Keep moving, connecting all the way to the goal

Success takes persistence.

It takes patience.

Success takes vision, serendipity and the ability to keep moving, through it all.

Here’s how a few others see the path to the goal:

Producing is nothing more than bringing all the elements together, connecting people.
Brion James

Making mental connections is our most crucial learning tool, the essence of human intelligence; to forge links; to go beyond the given; to see patterns, relationships, context.
Marilyn Ferguson

Creativity is the power to connect the seemingly unconnected.
William Plomer

Success seems to be connected with action. Successful people keep moving. They make mistakes, but they don’t quit.
Conrad Hilton

Pursuing excellence? Persistence is key to success

Inspiration is guaranteed each and every Olympics.

Watching the best in the world compete in so many sports is a powerful reminder of what it takes to excel.

It reminds us, as well, that if you're pursuing excellence of any type, being able to push over, around, or through the barriers you inevitably find somewhere on the road to your goal is an important part of success.

Here are a few pursuit of excellence thoughts from others who knew the path, too:

I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward.
Thomas Edison

Nothing at all will be attempted if all possible objections must first be overcome.
Samuel Johnson

A man who suffers before it is necessary, suffers more than is necessary.
Seneca

We will either find a way, or make one.
Hannibal

Grow new opportunities

Watching the Olympics drives the lesson home:

You make many of your own opportunities, and for others, adapting well to whatever happens is the best course.

Here's what a few others have to say about opportunities and growth:

You can't build a reputation on what you are going to do.
Henry Ford

Life is not advancement. It is growth. It does not move upward, but expands outward, in all directions.
Russell G. Alexander

A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds.
Sir Francis Bacon

Problem-solving perspectives

Have a problem to solve? Or one you're trying to avoid?

How you approach a problem has a lot to do with how the problem-solving goes.

Here are perspectives from others on problem-solving…or not:

The problems of victory are more agreeable than those of defeat, but they are no less difficult.
Winston Churchill

Most people spend more time and energy going around problems than in trying to solve them.
Henry Ford

Don't get involved in partial problems, but always take flight to where there is a free view over the whole single great problem, even if this view is still not a clear one.
Ludwig Wittgenstein

There are no problems we cannot solve together, and very few that we can solve by ourselves.
Lyndon B. Johnson

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

Are you fully committed to change?

A question must be asked in these days of a still-new year, when resolutions may be quietly slipping away.

The question is: how badly do you want it, this change you’ve entertained?

A. “Sure I want it, if it’s easy!”

B. “I want this change so much I’m ready to put this as a top priority. I know it means I’ll be spending my time, energy, attention and perhaps money, too, in different ways.”

Once you make full commitment to significant change, many actions flow seemingly quite easily from that one solid decision.

Here’s how others see change and making the commitment to it:

It’s a helluva start, being able to recognize what makes you happy.
Lucille Ball

If you don’t like the road you’re walking, start paving another one.
Dolly Parton

Daring ideas are like chessmen moved forward; they may be beaten, but they may start a winning game.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

To change one’s life: Start immediately. Do it flamboyantly.
William James

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

Thoughts on clear focus, strong presence

In the final days of December we can’t help but review – even briefly – the way we spent the year that’s soon to end.

And as we do, one thing we may notice is the degree to which we were committed to the ways we spent our moments, our days, our lives in the 12 months that have just flown by.

What would you like to have stay the same in 2010 as it was in 2009?

How do you want things to be different in your life in the year just ahead?

Here are thoughts from others about presence, commitment and purpose:

Presence is more than just being there.
Malcolm S. Forbes

Some people think they are concentrating when they’re merely worrying.
Bobby Jones

Strong lives are motivated by dynamic purposes.
Kenneth Hildebrand

The first rule of focus is this, “Wherever you are, be there.”
Unknown

Concentration is the secret of strength in politics, in war, in trade, in short in all management of human affairs.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Thoughts about ringing in the new year

End the old year well.

Get the next year off to a great start.

Here’s the advice a few others have about that process:

An optimist stays up until midnight to see the new year in. A pessimist stays up to make sure the old year leaves.
Bill Vaughn

We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year’s Day.
Edith Lovejoy Pierce

For last year’s words belong to last year’s language and next year’s words await another voice.
T. S. Eliot

Many people look forward to the new year for a new start on old habits.
Unknown

Reviewing the year? A few things to consider

You may be like many people at this time of year, reviewing how you did in 2009, and planning for 2010.

Consider these thoughts as you look back, and then look forward again:

I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward.
Thomas Edison

Nothing at all will be attempted if all possible objections must first be overcome.
Samuel Johnson

We will either find a way, or make one.
Hannibal

The fear is not that we set our goals too high and we do not reach them, but that we set them too low and we do.
Michelangelo

If we all did the things we were capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves.
Thomas Edison

Remarkability is within your grasp

We live in a world of great opportunity as well as constant change and challenge.

And within each of us is the possibility of being remarkable in one or more ways. Here's what others have to say about "remarkability":

The reason so many people never get anywhere in life is because when opportunity knocks, they are out in the backyard looking for four-leaf clovers.
Walter Percy Chrysler

People become really quite remarkable when they start thinking that they can do things. When they believe in themselves they have the first secret of success.
Norman Vincent Peale

Be so remarkable they can't ignore you.
Steve Martin

There's nothing remarkable about it. All one has to do is hit the right keys at the right time and the instrument plays itself.
Johann Sebastian Bach

The world of books is the most remarkable creation of man nothing else that he builds ever lasts monuments fall; nations perish; civilization grow old and die out; new races build others. But in the world of books are volumes that have seen this happen again and again and yet live on. Still young, still as fresh as the day they were written, still telling men's hearts, of the hearts of men centuries dead.
Clarence Day

And then there's the challenge of living in a world of low expectations, and not letting that hold you back from discovering and expressing the "remarkable" you possess, and can express, if you find the right way, the right venue for it. Here's how one playwright expressed that challenge:

Don't live down to expectations. Go out there and do something remarkable.
Wendy Wasserstein

The power and dance of resilience


Jellyfish, originally uploaded by jcgr.

If we've learned nothing else in the last few years, it is this lesson:

Resilience, ultimately, wins the day.

Here are others' thoughts about resilience, persistence, and vision:

Those who admire the massive, rigid bone structures of dinosaurs should remember that jellyfish still enjoy their very secure ecological niche.
Beau Sheil

You cannot discover new oceans unless you have the courage to lose sight of the shore.
Unknown

You must look into people as well as at them.
Lord Chesterfield

Man's mind stretched to a new idea never goes back to its original dimensions.
Oliver Wendall Holmes

Nothing splendid has ever been achieved except by those who dared believe that something inside of them was superior to circumstance.
Bruce Barton

Sell your cleverness, and purchase bewilderment.
Francesco

I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward.
Thomas Edison