#effort

What's going to motivate you today? Are you going to do your work because you want to do it well and have some pride in it, or is your paycheck going to be your major motivation? The answer to that question tells you a lot about yourself, and it tells others a lot about you. It also indicates your relationship to life, too, and just how much you're getting out of life. Our lives are full of opportunities and wonderful chances to do wonderful things, and it's only the self-motivated person who's going to find and enjoy most of those great opportunities. The person whose motivation has to come from outside him- or herself is only going to uncover the treasures that others direct them to--and believe me, others won't direct us to too many treasures when they could keep them for themselves. ↗

— Tom Walsh

#effort #inspiration #motivation #opportunity #self-motivation

Now we cannot...discover our failure to keep God's law except by trying our very hardest (and then failing). Unless we really try, whatever we say there will always be at the back of our minds the idea that if we try harder next time we shall succeed in being completely good. Thus, in one sense, the road back to God is a road of moral effort, of trying harder and harder. But in another sense it is not trying that is ever going tobring us home. All this trying leads up to the vital moment at which you turn to God and say, "You must do this. I can't. ↗

— C.S. Lewis

#god #surrender #failure

These people who can see right through you never quite do you justice, because they never give you credit for the effort you're making to be better than you actually are, which is difficult and well meant and deserving of some little notice. ↗

— Marilynne Robinson

#effort

Valkyrie Cain got out of the passenger side. She zipped up her black jacket against the cold, and joined Skulduggery as he walked up to the front door. She glanced at him, and saw that he was smiling. "Stop doing that,” she sighed. “Stop doing what?” Skulduggery responded in that gloriously velvet voice of his. “Stop smiling. The person we want to talk to lives in the only dark house on a bright street. That’s not a good sign.” “I didn’t realise I was smiling,” he said. They stopped at the door, and Skulduggery made a concerted effort to shift his features. His mouth twitched downwards. “Am I smiling now?” “No.” “Excellent,” he said, and the smile immediately sprang back up. ↗

— Derek Landy

#smile #valkyrie-cain #effort

For me, running is both exercise and a metaphor. Running day after day, piling up the races, bit by bit I raise the bar, and by clearing each level I elevate myself. At least that’s why I’ve put in the effort day after day: to raise my own level. I’m no great runner, by any means. I’m at an ordinary – or perhaps more like mediocre – level. But that’s not the point. The point is whether or not I improved over yesterday. In long-distance running the only opponent you have to beat is yourself, the way you used to be. ↗

— Haruki Murakami

#running #self #effort

Jesus calls us to his rest, and meekness is His method. The meek man cares not at all who is greater than he, for he has long ago decided that the esteem of the world is not worth the effort. ↗

— A.W. Tozer

#discipleship #spiritual-growth #effort