L27 · Lens
Process over outcome
Commit to the daily craft and long-horizon effort; progress is a trajectory, not a snapshot.
Use: Fear of failure, plateaus, slow progress, perfectionism.
Boundary: Outcomes still inform; adjust the approach with feedback.
Cues
Showing 20 of 27 cues
“Desultory reading is delightful, but to be beneficial, our reading must be carefully directed.”
“You must set your hands to tasks which you can finish or at least hope to finish, and avoid those which get bigger as you proceed and do not cease where you had intended.”
“That’s why the philosophers warn us not to be satisfied with mere learning, but to add practice and then training. For as time passes we forget what we learned and end up doing the opposite, and hold opinions the opposite of what we should.”
QuoteDeliberate effort and plateausProcrastination and delaying action2 more related links
Lenses
Modules
“Every habit and capability is confirmed and grows in its corresponding actions, walking by walking, and running by running ... therefore, if you want to do something make a habit of it, if you don’t want to do that, don’t, but make a habit of something else instead. The same principle is at work in our state of mind. When you get angry, you’ve not only experienced that evil, but you’ve also reinforced a bad habit, adding fuel to the fire.”
“If someone asks you how to write your name, would you bark out each letter? And if they get angry, would you then return the anger? Wouldn’t you rather gently spell out each letter for them? So then, remember in life that your duties are the sum of individual acts. Pay attention to each of these as you do your duty ... just methodically complete your task.”
“If you didn’t learn these things in order to demonstrate them in practice, what did you learn them for?”
“In short, the wise man looks to the purpose of all actions, not their consequences; beginnings are in our power but Fortune judges the outcome, and I do not grant her verdict upon me.”
“Nothing important comes into being overnight; even grapes or figs need time to ripen. If you say that you want a fig now, I will tell you to be patient. First, you must allow the tree to flower, then put forth fruit; then you have to wait until the fruit is ripe. So if the fruit of a fig tree is not brought to maturity instantly or in an hour, how do you expect the human mind to come to fruition, so quickly and easily?”
“I concluded, at length, that the mere speculative conviction that it was our interest to be completely virtuous, was not sufficient to prevent our slipping; and that the contrary habits must be broken, and good ones acquired and established, before we can have any dependence on a steady, uniform rectitude of conduct.”
“But, on the whole, tho’ I never arrived at the perfection I had been so ambitious of obtaining, but fell far short of it, yet I was, by the endeavour, a better and a happier man than I otherwise should have been if I had not attempted it ...”
“I think when you multi-task so much, you don’t have time to think about anything deeply. You’re giving the world an advantage you shouldn’t do. Practically everybody is drifting into that mistake.”
“Concentrating hard on something that is important is ... I can’t succeed at all without doing it. I did not succeed in life by intelligence. I succeeded because I have a long attention span.”
“For all things excellent are as difficult as they are rare.”
“Speak not of gifts, or innate talents! One can name all kinds of great men who were not very gifted. But they acquired greatness, became ‘geniuses’.”
“We deny that these differences [between expert performers and normal adults] are immutable ... Instead, we argue that the difference between expert performers and normal adults reflects a life-long period of deliberate effort to improve performance in a specific domain.”
“Do not be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.”
“Realign your life toward getting done what reality sends that needs doing. In other words we advise you to focus more on purposeful behavior. Let the feelings take care of themselves. What I think you will find is that when you get good at doing what needs doing in your life, the feelings stop giving you such trouble. And even if your feelings become troublesome, when you are involved in constructive activity, they remain in perspective. Feelings cease to be the whole show.”
“Perhaps the most valuable result of all education is the ability to make yourself do the thing you have to do when it ought to be done, whether you like it or not.”
“Everyone holds his future in his own hands, like a sculptor the raw material he will fashion into a figure. But it’s the same with that type of artistic activity as with all others: We are merely born with the capability to do it. The skill to mold the material into what we want must be learned and attentively cultivated.”
Donald L. Hollowell: smart perseverance under injustice
Civil-rights attorney Donald Hollowell fought uphill across segregated Georgia day after day, winning the desegregation of the University of Georgia and freeing Martin Luther King Jr. while enduring hostile courts and constant danger without losing his composure: 'you can't get angry; you have to get smart.