"Once the 'what' is decided, the 'how' always follows. We must not make the 'how' an excuse for not facing and accepting the 'what.'" – Pearl S. Buck

"Many things which cannot be overcome when they are together yield themselves up when taken little by little." – Plutarch

"You are free to fail a thousand times, and then to get back up and achieve stunning success." - Ralph Marston

"When it becomes more difficult to suffer than to change ... you will change." - Dr. Robert Anthony

I'm ready to change...more later...

"Don't ever let somebody tell you, you can't do something...You got a dream, you gotta protect it. People can't do something themselves, they want to tell you, you can't do it. You want something, go get it. Period." - Will Smith as Chris Gardner

"The distance doesn't matter; only the first step is difficult" - Mme du Deffandad

"When patterns are broken, new worlds emerge." – Tuli Kupferberg

"Your life (year) becomes the thing you have decided it shall be." – Raymond Charles Barker

"A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step." - Chinese Proverb

Welcome to my new journey

Happy New Yearrrrrrrrrrrr!

"Time invested in improving ourselves cuts down on time wasted in disapproving of others." - Anonymous

"Just don't give up on trying to do what you really want to do. Where there is love and inspiration, I don't think you can go wrong." – Ella Fitzgerald

"The important thing is to learn a lesson every time you lose." - John McEnroe

"Be not afraid of growing slowly, be afraid only of standing still." - Chinese proverb

"There are no more hours in a bad day than in a good one!" - Unknown

"The thing that is really hard, and really amazing, is giving up on being perfect and beginning the work of becoming yourself." – Anna Quindlen

"The way to succeed is never quit. That's it. But really be humble about it." - Alex Haley

"They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself." – Andy Warhol

"Rate the task above the prize; will not the mind be raised? Fight thine own faults, not the faults of others; will not evil be mended?" – Confucius

"Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there." - Will Rogers

"Man's main task in life is to give birth to himself, to become what he potentially is." - Erich Fromm

"Mishaps are like knives, that either serve us or cut us, as we grasp them by the blade or by the handle." – James Russell Lowell

"Our real blessings often appear to us in the shape of pains, losses and disappointments, but let us have patience and we soon shall see them in their proper figures." – Joseph Addison

"Some people are always grumbling because roses have thorns. I am thankful that thorns have roses." – Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr

"If you can't feed a hundred people, then feed just one." - Mother Teresa

"Then give to the world the best you have, and the best will come back to you." - Madeline Bridges

"When I do things without any explanation, but just with spontaneity... I can be sure that I am right." - Federico Fellini

"Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one's definition of your life; define yourself." – Harvey Fierstein

"Though no one can go back and make a brand new start, anyone can start from now and make a brand new ending." - Carl Bard

"When you encounter difficulties and contradictions, do not try to break them, but bend them with gentleness and time." – St. Francis De Sales

"Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary." – Steve Jobs

"The secret to success in any human endeavor is total concentration." -Kurt Vonnegut

"Saints are sinners who kept going." - Robert Louis Stevenson

"No bird soars too high, if he soars with his own wings." - William Blake

"I am what time, circumstance, history have made of me, certainly. But I am also much more than that. So are we all." - James Baldwin

"Difficult times have helped me to understand better than before how infinitely rich and beautiful life is in every way, and that so many things that one goes worrying about are of no importance whatsoever." – Isak Denison

"Ambition and patience make a powerful team. Ambition gives you the drive and the enthusiasm to get things started, and patience sees them through. Without ambition, you would never get going. Without patience, you would give up long before the goal was reached.

When you choose to develop and activate both your ambition and your patience, you've created a relentless combination. For not only will you be effective, that effectiveness will continue to be applied over time.

With enough ambition, you can make just about anything happen, but not right away. The most effective effort is continuing effort, and that is what patience makes possible.

You never have to choose between ambition and patience. You can live with them both at the same time, and when you do, great things will happen.

Success comes to those who know when to push and when to wait. Balance ambitious effort with a deep, underlying patience, and the results you achieve will be truly amazing." – Ralph Marston

"Experience is what allows us to repeat our mistakes, only with more finesse!" - Derwood Fincher

"People may fail many times, but they become failures only when they begin to blame someone else." - Unknown

"Achievement seems to be connected with action. Successful men and women keep moving. They make mistakes, but they don't quit." - Conrad Hilton

"When solving problem, dig at the roots instead of just hacking at the leaves." - Anthony J. D'Angelo

"Parties who want milk should not seat themselves on a stool in the middle of the field in hope that the cow will back up to them." – Elbert Hubbard

"All growth is a leap in the dark, a spontaneous unpremeditated act without the benefit of experience." – Henry Miller

"The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

"The only difference between stumbling blocks and steppingstones is the way in which we use them." - Unknown

"It is easy to forgive others their mistakes; it takes more grit and gumption to forgive them for having witnessed your own." – Jessamyn West

"Take rest; a field that has rested gives a bountiful crop." - Ovid

"Your three best doctors are faith, time, and patience." - Fortune Cookie

"He who would learn to fly one day must first learn to stand and walk and run and climb and dance; one cannot fly into flying." – Friedrich Nietzsche

Determination

"What we hope to do with ease, we must first learn to do with diligence." - Anonymous

"The golden opportunity you are seeking is in yourself. It is not in your environment, it is not in luck or chance, or the help of others; it is in yourself alone." – Orison Swett Marden

"Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work at hand. The sun's rays do not burn until brought to a focus." – Alexander Graham Bell

"The highest reward for a person's toil is not what they get for it, but what they become by it." – John Ruskin

"Only by acceptance of the past can you alter it." – Mary Kay Ash

"The heart, like the grape, is prone to delivering its harvest in the same moment it appears to be crushed." - Roger Houseden

"Yesterday is ashes; tomorrow is wood. Only today does the fire burn brightly." - Old Eskimo proverb

"If one dream should fall and break into a thousand pieces, never be afraid to pick one of those pieces up and begin again." - Flavia Weedn

"When you put your hand to the plow, you can't put it down until you get to the end of the row." - Alice Paul

"We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." - Anais Nin

"I have accepted fear as a part of life, specifically the fear of change, the fear of the unknown. I have gone ahead despite the pounding in the heart that says: Turn back, turn back; you'll die if you venture too far." – Erica Jong

(yes I really am up this early. in what must be a record as i've really been up since 2:30, hours before my typical insane AM wake up call...it's gonna be a long day...going forward this time shall be referred to as: ungodly AM)

"Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear — not absence of fear." – Mark Twain

"To change one's life: 1. Start immediately. 2. Do it flamboyantly. 3. No exceptions." – William James

"We must walk consciously only part way toward our goal and then leap in the dark to our success." – Henry David Thoreau

"Vitality shows not only in the ability to persist, but in the ability to start over." – F. Scott Fitzgerald

"Blessed are the flexible, for they shall not be bent out of shape." - Anonymous

"When you have exhausted all possibilities, remember this — you haven't." – Thomas Edison

"Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things only hoped for." - Epicurus

"If we wait for the moment when everything is ready, we shall never begin." – Ivan Turgenev

"Only a man who knows what it is like to be defeated can reach down to the bottom of his soul and come up with the extra ounce of power it takes to win when the match is even." – Muhammad Ali

"Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better." – Samuel Beckett

"Great minds have purposes, little minds have wishes." – Washington Irving

"Life is like a ten-speed bike. Most of us have gears we never use." - Charles M. Schultz

"It isn't hard to be good from time to time. What's tough is being good every day." - Willie Mays

"It's not what you are, but what you don't become that hurts." – Oscar Levant

"Undoubtedly, we become what we envisage." - Claude Bristol

"What the caterpillar calls the end of the world the master calls a butterfly." – Richard Bach

"No one should shrink to fit the idea someone imposes on them. No one!" - Meg Ryan

"We can forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light." - Plato

"Take a deep breath, count to ten, and tackle each task one step at a time." - Linda Shalaway

"Trust your hunches. They're usually based on facts filed away just below the conscious level." - Dr. Joyce Brothers

"Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself." - George Bernard Shaw

"Creativity comes from trust. Trust your instincts." - Rita Mae Brown

"It is better to be a lion for a day than a sheep all your life." - Elizabeth Kenny

"If you must begin then go all the way, because if you begin and quit, the unfinished business you have left behind begins to haunt you all the time." – Chogyam Trungpa

"When in doubt, tell the truth." - Mark Twain

"No trumpets sound when the important decisions of our life are made. Destiny is made known silently." - Agnes DeMille

"If you want a place in the sun, you've got to put up with a few blisters." – Abigail Van Buren

"You are not stuck where you are unless you decide to be." - Dr. Wayne Dyer

"This is your time here, to do what you will do. Your life is now." - John Mellencamp

"Experience is not what happens to a man. It is what a man does with what happens to him." – Aldous Huxley

"There is only one success--to be able to spend your life in your own way." - Christopher Morley

"If the creator had a purpose in equipping us with a neck, he surely meant us to stick it out." - Arthur Koestler

"Don't postpone joy." - Bumper Sticker

"Resentment is like taking poison and waiting for the other person to die." - Malachy McCourt

"To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

"We must not give only what we have; we must give what we are." - Cardinal Mercia

"Create the kind of self you will be happy to live with all your life." - Foster C. McClellan

I'm not the average girl from your video
and I ain't built like a supermodel
I'm learning to love myself unconditionally
Because I am a queen

[snip]

When I look in the mirror and the only one there is me
my face is exactly as it's supposed to be
And I know our creator didn't make no mistakes on me
My feet, my thighs, my lips, my eyes; I'm lovin' what I see

Lyrics to Video by India.Arie (modified slightly to reflect me)

"To think is easy. To act is difficult. To act as one thinks is the most difficult." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

"Discontent is the first step in progress. No one knows what is in him till he tries, and many would never try if they were not forced to." - Basil Maturin

"How people treat you is their karma; how you react is yours." - Wayne Dyer

Last time I posted this quote I acknowledged I too have heard it attributed to two sources, and b/c I love it so much always knew I'd repost it and credit the other source, as I'm doing today.

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous?' Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us. It is in everyone. And as we let our light shine, we give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others." - Marianne Williamson

"It's always too early to quit." - Norman Vincent Peale

"What is harder than rock, or softer than water? Yet soft water hollows out hard rock. Persevere." – Louis "Satchmo" Armstrong

"The more you prepare, the luckier you appear." - Terry Josephson

"The greater danger for most of us lies not in setting our aim too high and falling short; but in setting our aim too low, and achieving our mark." – Michelangelo Buonarroti

"It takes as much stress to be a success as it does to be a failure." - Emilio James Trujillo

"People often say that motivation doesn't last. Well, neither does bathing—that's why we recommend it daily." - Zig Ziglar

"The race is not always to the swift, but to those who keep on running." - Anonymous

"Your temporary inconvenience is only for permanent improvement!" – Gospel veteran Daryl Coley

"Do not fear mistakes, there are none." – Miles Davis

"When you have a great and difficult task, something perhaps almost impossible, if you only work a little at a time, every day a little, suddenly the work will finish itself." – Isak Dinesen

"An optimist is the human personification of spring." - Susan J. Bissonette

"Life is not the way it's supposed to be. It's the way it is. The way you cope with it is what makes the difference." – Virginia Satir

"Adversity is another way to measure the greatness of individuals. I never had a crisis that didn't make me stronger." - Lou Holtz

"Then give to the world the best you have, And the best will come back to you." - Madeline Bridges

"Two things a man should never be angry at: what he can help, and what he cannot help. - Thomas Fuller

"A man can do only what he can do. But if he does that each day he can sleep at night and do it again the next day." – Albert Schweitzer

"Success consists of getting up just one more time than you fall." - Oliver Goldsmith

"We have to fight them daily, like fleas, those many small worries about the morrow, for they sap our energies." – Etty Hillesum

"The best way to predict your future is to create it." - Peter Drucker

"The greatest mistake you can make in life is to be continually fearing you will make one." - Elbert Hubbard

"The miracle is this--the more we share, the more we have." - Leonard Nimoy

"Luck is the by-product of busting your fanny." – Don Sutton

"The more faithfully you listen to the voice within you, the better you will hear what is sounding outside." - Dag Hammarskjold

"We either make ourselves happy or miserable. The amount of work is the same." - Carlos Castaneda

"Become so wrapped up in something that you forget to be afraid." – Lady Bird Johnson

"The point is not to pay back kindness but to pass it on." – Julia Alvarez

"Do all the good you can, in all the ways you can, as long as ever you can." - John Wesley

"Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood." – Marie Curie

"The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy." - Martin Luther King Jr

"Action is the antidote to despair." – Joan Baez

"I, not events, have the power to make me happy or unhappy today. I can choose which it shall be." – Groucho Marx

"There ain't nothing from the outside can lick any of us." – Margaret Mitchell

"How many cares one loses when one decides not to be something but to be someone." - Coco Chanel

"Come to the edge."

"We can't. We're afraid."

"Come to the edge."

"We can't. We will fall!"

"Come to the edge."

And they came.

And he pushed them.

And they flew.

Guillaume Apollinaire

"The art of living lies less in eliminating our troubles than in growing with them." – Bernard Baruch

"There came a time when the risk to remain tight in the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom." - Anais Nin

"Ruin and recovering are both from within." – Epictetus

"My mind is a garden. My thoughts are the seeds. My harvest will be either flower or weeds." - Mel Weldon

"Nobody has things just as he would like them. The thing to do is to make a success with what material I have. It is a sheer waste of time and soul-power to imagine what I would do if things were different. They are not different." - Frank Crane

"Perseverance is a great element of success. If you only knock long enough and loud enough at the gate, you are sure to wake up somebody." – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

"Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known." - Carl Sagan

"I can be changed by what happens to me. But I refuse to be reduced by it." - Maya Angelou

"The reason people find it so hard to be happy is that they always see the past better than it was, the present worse than it is, and the future less resolved than it will be." - Marcel Pagnol

"We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be." – Kurt Vonnegut

"There can be no happiness if the things we believe in are different from the things we do." – Freya Stark

I'm still watching The Biggest Loser. I feel split right down the middle about it. On the one hand I really really love to see them push themselves physically. I cheer them when the run and am jealous they have a trainer yelling in their face pushing them to their limits.

On the other hand, I cringe every. single. time. they "predict" how much weight they'll drop or their faces fall when they didn't lose what they expected or when they strategize losing by saying so and so needs to shed xxlbs or else. It's just bizarre.

This week, watching it and America's Next Top Model, I noticed a bit of irony.

"Success means having the courage, the determination, and the will to become the person you believe you were meant to be" - George Sheehan

"To be a star, you must shine your own light, follow your own path, and don't worry about the darkness, for that is when the stars shine brightest" - Anonymous

"Each person must live their life as a model for others." - Rosa Parks (1913-2005)

"Let me win, but if I cannot win, let me be brave in the attempt." - Motto of the Special Olympics

"Everything comes to him who hustles while he waits." - Thomas Edison

"Many things which cannot be overcome when they are together yield themselves up when taken little by little." – Plutarch

Ready or not, some day it will all come to an end.

There will be no more sunrises, no days, no hours or minutes.

All the things you have collected, whether treasured or forgotten, will pass to someone else. Your wealth, fame and temporal power will shrivel to irrelevance.

It will not matter what you owned or what you were owed.

Your grudges, resentments, frustrations, and jealousies will finally disappear.

So, too, your hopes, ambitions, plans, and to-do lists will all expire.

The wins and losses that once seemed so important will fade away.

It won't matter where you came from, or on what side of the tracks you lived.

It won't matter whether you were beautiful or brilliant.

Our gender, skin color, ethnicity will be irrelevant.

So what will matter?

"Success is doing ordinary things extraordinarily well." - Jim Rohn

"If people only knew how hard I work to gain my mastery, it wouldn't seem so wonderful at all." – Michelangelo

"Hard work spotlights the character of people: some turn up their sleeves, some turn up their noses, and some don't turn up at all." - Sam Ewing

"Success is neither magical nor mysterious. Success is the natural consequence of consistently applying the basic fundamentals." - Jim Rohn

"If you're never scared or embarrassed or hurt, it means you never take any chances." - Julia Sorel

"Apparently there is nothing that cannot happen today." - Mark Twain

"Luck is a dividend of sweat. The more you sweat, the luckier you get." - Ray Kroc

"The impossible is often the untried." - Jim Goodwin

"What great thing would you attempt if you knew you could not fail?" - Robert Schuller

"The tragedy of life is not that it ends so soon, but that we wait so long to begin it." - W.M. Lewis

"Too many people overvalue what they are not and undervalue what they are." - Malcolm Forbes

"All we have to decide is what to do with the time we are given." - Gandalf to Frodo, The Fellowship of the Ring (movie)

"To accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe." – Anatole France

"Just don't give up on trying to do what you really want to do. Where there is love and inspiration, I don't think you can go wrong." – Ella Fitzgerald

"If you are doing your best, you will not have time to worry about failure." - Robert Hillyer

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous?' Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It is not just in some of us. It is in everyone. And as we let our light shine, we give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others." - Nelson Mandela

"Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work." - Thomas Edison