Your choices have psychological consequences. The way you choose to deal with reality, truth, facts – your choice to honor or dishonor your own perceptions – registers in your mind, for good or for bad, and either confirms and strengthens your self-esteem or undermines and weakens it.
How do we nurture the soul? By revering our own life. By learning to love it all, not only the joys and the victories, but also the pain and the struggles.
No one is coming to save you...
You are not likely to bring out the best in people or nurture their creativity if every time you hear about their problems you instantly offer a solution Encourage people to look for their own solutions-and project the knowledge that they are capable of doing so.
We must become what we wish to teach.
The feeling that “I am enough” does not mean that I have nothing to learn, nothing further to achieve, and nowhere to grow to. It means that I accept myself, that I am not on trial in my own eyes, that I value and respect myself. This is not an act of indulgence but of courage.
The greatest barrier to achievement and success is not lack of talent or ability but rather the feeling that achievement and success, above a certain level, are outside our self-concept-our image of who we are and what is appropriate to us.
You have a right to your feelings. Your feelings are there to tell you something, but they are not infallible guides to behavior.
Even when our life is most difficult, it is important to remember that something within us is keeping us alive- the life force-that lift us, energizes us, pulls us back sometimes from the abyss of despair. True spirituality does not exist without love of life.
Either you will make your life work, or your life will not work.
As you grow in self-esteem, your face, manner, way of talking and moving will tend naturally to project the pleasure you take in being alive.
Reason and emotion are not antagonists. What seems like a struggle between two opposing ideas or values, one of which, automatic and unconscious, manifests itself in the form of a feeling.
A goal without an action plan is a daydream.
Every day, it’s important to ask and answer these questions: “What’s good in my life?” and “What needs to be done?”
A bully hides his fears with fake bravado. That is the opposite of self-assertiveness.
When your principles seem to be demanding suicide, clearly it’s time to check your premises.
To attain “success” without attaining positive self-esteem is to be condemned to feeling like an imposter anxiously awaiting exposure.
The stability we cannot find in the world, we must create within our own persons.
Most of the time, I regard the judgment of people as a waste of time. I regard the judgment of behavior as imperative.
Some people stand and move as if they have no right to the space they occupy. They wonder why others often fail to treat them with respect-not realizing that they have signaled others that it is not necessary to treat them with respect.