"Whenever you are stuck searching for the optimal plan, remember:
Getting started changes everything."
- James Clear
"Focus on the seeds, not the trees. What seeds are you planting today?"
- James Clear
"Many of our habits and beliefs are learned from those who raised us. Which family story are you unconsciously repeating and reenacting? How can you rewrite the script to liberate yourself and the next generation?"
- James Clear
"Practice the art of small daily discomforts. Modern life is optimized for convenience and comfort. Your food can be delivered straight to your door. Your car seats can be heated. Your favorite show is available at the press of a button.
We all enjoy convenience and comfort, myself included. But our bodies and souls yearn for challenge. We want to be stretched. A deeper satisfaction awaits after pushing yourself to learn a challenging concept or complete a humbling workout or have an important but difficult conversation.
Should the whole day feel difficult? No, I don't think that's necessary. But a good day — a meaningful and fulfilling day — requires small moments of discomfort. Growth demands discomfort. We need something to push against to learn how strong we can become."
- James Clear
"When I notice myself worrying about 'what other people will think,' I find I'm usually not worried about any single person's opinion.
If I pick a specific person, I'm rarely concerned about what they will think. What I fear is the collective opinion in my head. It's imaginary."
- James Clear
"The fundamentals: Something many people know, but few people practice."
- James Clear
"Start with the best opportunity available to you. If you make the most of what you have in front of you right now, better opportunities will become available as you go along."
- James Clear
"Mental toughness is often framed as the perseverance that gets you across the finish line:
-Find a way to make it happen
-Push through the pain
-Grind it out to the end
But most days, mental toughness isn't about crossing the finish line. It's about getting to the starting line:
-Show up when no one is watching
-Keep your eye on the ball
-Do a little bit every day
Mental toughness is not skipping the days that are easy to skip."
- James Clear
"A simple rule for life that rarely fails:
Optimize for enthusiasm. Make as many choices as you can that leave you feeling energetic and interested. Pay attention to when you have the urge to pursue or participate in something and do more of it."
- James Clear
"There is always more than one way to do something. Write down as many ways as you can think of to achieve your desired outcome. Then, rank them based on how much time they take, how much money they cost, and how effective you expect them to be. Choose the best."
- James Clear
"Today might be the best chance you have to take action.
The longer you wait, the more deeply embedded you get in your current lifestyle. Your habits solidify. Your beliefs harden. You get comfortable.
It will never be easy, but it may also never be easier than it is right now."
- James Clear
"The beginning is mostly luck. The end is mostly choices."
- James Clear
"Shortcuts tend to accelerate effort, not replace it. Supplements and cutting edge recovery methods might speed up your progress in the gym, but they don't replace the need to do the workout. In general, the people who benefit most from shortcuts are those who continue to practice the fundamentals consistently."
- James Clear
"Stress and worry tend to be higher before you act.
Without action, all you can do is worry.
Once you begin, fear shrinks as you start to influence the outcome."
- James Clear
"
- Trying to please everyone
- Imitating the desires of others
- Chasing status without questioning why
- Playing superhero and trying to do it all alone
- Dividing attention between too many projects
Which one is most likely to pull you in?"
- James Clear
"Your first task is to find what feels effortless to you.
Your second task is to put maximum effort into it."
- James Clear
"One way to stand out is to look for pockets of low competition.
Wake up early—less traffic, fewer people.
Go deeper or narrower in your field—less noise, more space.
People are drawn to where it is crowded. Look for the quiet spaces inside your areas of interest. Excellence often hides at the edges."
- James Clear
"Worrying about the future is like watching a leaf fall and trying to predict where it will land. Stop trying to guess where the wind will blow and get to work."
- James Clear
"The Paradox of Freedom: The way to expand your freedom is to narrow your focus.
-Stay focused on saving to achieve financial freedom.
-Stay focused on training to achieve physical freedom.
-Stay focused on learning to achieve intellectual freedom.
The disciplined become the free."
- James Clear
"The person who learns the most in any classroom is the teacher.
If you really want to learn a topic, then “teach” it. Write a book. Teach a class. Build a product. Start a company.
The act of making something will force you to learn more deeply than reading ever will."
- James Clear
"I found this in a pile of notes to myself, and share here simply as food for thought... "You want two things:
1. Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity. No wasted movement. No wasted effort.
2. Compounding. Every project should have a long runway and feed the others."
- James Clear
"Although losing is never fun, there is a certain satisfaction that can be found on the other side of losing — but only when you give your all. To lose with half effort offers no pleasure in the moment and no peace in the long run. But if your ambitions were full and your attempt was genuine, after the sting of losing wears off you'll be left with something resembling contentment. The reward is not always in winning, but in striving."
- James Clear
"Remain playful as your responsibilities increase. It's easy to become serious when people and results depend on you, but nearly everyone's performance improves when they proceed lightly through the world."
- James Clear
"Stories of failure resonate more than stories of success. Few people reach the top, but everyone has failed—including those who eventually succeed. If you're teaching people how to succeed in a given field (or talking about your own success), start with how you failed."
- James Clear
"Even bad luck is a source of opportunity—but only if you live each day as if that is true."
- James Clear
"Each year, Steve Jobs would hold an annual meeting with the 100 most important people at Apple.
Crucially, these were not the top 100 executives, but rather the 100 people who were most important to the company that year. Jobs personally chose attendees based on their direct contribution, creativity, vision, and impact within the company, regardless of their official titles or positions.
I always loved the spirit of that practice. Competence over credentials."
- James Clear
"You are as old as the risks you take. In many ways, aging is not the process of growing old, but rather the slow death of becoming overly protective, scared, and worried about losing what you have. Youth is found in the energy of going for it, taking the risk, and trusting that you'll figure it out along the way."
- James Clear
"The Process:
1. Decide what you want to achieve.
2. Try different ways of achieving it until you find one that works for you.
3. Do more of what works. Do less of what doesn’t.
4. Don’t stop doing it until it stops working.
5. Repeat.
It is both this simple and this hard."
- James Clear
"To understand others, watch what they reward.
To understand yourself, watch what you envy."
- James Clear
"What you push down doesn’t vanish. It festers and wields quiet power over your thoughts and actions.
What needs to be addressed that isn’t currently being addressed?"
- James Clear
"Things that keep people from fulfilling their potential:
-Lacking the courage to try
-Trying to please everyone
-Imitating the desires of others
-Chasing status without questioning why
-Playing superhero and trying to do it all alone
-Dividing attention between too many projects"
- James Clear
"Think about self-control less as the quality of a person and more as the quality of a place. There are some places and situations that lean toward lower self-control and others that lean toward higher self-control. Self-control is about your context as much as your character. Put yourself in good positions."
- James Clear
"There are two ways to live a longer life:
1) Biologically. Extend the timeline between your birth and your death.
2) Psychologically. Fit more lives into whatever time you are given.
Make each decade rich with experiences and perhaps you can live a handful of lives before you are done."
- James Clear
"Spend today interpreting whatever people do in the most generous way. See if you feel better as a result."
- James Clear
"If you do not bend, you will break.
The adaptable prevail. Determined, but flexible."
- James Clear
"People frequently get what they deserve, but it doesn't feel like it because the unspoken rule is that you only deserve it if you have (1) the courage to attempt it, (2) the guts to ask for it, and (3) the willingness try again when it doesn't work out the first time."
- James Clear
"When accessing all information is common, paying attention to important information is rare."
- James Clear
"People can sometimes be held hostage by their expectations. They have a dream of something they would like to achieve or a path they intend to follow, but their mindset falls apart when things don't work out how they had hoped.
The key is to reach for an extremely high bar, but to be adaptable enough to reframe the failures, disappointments, and defeats into fuel for the next thing. Give your best effort, but no matter how it works out, trust that life will be good for you. Focus on how the world is working with you, not against you.
Everything you are given is material for the next move. Everything."
- James Clear
"The source of healthy boundaries is self-love and self-respect. When you learn to love yourself, you are less likely to put up with people who don't love you back."
- James Clear
"At any moment, you are one good choice away from a meaningfully better life."
- James Clear
"If you keep showing up, you'll almost certainly break through — but probably not in the way you expected or intended. You need enough persistence to keep working and enough flexibility to enjoy success when it comes in a different form than you imagined. "
- James Clear
"Savor the little victories as much as you criticize the little mistakes."
- James Clear
"Use what you already know. People are so busy searching for a shortcut — or hoping an easier path will reveal itself — they let numerous moments slip by when they could get results simply by doing what is right in front of them."
- James Clear
"Your habits are often a byproduct of convenience. Humans are wired to seek the path of least resistance, which means the most convenient option is often the one that wins. Make good choices more convenient and bad choices less so. Behavior will improve naturally."
- James Clear
"Writing is the superpower of humankind. It is our truest form of magic. Writing allows you to conjure up something of value where nothing previously existed. It costs little for you to write down the lessons of your life and yet those few minutes spent writing can be life-altering for the right reader. As I once saw it put: "there is someone out there with a wound in the exact shape of your words."
Furthermore, writing is the foundation of nearly every technology and innovation because we have to record what we know before we can build upon it. And these innovations are passed down from generation to generation, allowing our children to inherit a richer intellectual fortune than what we were born into. The world is richer because we write and nobody is made poorer in the process."
- James Clear
"You have to work hard to discover how to work smart. You won't know the best solutions until you've made nearly all the mistakes."
- James Clear
"You can't make a comeback if you don't start."
- James Clear
"The quality of my life is significantly higher on days that I publish an article. The creative process and well-being go hand-in-hand."
- James Clear
"To learn, wander. To achieve, focus."
- James Clear
"You are better equipped to deal with stress when you are moving.
When you feel tense or frustrated or worried, it is difficult to think your way into feeling better. The more you think about the situation, the larger it becomes in your mind. Trying to think your way out of it often leads to a spiral of overthinking and rumination.
The first step is not to think something different, but to do something different. It doesn’t matter what. Stretch on the floor, go for a walk, work on a project. Get out of your mind and move your body."
- James Clear