In this post, I compiled for you the best productivity quotes that you need not only to get inspired, but I actually to be an action taker, to achieve success in life.
Also to help you to navigate through these quotes, I decided for each of them, I’m going to give my personal interpretation, and the “action takeaway” to derive from them to do something in your life.
Sounds good! Let’s begin…
Quote #1: “It’s not always that we need to do more but rather that we need to focus on less.” ~ Nathan W. Morris
Unfortunately, in the self help industry there’s this emphasizes on “more”. To be successful on what you’re doing, you got to do more.
- You got to read more to be successful.
- You got to create more to get people to consume your content.
- You got to have more items in your to-do list to achieve your goals.
Don’t get me wrong. Working hard, and putting the hours in to learn the skills, and practice to achieve your goal is primordial, but I found the key to success is to focus on your highest priorities even if they are less in terms of quantity, and this quote really sums things up.
When I adopted this idea, everything change for me. Mostly, I started getting result a lot faster.
Quote #2: “Action is the foundational key to all success.” ~ Picasso
It’s simplistic as it might sounds, but a lot of people don’t get it. Let me explain.
In the self-improvement space, I noticed through my humble experience, there’s a lot of importance that is given to reading books, watching videos, buying courses, reading articles.
But the problem is that a lot of people confused that with actually taking action to hit the goal.
People spend most of their times by being on what’s called “motion” not action. Even I made a video that I called “Why you are not getting things done” where I talked more in this concept “Motion Vs Action”, so to save yourself from that, and get yourself into action mode.
Quote #3: “Working on the right thing is probably more important than working hard.” ~ Caterina Fake
Totally true. The worst thing ever is you work day-in and day-out spending endless hours, and you finally find yourself leaning against the wrong wall.
As I said in my first quote’s interpretation, anything worthwhile in life requires a ton of hours to achieve it but it’s not enough.
For example, If you’re working on a business and there’s no demand on the marketplace for this particular idea, no matter how articles, or videos you produce, or how hard-working you are, you’ll never going to be successful with it.
The same is true for learning a skill. Also you could use the wrong strategy, or framework as the reason why you are not getting any improvement with it.
The idea is to raise your consciousness, and don’t have a rigid way of thinking. But most importantly be aware of the feedback that you’re getting your way, and make the change if necessary until you find the light at the end of the tunnel.
Quote #4: “The noblest search is the search for excellence.” ~ Lyndon B. Johnson
This quote really taps into the core of change and improvement.
While most of us are going after the outcome, or a particular result getting us impatient, and not focused, the people who are doing great things understood this concept.
Being excellent at something takes time, years of dedication and effort, and delaying gratification, all of those ingredients that create what we call success.
Also searching for excellence is a mindset. It’s a gold mine that few people have, and if you have it, congratulations!
So, think about it when you are learning, or creating something, and be honest with yourself. Are you focusing on the result or mastering your craft?
Always mastery is the key. If you’re struggling with this concept I urge you to read the famous book Mastery by Robert Greene.
Quote #5: “While one person hesitates because he feels inferior, the other is busy making mistakes and becoming superior.” ~ Henry Link
The number one reason why people are not living up to their full potential is not because of lack of resources, or money, or talent, but because of perfectionism, and the fear of failure.
Nobody is exempted from that. The uncomfortable truth is you will make mistakes, you will fail without a shadow of doubt, and if you are not doing mistakes probably what you need to question what you’re doing.
So, the key is to just start. Instead of thinking about how this article should be written, and comparing my writing style to others, simply I just start.
And before you know what, after doing that over and over again, writing a blog post becomes a second nature, and fear is no longer threatening me anymore.
Struggling with procrastination? Click down below to download “The Procrastination Killer” for FREE where I’m sharing 6 of my best strategies to beat procrastination FOR GOOD, and get highly productive.
Quote #6: “My goal is no longer to get more done, but rather to have less to do.” ~ Francine Jay
You have to take this quote with a grant of salt. Doing less doesn’t mean spending less time working on your project, or on your goal.
Overloading your back with more stuff doesn’t lead to any good destination either.
In my opinion, what Jay meant by doing less, is getting rid from the not urgent tasks and distracting ones and just focus on the most important, and urgent ones.
When you count them, surely you’ll find just a handful of them. And that’s also the primary idea of the Eseinhower Box.
It helps to eliminate the tasks that are wasting your time, delegate the one that are important but don’t have any big consequences, and put all your focus on the ones that are important and urgent at the same time.
Quote #7: “The simple act of paying positive attention to people has a great deal to do with productivity.” ~ Tom Peters
My personal opinion on this quote is when you do good things towards other people, by being nice to them, by smiling to them, by not taking too seriously their flaws, and be forgiving, that will benefit you on two sides:
- The first side is that you’ll be able to stay focused on you goal, because you’re not flooding your mind with unnecessary things like judging people, gossiping, that comes mostly from a negative behavior towards others.
- And the second side is when you’re positively behaving towards people, you’re the one who is winning, because your emotional state will improve, which will help to get productive, and creative. .
Quote #8:“Productivity is being able to do things that you were never able to do before.” ~ Franz Kafka
Being able to accomplish something new, to learn a new language, to be more socially confident, to make money online, takes a lot effort, and you’re forced to be productive in order to get that kind of outcome.
Quote #9: “Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work.” ~ Stephen King
Totally true! Many of us wait for inspiration or motivation to hit us to take action. But all we need is simply: just start.
Just start and you’ll be inspired by new ideas, new angles, new ways of doing things.
Let’s take this post as an example. The truth is when I wanted to start writing, my “feeling brain” didn’t want to, because I’m not passionate of writing honestly.
But because I know you can create your own passion by taking action first and be consistent plus getting results of course and not waiting of it, all of that got the engine of inspiration spinning to get more and more.
And that’s what happened to me. I start writing few lines first, it sill a bit hard, I kept writing few more lines, the friction started loosing up slowly, I kept writing again, new ideas came up, I started liking the process I got more inspired, until I found myself writing a big chunk of this post. It’s amazing how it works.
So, don’t wait of inspiration, just start.
If you struggling to take action, here are few articles down below to help you with it:
- How To Take Action When You Don’t Want To
- How To Enjoy Doing Things You Hate
- How To Stay Motivated When You are Bored
Quote #10: “If you spend too much time thinking about a thing, you’ll never get it done.” ~ Bruce Lee
Overthinking is a big disease. Really. This quote form Tony Robbins that said: “If you’re living in your head, you’re dead”. That’s true.
The best way to feel alive is by taking action. Take an idea, or a task and get it done right now.
Don’t think about how things should be, or how others would judge me, or comparing yourself to others, all of those things are obstacles keeping away from what you want, and overthinking is the seed of all of that.
Struggling with procrastination? Click down below to download “The Procrastination Killer” for FREE where I’m sharing 6 of my best strategies to beat procrastination FOR GOOD, and get highly productive.
