How do we keep our inner fire alive? Two things, at minimum, are needed: an ability to appreciate the positives in our life – and a commitment to action. Every day, it's important to ask and answer these questions: ‘What's good in my life?’ and ‘What needs to be done?
Interpretation
To maintain our passion and drive, we must recognize the good in our lives and actively pursue our goals.
Nathaniel Branden emphasizes the importance of both appreciation and action in keeping our inner motivation alive. By focusing on the positives in our lives and committing to taking necessary actions, we can sustain our enthusiasm and progress toward our goals. The two questions he suggests we ask ourselves serve as a guiding framework for maintaining the right mindset for personal growth.
In practice
In a motivational speech to a group of students preparing for exams.
Living consciously is seeking to be aware of everything that bears on our interests, actions, values, purposes, and goals. It is the willingness to confront facts, pleasant or unpleasant. It is the desire to discover our mistakes and correct them . . . it is the quest to keep expanding our awareness and understanding, both of the world external to self and the world within.
If you are an adult, you are responsible for your life and well-being. No one owes you the fulfillment of your needs or wants; no one is here on earth to serve you. If you respect the principle of self-ownership, you understand that no one else owns you and that you do not own anyone else. Only on this understanding can there be peace on earth and good will among human beings.
It is a mistake to look at someone who is self assertive and say, "It's easy for her, she has good self-esteem." One of the ways you build self-esteem is by being self-assertive when it is not easy to do so. There are always times when self-assertiven ess requires courage, no matter how high your self-esteem.
Living consciously reflects the conviction that sight is preferable to blindness; that respecting the facts of reality is more satisfying than denying them; that evasion does not make the unreal real or the real unreal; that it is better to correct your mistakes that to pretend they do not exist; and that the more conscious you are of facts bearing on your life and goals, the more wisely and effectively you can act.
One of the hardest expressions of self-assertiveness is challenging your limiting beliefs.
To love is to see myself in you and to wish to celebrate myself with you. What I love is the embodiment of my values in another person. Love is an act of self-assertion, self-expression and a celebration of being alive.
The timid and fearful first failures dismay, but the stout heart stays trying by night and by day. He values his failures as lessons that teach The one way to get to the goal he would reach.
A Winner's Blueprint for Achievement BELIEVE while others are doubting. PLAN while others are playing. STUDY while others are sleeping. DECIDE while others are delaying. PREPARE while others are daydreaming. BEGIN while others are procrastinating. WORK while others are wishing. SAVE while others are wasting. LISTEN while others are talking. SMILE while others are frowning. COMMEND while others are criticizing. PERSIST while others are quitting.
You must endure what is painful to secure that which is profitable.
For everyone here in Ohio and across America who's been ever been counted out but refused to be knocked out, for everyone who has stumbled but stood right back up, and for everyone who works hard and never gives up -- this one is for you.
An idea is something that won't work unless you do.
I had to persevere because this was my life. This championship, this was the stuff I dreamt of all my life, and I wasn't gonna be denied.
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