"Winners compare their achievements with their goals, while losers compare their achievements with those of other people."
- Nido Qubein

"Your perspective is always limited by how much you know. Expand your knowledge and you will transform your mind."
- Bruce H. Lipton

"You can't fly if your wings are holding the baggage of yesterday. Let go. Fly."
- Steve Maraboli

Song #lesson:  'Fly Like An Eagle' by Seal

Oh yeah there's a solution,
Let me fly like and eagle... to the sea,
Fly like an eagle let that spirit carry me,
I wanna fly, fly right into the future.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gF2UySGZAU

"Never look back unless you are planning to go that way."
- Henry David Thoreau

"What you focus upon is what you will manifest into your life. So instead of focusing on what you are trying to get away from, focus on what you intend to achieve."
- Dale Sellers

"If you associate with eagles, you will learn how to soar to great heights. But if you run with dogs, you will learn how to bark."
- Michael E. Ojo

"You cannot soar with eagles when you are running with ducks."
- Anonymous

"Be wise; soar not too high to fall; but stoop to rise."
- Philip Massinger

"Whatever limits us, we call fate."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"As far as pleasures, you've got to have limits. You shouldn't have too much of good things, so you'll always have a desire for more and you won't get bored."
- Compay Segundo

"We have limits to what we can do. At some point there has to be an informed personal choice."
- Jim Geringer

"As we advance in life we learn the limits of our abilities."
- Henry Ford

"The most important knowledge is understanding what you can't do."
- Bill Buford, Heat: An Amateur's Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-Maker, and Apprentice to a Dante-Quoting Butcher in Tuscany 

Parable of the Fly

"I’m sitting in a quiet room at the Millcroft Inn, a peaceful little place hidden back among the pine trees about an hour out of Toronto.  It’s just past noon, late July, and I’m listening to the desperate sounds of a life-or-death struggle going on a few feet away. There’s a small fly burning out the last of its short life’s energies in a futile attempt to fly through the glass of the windowpane.  The whining wings tell the poignant story of the fly’s strategy - try harder.
But it’s not working.
The frenzied effort offers no hope for survival.  Ironically, the struggle is part of the trap.  It is impossible for the fly to try hard enough to succeed at breaking through the glass.  Nevertheless, this little insect has staked its life on reaching its goal through raw effort and determination.
This fly is doomed.  It will die there on the windowsill. Across the room, ten steps away the door is open.  Ten seconds of flying time and this small creature could reach the outside world it seeks.  With only a fraction of the effort now being wasted, it could be free of this self-imposed trap.   The breakthrough possibility is there.  It would be so easy.
Why doesn’t the fly try another approach, something dramatically different?  How did it get so locked in on the idea that this particular route, and determined effort, offer the most promise for success?  What logic is there in continuing, until death, to seek a breakthrough with ‘more of the same’? No doubt this approach makes sense to the fly.  Regrettably, it’s an idea that will kill.
‘Trying harder’ isn’t necessarily the solution to achieving more.  It may not offer any real promise for getting what you want out of life.  Sometimes, in fact, it’s a big part of the problem.
If you stake your hopes for a breakthrough on trying harder than ever, you may kill your chances for success."
- Price Pritchett

"There are some things we cannot do or 'limits to our abilities.' These may be limits in a particular area or activity. Be sure to look for other ways to accomplish goals!"
- LifeLessonsForAll.com

"Reality is the leading cause of stress amongst those in touch with it." 
- Jane Wagner

"Reality is too much to take in heapfuls, but sprinkle it sparingly upon life's path and most can tread it lightly."
- Terri Guillemets

"There is a fine line between dreams and reality, it's up to you to draw it."
- B. Quilliam

"Imagination is the highest kite one can fly."
- Lauren Bacall

"The man who has no imagination has no wings."
- Muhammad Ali

Song #lesson: Reality is "the way things are", but things can change. Dream it, imagine it, think it!
What you see is not necessarily what you have to get. 

From the song 'That's The Way It Is' by Celine Dion:

It's an uphill climb, and I'm feeling sorry
But I know it will come to you,
Don't surrender 'cause you can win,
...
Don't give up on your faith,
Love comes to those who believe it
And that's the way it is.

http://youtu.be/T6wbugWrfLU

"Our thoughts and imagination are the only real limits to our possibilities."
- Orison Swett Marden

"Imagination... its limits are only those of the mind itself."
- Rod Serling

"Everything you can imagine is real."
- Pablo Picasso

"Imagination is the one weapon in the war against reality."
- Jules de Gaultier

"Reality leaves a lot to the imagination." 
- John Lennon

Song #lesson: The reality may seem bleak, but anything is possible...

From the song 'Anyway' by Martina McBride:

You can chase a dream
That seems so out of reach,
And you know it might not ever come your way,
Dream it anyway.

http://youtu.be/6uLtyzRgmyI

"Question reality, especially if it contradicts the evidence of your hopes and dreams." 
- Robert Brault

"Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one." 
- Albert Einstein

"What is reality but the dreamworld of a limited imagination."
- Robert Brault

"The world of reality has its limits; the world of imagination is boundless."
- Jean-Jacques Rousseau

"Don't believe what your eyes are telling you. All they show is limitation. Look with your understanding, find out what you already know, and you'll see the way to fly."
- Richard Bach

"Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world."
- Arthur Schopenhauer

"The only limits are, as always, those of vision."
- James Broughton

Today's focus: Accepting the current state (reality) as your future could be limiting. Dream, imagine, visualize and change the way things are!
- LifeLessonsForAlldotcom

"What really matters is what you do with what you have."
- Shirley Lord

"Do what you can, with what you have, where you are."
- Theodore Roosevelt

"To be what we are, and to become what we are capable of becoming, is the only end of life."
- Robert Louis Stevenson, Familiar Studies of Men and Books

From the song 'Push It To The Limit' by Corbin Bleu:

Work, work it harder,
Got to take it farther,
No holding back,
You know we got to do it right now.
Be even better,
Work work together,
It's now or never,
Show 'em how we shine.

We got to
Push it, push it to the limit, limit
'Cause we're in it to win it, in it to win it.

http://youtu.be/A3-JA49q-0o

"The roots of true achievement lie in the will to become the best that you can become."
- Harold Taylor

"But everyone I know reaches a point where they throw out their arms and go beserk for a while; otherwise you never know what your limits are. I was just trying to find mine."
- Robert Smith

"To show your true ability is always, in a sense, to surpass the limits of your ability, to go a little beyond them: to dare, to seek, to invent; it is at such a moment that new talents are revealed, discovered, and realized."
- Simone de Beauvoir

"Most people never run far enough on their first wind, to find out if they've got a second. Give your dreams all you've got, and you'll be amazed at the energy that comes out of you."
- William James

"Until I test the limits to what I can achieve, I won't really know how well I can do."
- Price Pritchett

"By all reckoning, the bumblebee is aerodynamically unsound and shouldn’t be able to fly. Yet, the little bee gets those wings going like a turbo-jet and flies to every plant its chubby little body can land on to collect all the nectar it can hold. Bumblebees are the most persistent creatures. They don’t know they can’t fly, so they just keep buzzing around. Like the lowly bumblebee, honored graduates, never give in to pessimism. Don’t know that you can’t fly, and you will soar like an eagle. Don’t end up regretting what you did not do because you were too lazy or too frightened to soar. Be a bumblebee! And soar to the heavens. You can do it. Godspeed to you all."
- Earl Bakken, Commencement Address at University of Hawaii, 2004

"Refuse to be average. Let your heart soar as high as it will."
- Aiden Wilson Tozer

"Don't settle for anything less. Rise up and optimize your talents through strategic thinking and big dream. Your God should be your guide in all things."
- Israelmore Ayivor, Michelangelo Beethoven Shakespeare: 15 Things Common to Great Achievers 

 

Do you limit yourself to be liked or to fit in?

"When I was little and running on the race track at school, I always stopped and waited for all the other kids so we could run together even though I knew (and everybody else knew) that I could run much faster than all of them! I pretended to read slowly so I could 'wait' for everyone else who couldn't read as fast as I could! When my friends were short I pretended that I was short too and if my friend was sad I pretended to be unhappy. I could go on and on about all the ways I have limited myself, my whole life, by 'waiting' for people. And the only thing that I've ever received in return is people thinking that they are faster than me, people thinking that they can make me feel bad about myself just because I let them and people thinking that I have to do whatever they say I should do. My mother used to teach me 'Cinderella is a perfect example to be' but I have learned that Cinderella can go f**** herself, I'm not waiting for anybody, anymore! I'm going to run as fast as I can, fly as high as I can, I am going to soar and if you want you can come with me! But I'm not waiting for you anymore."
- C. JoyBell C.

"The sky is not my limit...I am."
- T.F. Hodge, From Within I Rise: Spiritual Triumph Over Death and Conscious Encounters with 'The Divine Presence'

"Never set limits, go after your dreams, don't be afraid to push the boundaries. And laugh a lot - it's good for you!"
- Paula Radcliffe

"We set ourselves limits, but we are all strong enough to aim higher, to achieve our goals. All we have to do is find such strength within ourselves. Know how to develop it."
- Alain Robert