Tom Rath Quotes

When you left the house today, you had the intention of putting clothes on and you did. You didn't try to put your pants on today. You simply put them on. The same has to hold for all of our intentions. We don't try to be more loving partners. We make the intention, and we act on it.

Staying consistent with positive habits can be a challenge.

Giving up on our long-term goals for immediate gratification, my friends, is procrastination.

... indefinite visions of ambition are weak against the ease of doing what is habitual or beguilingly agreeable.

The intimate contest for self-command never ends, and lifetime happiness requires finding the right balance between present impulses and future well-being.

It is easier to prevent bad habits than to break them.

By definition, saving - for anything - requires us to not get things now so that we can get bigger ones later. That's hard. Our brains are hard wired to prefer the here and now.

Delayed gratification is a sweet lesson whose teacher knows the best is not right now, it is yet to be.

I used to go into bars on my days off, and I decided that wasn't too good for me.

A change in bad habits leads to a change in life.

To become the kind of person you want to become, you've got to have discipline. It's easier to keep to your standards 100 percent of the time versus 98 percent of the time.

Let's face it: the present self is present. It's in control. It's in power right now. It has these strong, heroic arms that can lift doughnuts into your mouth. And the future self is not even around. It's off in the future. It's weak. It doesn't even have a lawyer present.

Years of happiness can be lost in the foolish gratification of a momentary desire for pleasure.

Maturity is achieved when a person postpones immediate pleasures for long-term values.

Positive defaults protect you from yourself - and that helps you to make decisions in the moment that are better for your long-term interests.

I'm a natural golden retriever at heart. I'm fine with that now, but there was a time when I tried to keep myself from jumping up on people. I had to make myself sit.

I will form good habits and become their slave. And how will I accomplish this difficult feat? Through these scrolls it will be done, for each scroll contains a principle which will drive a bad habit from my life and replace it with one which will bring me closer to success.

I was a basket case, you know? When I got mad, I threw clubs, you know? And if things weren't going well, I would walk off a course. I think I lost a little bit of respect, but hopefully I've gained that back.

Given the choice between instant gratification and the lasting satisfaction of earning the esteem of someone you respect and admire, all but the most small-minded would choose the latter.

Procrastinating is a habit that I have to overcome.

I've gotten a lot more disciplined since dating Sue.

We are prone to seek immediate pleasure or good, however small, rather than remote pleasure or good, however vast.

One can acquire some virtues by feigning them for a long time.

You will be a happier person if you don't do what you want to do, most of the time

I will act now. I will act now. I will act now. Henceforth, I will repeat these words each hour, each day, everyday, until the words become as much a habit as my breathing, and the action which follows becomes as instinctive as the blinking of my eyelids.