Personal growth and mastery is a lifelong journey

• This is a lifelong journey—no matter how old you are, this process of finding what works and discovering your path gives your life meaning. You continually develop your understanding of your relationship to the highest goal. By creating from your highest goal and living on your path toward it, you inspire others. And this becomes your greatest legacy. Michael Ray
• Life is a continuous journey of transformation. Sukant Ratnakar
• The real student is studying, learning, inquiring, exploring, not just until he is twenty or twenty- five, but throughout life. Jiddu Krishnamurti
• We fail to realize that mastery is not about perfection. It’s about a process, a journey. George Leonard
• Ultimately, the master and the master’s path are one. And if the traveller is fortunate—that is, if the path is complex and profound enough—the destination is two miles farther away for every mile he or she travels. George Leonard
• A practice (as a noun) can be anything you practice on a regular basis as an integral part of your life—not in order to gain something else, but for its own sake… For a master, the rewards gained along the way are fine, but they are not the main reason for the journey. George Leonard
• The whole of life, from the moment you are born to the moment you die, is a process of learning. Jiddu Krishnamurti
• The years teach us much the days never knew. Ralph Waldo Emerson
• The path of development is a journey of discovery that is clear only in retrospect, and it’s rarely a straight line. Eileen Kennedy- Moore
• Embarking on the journey to self-discovery involves your willingness to endure some perspiration as well as inspiration. Michael Bernard Beckwith
• Life is a process. We are a process. The universe is a process. Anne Wilson Schaef, Ph.D.
• Growth,  Mastery,  Life is a journey,   Life is a process,  Making a start,  The power of tiny steps,  Adventure,  Perseverance,  Presence

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Growth is often two steps forward, one step back

• You will have wonderful surges forward. Then there must be a time of consolidating before the next forward surge. Accept this as part of the process and never become downhearted. Eileen Caddy
• Growth is an erratic forward movement: two steps forward, one step back. Remember that and be very gentle with yourself. Julia Cameron
• Oh boy. Another plateau. Good. I can just stay on it and keep practicing. Sooner or later, there’ll be another spurt. George Leonard
• We all find ourselves in slumps occasionally, we don’t need to get stuck in them. And when you feel like you’re going nowhere or even slipping backward, you may actually be backing up to get a running start. Dan Millman
• What most people don’t realize is that progress isn’t a linear curve going up and up and up. Most of your time will be spent on a plateau. Henri Junttila
• Progress has not followed a straight ascending line, but a spiral with rhythms of progress and retrogression, of evolution and dissolution. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
• Goals and contingencies, as I’ve said, are important. But they exist in the future and the past, beyond the pale of the sensory realm. Practice, the path of mastery, exists only in the present. You can see it, hear it, smell it, feel it. To love the plateau is to love the eternal now, to enjoy the inevitable spurts of progress and the fruits of accomplishment, then serenely to accept the new plateau that waits just beyond them. To love the plateau is to love what is most essential and enduring in your life. George Leonard
• One of the clever adaptive qualities of bamboo is that it grows its leaves in the summer and its roots in the winter. It takes advantage of each season, and while it appears dormant, it is not. The roots grown in winter prepare for rapid branch and leaf development in summer. We, too, go through seasons, all of which afford us opportunities for different kinds of growth. In a prosperous economic season, there is a lot of building and external expansion. When an economic winter comes, with little activity in the outer world, that is the time for inner deepening. Alan Cohen
• Learning proceeds in fits and starts. Jerold W. Aps
• We do not grow absolutely, chronologically. We grow sometimes in one dimension, and not in another, unevenly. We grow partially. We are relative. We are mature in one realm, childish in another. Anais Nin
• Most learning consists of extended plateau periods in which we solidify progress through repetitive activity, followed by little spurts of improvement. Ronald S. Miller
• Progress

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The path to lasting transformation requires taking small, daily steps…

• To make the quickest progress, you don’t have to take huge leaps. You just have to take baby steps—and keep on taking them. In Japan, they call this approach kaizen, which literally translates as ‘continual improvement.’ Using kaizen, great and lasting success is achieved through small, consistent steps. It turns out that slow and steady is the best way to overcome your resistance to change. Marci Shimoff
• Don’t look for the big, quick improvement. Seek the small improvement one day at a time. That’s the only way it happens—and when it happens, it lasts. John Wooden
• When you improve a little each day, eventually big things occur. When you improve conditioning a little each day, eventually you have a big improvement in conditioning. Not tomorrow, not the next day, but eventually a big gain is made. Don’t look for the big, quick improvement. Seek the small improvement one day at a time. That’s the only way it happens – and when it happens, it lasts. John Wooden
• You can’t do everything at once. But if you keep adding a little progress every day, over time you will have built a whole new set of habits and self- disciplines. Remember, anything valuable takes time. There are no overnight successes. Jack Canfield
• You have to apply yourself each day to become a little better. By applying yourself to the task of becoming a little better each and every day over a period of time, you will become a lot better. John Wooden
• Kaizen and innovation are the two major strategies people use to create change. Where innovation demands shocking and radical reform, all kaizen asks is that you take small, comfortable steps toward improvement. Robert Maurer
• It is the Baby Steps you take, the everyday things you do, that eventually lead to the manifestation of your outcome. David Emerald
• The power to change your life lies in the simplest of steps. Steve Maraboli
• Little by little a person becomes good, as a water pot is filled by drops of water. Buddha
• Go as far as you can see, and when you get there you’ll see farther. Elbert Hubbard
• When you improve a little each day, eventually big things occur…. Not tomorrow, not the next day, but eventually a big gain is made. Don’t look for the big, quick improvement. Seek the small improvement one day at a time. That’s the only way it happens — and when it happens, it lasts.  John Wooden
• Step by step is the law of growth. God does not expect the acorn to be a mighty oak before it has become a sapling. George E. Carpenter
• And if you start small, you don’t need a lot of motivation to get started either. The simple act of getting started and doing something will give you the momentum you need, and soon you’ll find yourself in a positive spiral of changes – one building on the other.  Marc and Angel Chernoff
• I don’t look to jump over 7-foot bars: I look around for 1-foot bars that I can step over. Warren Buffet
• The power of small steps

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… for small, consistent steps add up to become giant strides

• Small steps become giant strides. Tony Robbins
• There is no one giant step that does it. It’s a lot of little steps. Peter A. Cohen
• The most momentous leaps of growth commonly have as their springboard fairly modest first steps. Nathaniel Branden
• Small steps are good—they add up to big ones. Small steps are especially helpful to overachievers, who need to learn that life is less about getting somewhere, and more about being somewhere. Alan Cohen
• The ability to progress and achieve extraordinary results even in the midst of chaos is to take just one step at a time in the right direction. Tony Robbins
• Little changes and little choices add up to be revolutionary changes in your life. Sarah Ban Breathnach
• Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together. Vincent van Gogh

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It is consistent practice over time that leads to sustained growth

• It is infinitely better to practice a few minutes every day than to do it for an hour once a week.
• It’s not what you do once in a while, it’s what you do day in and day out that makes a difference. Jenny Craig
• In essence, if we want to direct our lives, we must take control of our consistent actions. It’s not what we do once in a while that shapes our lives, but what we do consistently. Tony Robbins
• Consistency of practice is the mark of the master. George Leonard
• Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out. Robert Collier
• Repetition is the mother of skill. Tony Robbins
• We all love to win, but how many of us love to train. Mark Spitz
• Practice,  Growth

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Start your growth journey today, no matter how small the step

• If you had started doing anything two weeks ago, by today you would have been two weeks better at it. John Mayer
• A year from now you will wish you had started today. Karen Lamb
• The most momentous leaps of growth commonly have as their springboard fairly modest first steps. Nathaniel Branden
• The only way that we can live, is if we grow. The only way that we can grow is if we change. The only way that we can change is if we learn. The only way we can learn is if we are exposed. And the only way that we can become exposed is if we throw ourselves out into the open. Do it. Throw yourself. JoyBell
• Don’t go through life; grow through life. Eric Butterworth
• You cannot change your destination overnight, but you can change your direction overnight. Jim Rohn
• Make a start

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Detecting negativity is often the first step on the journey to growth

• Encourage yourself by remembering that any detection of negativity within you is a positive act, not a negative one. Awareness of your weakness and confusion makes you strong because conscious awareness is the bright light that destroys the darkness of negativity. Honest self- observation dissolves pains and pressures that formerly did their dreadful work in the darkness of unawareness. Vernon Howard
• Detection of inner negativity is not a negative act, but a courageously positive act that makes you a new person. Vernon Howard
• A consciousness of wrongdoing is the first step to salvation… you have to catch yourself doing it before you can correct it. Seneca
• As you learn to consciously observe the transformation process, you will watch yourself repeating a lot of old patterns long after you seemingly know better. Spiritually and intellectually, you realize there is another way, but emotionally you are still clinging to the old habits.  This is a difficult time.  Try to be patient and compassionate with yourself.  When you recognize the futility of an old pattern so clearly, it’s about to change!  A short time later, you will suddenly begin to respond differently, in a more positive way. Shakti Gawain
• Whenever you notice that some form of negativity has arisen within you, look on it not as a failure, but as a helpful signal that is telling you: “Wake up. Get out of your mind. Be present.” Eckhart Tolle
• Negativity

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Keep a journal to chart your progress

• Writing is another powerful way to sharpen the mental saw. Keeping a journal of our thoughts, experiences, insights, and learnings promotes mental clarity, exactness, and context.  Stephen Covey
• I write to understand as much as to be understood. Elie Wiesel

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On a lighter note

• A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single happy delusion that it can be done without a stop-over. Robert Brault

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