Tara Westover Quotes

If you once turn on your side after the hour at which you ought to rise, it is all over. Bolt up at once.

Good habits are worth being fanatical about.

I'm terrible with my workout regime and following it strictly. I'm terrible with a healthy diet and following it strictly. I'm terrible on the weekends about getting up at reasonable hours and all of those things. But, when it comes to my work and the discipline it takes to get to work on time - I hate unprofessionalism.

I get up in the morning and do a seven-minute yoga workout. I know the most likely time I'm going to do something is when I first get up, and I make it short because, like you, I don't really want to do that first thing in the morning.

I like to get up and get out. Otherwise you end up kicking about, and it's easy to flick the telly on; then before you know it, it is 11 A.M. and you haven't done anything.

I have certain rules that I've established for myself that took a while post-day job to figure out. Everyone says people who freelance or are writers struggle with the structure of it. I'm not allowed to check email before a certain hour. I'm not allowed to run errands during the day. I have to write a certain amount every day.

The most valuable of all education is the ability to make yourself do the thing you have to do, when it has to be done, whether you like it or not.

I like to work and it kind of keeps me in line, which is very good because I need that structure.

I'm a big believer in regularity. My father taught me that. Get up early, get your work done, and that's, what, your highest level of energy before lunch.

I lived a sloppy life. So I took very small increments in my life. I started making my bed. I started cleaning my room. There were dishes in the sink. It started off with doing small house chores. I saw that the yard needed to be mowed. So instead of being told it needed to be mowed, I would mow it.

I used to delay doing stuff that I just didn't want to deal with - things like putting the garden hose away properly or doing the dishes right after dinner. Now I have this little voice in my head that says, 'I know you don't want to do this, but just do it anyway.' In other words, there's far less stuff that I put off until tomorrow.

I just tell myself I gotta get up at 8 A.M. I don't even use an alarm clock.

Staying consistent with positive habits can be a challenge.

I tend to have a hard time working on pieces long before they're due. That's why I think the fact that I write a column is really good for me - the column has to be done, and there's no getting around it.

I am a highly disciplined person. I get up at seven every morning and, still in my pajamas, sit down at my desk where my checkered ring binders and my fountain pen are ready for use. I try to write two pages every day.

If you don't have discipline, you don't have anything

A writer never finds the time to write. A writer makes it. If you don't have the drive, the discipline, and the desire, then you can have all the talent in the world, and you aren't going to finish a book.

I would never finish a painting if I didn't have a deadline.

Getting up early is one of the gifts I give myself.

A man must drive his energy, not be driven by it.

Getting up at 6 A.M. to run is something that keeps you on the straight and narrow.

Getting organized in the normal routines of life and finishing little projects you've started is an important first step toward realizing larger goals. If you can't get a handle on the small things, how will you ever get it together to focus on the big things?

The writer has to force himself to work. He has to make his own hours and if he doesn't go to his desk at all there is nobody to scold him.

Having deadlines helps because people are constantly breathing down my neck, and tapping their toes waiting for pages. So I just have to work nine to five. If I didn't have deadlines then I might be more of a golden hour kind of guy, writing from eight to noon and calling it a day, but that's just not the way I work right now.

I learned to discipline myself to do things I didn't want to do.