5 Productivity Quotes to Kickstart Your Day
And 5 ways to interpret their meaning
Productivity isn’t available at the flick of a switch. You don’t just wake up gasping — “Today, I will be productive!”.
Hands up if you’ve said this out loud, I definitely have!
The truth is, inspiration comes in ebbs and flows. What might have worked yesterday is not guaranteed to be replicable today. Productivity is not your early morning booty call. Perhaps you woke up on the wrong side of bed, or perhaps you didn’t sleep at all. It could well be that you’re experiencing intense burnout after exhausting your energy resources throughout the week. Nobody could blame you for wanting to blow off some steam and play a video game or two instead of writing another 2,000 word article. We’re human, not machines. Our ever changing emotions dictate how we behave, in turn, how we behave dictates our emotions, and somewhere inbetween is that burst of motivation to kickstart your day on the right foot.
The chances are I won’t be able to simulate productivity, but I can at least offer some wisdom and food for thought with five unconventional, thought provoking quotes that might stimulate productivity.
5 quotes on productivity
“It’s not that I’m so smart, it’s just that I stay with problems longer.“— Albert Einstein
There will be times where you might read an article and devalue your own intelligence in comparison to others. Whilst a person’s use of complex, scientific words paints an omniscient picture of them, it does not paint the entirety of the picture. When you delve beyond the surface you see struggle, years of study, countless failures, but more importantly, hidden between each coat of paint is a reminder of the days that they’d unwittingly bash their head against a brick wall until they were capable of overcoming a problem. Carve your own path, but don’t stop moving forward until you’ve reached your destination.
“Believe in yourself! Have faith in your abilities! Without a humble but reasonable confidence in your own powers you cannot be successful or happy.” — Norman Vincent Peale
It is my belief that to be happy in life, you must first be happy with yourself. Any small success will be void of meaning until it breeds happiness from within. To consistently harbour this happiness, you must first build confidence in what you bring to the table. Regularly Identify your strengths and weaknesses, harness them to the best of your ability, and have the self-belief that you can make calculated improvements over time. By taking control and responsibility over your actions and long-term growth, you are fostering true confidence that will develop humbly through practice and effort. When you look back at the trials and tribulations that led to your success, only then can you give yourself permission to be happy.
“If you’re going through hell, keep going.” — Winston Churchill
Purgatory is best thought of as an empty doctor’s waiting room. During this lonely, introspective period of being boxed between four nondescript walls, dark thoughts will filter in and out of your mind as your brain works in overtime, and you might feel like you’ve had to wait an eternity as you prepare yourself for the worst, but at some point, your name will be called, you’ll be given your doctors orders, good or bad. Before you get the chance to regress into a negative mindset, you’re back in the real world. Life kicks in and you are left with no option other than to keep going. Skip by a few days and you start to feel better, or at least ‘normal’. Remember, many of our worst days are eclipsed by our best.
“You can have everything in life you want, if you will just help other people get what they want.” — Zig Ziglar
The next time you are too fearful to commit to starting a task, consider doing it for someone other than yourself. The fear of failure is often tied to our desire for personal success, but by selflessly acting on behalf of another person or group of people, that initial fear is eliminated, and in its place is purpose and clarity. How could anyone wish to judge you for wanting to help? Stats seem insignificant when compared to the visible outcome that your words or actions are having on someone. Good karma will feed back to you and your appetite to support others will begin to guide every project you undertake.
“Learning never exhausts the mind.” — Leonardo da Vinci
Don’t think of your writing as a chore that must be executed to hit a word target. Instead, see it as an opportunity to expand your knowledge within a new field. Use it as a chance to improve your vocabulary or sharpen your skills. The act of learning rarely becomes boring as nothing we learn has been repeated, or else we wouldn’t be learning. Just as food provides sustenance for our body, learning cultivates the mind to embrace new ideas, reevaluate dated perspectives, pay knowledge forward and build competence and proficiency in a subject. It’s impossible to be tired of that which you don’t yet know.
Kickstart your day
If you’ve read to the end and still can’t shake your demoralized feeling, listen to your mind and body as they’re likely signalling that you take a rest or engage in a more palpable call to action. Take a moment to be mindful of your thoughts and feelings. Pay heed to those that are prominent and spend ten minutes of meditation to clear out any unwanted cognitions. kickstart your day with a bout of exercise and then revisit your motivation to be productive or to relax.
If on the other hand you’re fired up and raring to go, what are you waiting for? Go get ’em tiger!
Is a lack of focus and productivity stilting your creativity on a frequent basis? If yes, I strongly encourage you to check this out :-
