth to themselves.” -- Eleven Rings: The Soul of Success by Phil Jackson

8) “People liked to brag about the crazy hours they worked, and Justine would just laugh, knowing Musk had lived a more extreme version of the Silicon Valley lifestyle than they could imagine. “I had friends who complained that their husbands came home at seven or eight,” she said. ‘Elon would come home at eleven and work some more. People didn’t always get the sacrifice he made in order to be where he was.’” -- Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future by Ashlee Vance

9) “I get a lot of people who reach out to me feeling like they can’t get started. For most of them, they can’t get any momentum going. What I tell them is that you just need to get out the door and worry about today only. Don’t worry about tomorrow. Don’t worry about a week from now. You worry about today. Win the day. Do something positive. Worry about tomorrow tomorrow. To me, that is what enduring means. To get some positive direction going. To build up some momentum. What you’re barely doing day one, you’re doing easily on day twenty. That’s how it works. You have to get started, and then you have to endure.” -- Endure: How to Work Hard, Outlast, and Keep Hammering by Cam Hanes

10) “Small things — if not corrected — become big things, always.” -- How to Consciously Design Your Ideal Future by Benjamin Hardy

11) “You must fill a whole bag with ‘whys.’ In your hardest moments, you can reach deep into your bag and pull them out, one by one. You can stack and sort them. Play with them, pile them high. One reason alone won’t cut it. One motivation is not enough. Many help you triumph.” -- Iron Hope: Lessons Learned from Conquering the Impossible by James Lawrence

12) “After all was said and done, I drove 3,000 miles, got ripped off 100 bucks, and ended up with a $1,000 hospital bill just for the privilege of wrestling one match in a flea market. That, young grasshoppers, is what is known as paying your dues.” -- A Lion’s Tale: Around the World in Spandex by Chris Jericho

13) “One of the SEALS interviewed for this book stated that during BUDS, he would literally break down each training day into dozens of separate events starting from the moment he woke up. He said that once he was done shaving and brushing his teeth, he’d say to himself, ‘OK – got that done – you’re a winner! Now, let’s get dressed.’ Next, he would focus on getting dressed in the proper uniform for the day’s first training event, and when he did that, he would again mentally reaffirm to himself that he had once again ‘been a winner’ and was ready for the next “event,” which was to clean his barracks room with his roommates. After successfully completing this task (and ‘winning’ once again!), he’d fall out for morning formation with the rest of his class and run a mile to the chow hall for breakfast.” -- Navy SEAL Training Guide: Mental Toughness by Lars Draeger

14) “’Wherever you are, that’s the place to be,’ Mike proclaims as he majestically surveys his surroundings, spreading out his arms regally with a giant grin on his face. ‘Isn’t this GREAT?’ he continues joyously. It’s a brilliant piece of advice that can be used in all situations, because what Damone is saying is that no matter what you’re doing or where you are, you need to act like it’s the best place on earth and make the best of what you’re given.” -- No Is a Four-Letter Word: How I Failed Spelling but Succeeded in Life by Chris Jericho

15) “Finally, out of desperation, I went as small as I could possibly go and asked: “What’s the ONE Thing you can do this week such that by doing it, everything else would be easier or unnecessary?” And the most awesome thing happened. Results went through the roof.” -- The ONE Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth About Extraordinary Results by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan

16) “If there’s a gap in your life and you’re spending a lot of time on gaming, Netflix, weed, sh*t friends, reddit, and drinking, then chances are that completely eliminating those sh*t hobbies with an autistic level of absolutism WILL help you. You have to have the self-knowledge to say ‘I’m a little f*ck up who doesn’t have the work ethic I need to hit my goals. I’m not f*cking the women I want to f*ck or making the money I want to make, so I don’t get to do the fun stuff that a more successful guy would.’ That is the heart of the red pill: You do not get to do what I get to do, and I do not get to do what Chris Pratt gets to do, and he doesn’t get to do what Leo gets to do.” -- Praxeology: Volume 3: Field Reports by Rian Stone

17) “In a recently published longitudinal study spanning more than sixty years, researchers were flummoxed by what they found. The personalities of nearly everyone in the study were completely different than the researchers expected. The study began with data from a 1950s survey of 1,208 fourteen-year-olds in Scotland. Teachers were asked to use six questionnaires to rate the teenagers on six personality traits: self-confidence, perseverance, stability of mood, conscientiousness, originality, and desire to learn. More than sixty years later, researchers retested 674 of the original participants. This time, at seventy-seven years old, the participants rated themselves on the six personality traits and also nominated a close friend or relative to do the same. There was little to no overlap from the questionnaires taken sixty-three years earlier. As the researchers state, ‘We hypothesized that we would find evidence of personality stability over an even longer period of 63 years, but our correlations did not support this hypothesis.’ -- Personality Isn’t Permanent: Break Free from Self-Limiting Beliefs and Rewrite Your Story by Benjamin Hardy

18) “There is magic in believing. You are what you think you are, and you become what you think you will become.” -- Psych by Judd Biasiotto

19) “ If you want better results, go all in, all the time. Either you’re committed to your success or you’re not. There’s virtually no middle ground where you can stand and defend your lack of commitment. As I’ve mentioned, when you do falter, and as long as it’s only on rare occasions, don’t beat yourself up. Start over again, but with deeper resolve. Truthfully, it’s easier to be all in than almost all in. 100 percent is easier than 90 percent.” -- Stop Bullshitting Yourself: A Practical Guide to Personal Growth with a Mindful Approach, Embrace Positive Change by Drew Hanlen

20) “Sex is natural; it is there in the body. Sexuality is something you invented; it is psychological. If sex is in the body, it is fine, it is beautiful. The moment it enters your mind, it becomes a perversion – it has no business with your mind. Sex is a small aspect of you, but today it has become huge. For many, it has become life itself.” -- Three Truths Of Well-being: Empower your Body, Mind, Energy for Joyful Living by Sadhguru

21) “On one level, wisdom is nothing more than the ability to take your own advice. It’s actually very easy to give people good advice. It’s very hard to follow the advice that you know is good... If someone came to me with my list of problems, I would be able to sort that person out very easily.” -- Tools Of Titans: The Tactics, Routines, and Habits of Billionaires, Icons, and World-Class Performers by Tim Ferriss

22) “Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage. It’s a short reminder that success can usually be measured by the number of uncomfortable conversations we are willing to have, and by the number of uncomfortable actions we are willing to take.” -- Tribe Of Mentors: Short Life Advice from the Best in the World by Tim Ferriss

23) “Whenever someone I’m dating starts treating me worse than they treat a stranger, that’s always the beginning of the end for me.” -- The Truth: Sex, Love, Commitment, and the Puzzle of the Male Mind by Neil Strauss

24) “I had every hour of every day mapped out FOR A YEAR in advance of World’s Strongest Man 2017. When I talk about preparation, that’s what I’m talking about. That’s the standard required to succeed at an elite level.” -- The World’s Strongest Book: Ten Rounds. Ten Lessons by Eddie Hall

25) “THE MISCONCEPTION: Memories are played back like recordings. THE TRUTH: Memories are constructed anew each time from whatever information is currently available, which makes them highly permeable to influences from the present.” -- You Are Not So Smart: Why You Have Too Many Friends on Facebook, Why Your Memory Is Mostly Fiction, and 46 Other Ways You’re Deluding Yourself by David McRaney

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