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Initiative is taking action without being told

• Initiative: The power or opportunity to act or take charge before others do.  Oxford Disctionary
• Initiative is doing the right things without being told. Elbert Hubbard
• Resourcefulness,  Inventiveness,  Action,  Ambition,  Proactiveness

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Taking initiative means doing what you can with what you have

• Nobody’s problem is ideal. Nobody has things just as he would like them. The thing to do is to make a success with what material I have. It is sheer waste of time and soul-power to imagine what I would do if things were different. They are not different. Dr. Frank Crane
• Most of us go through life as failures, because we are waiting for the “time to be right” to start doing something worthwhile. Do not wait. The time will never be “just right.” Start where you stand, and work with whatever tools you may have at your command, and better tools will be found as you go along. Napoleon Hill
• Resourcefulness

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Initiative creates success

• Initiative is to success what a lighted match is to a candle. Orlando Battista
• Success depends in a very large measure upon individual initiative and exertion and cannot be achieved except by a dint of hard work. Anna Pavlova
• Average people look for ways of getting away with it; successful people look for ways of getting on with it. Jim Rohn
• Success,  Achievement

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Initiative creates hope

• The best way to not feel hopeless is to get up and do something. Don’t wait for good things to happen to you. If you go out and make some good things happen, you will fill the world with hope, you will fill yourself with hope. Barack Obama
• Hope

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Initiative creates change

• Time is neutral and does not change things. With courage and initiative, leaders change things. Jesse Jackson
• They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself. Andy Warhol
• I am personally convinced that one person can be a change catalyst, a “transformer” in any situation, any organization. Such an individual is yeast that can leaven an entire loaf. It requires vision, initiative, patience, respect, persistence, courage, and faith to be a transforming leader. Stephen Covey
• You can act to change and control your life; and the procedure, the process is its own reward. Amelia Earhart
• Change

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Initiative creates confidence and courage

• Inaction breeds doubt and fear. Action breeds confidence and courage. If you want to conquer fear, do not sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy. Dale Carnegie
• Courage,  Self-confidence

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Initiative creates inspiration and motivation

• We should be taught not to wait for inspiration to start a thing. Action always generates inspiration. Inspiration seldom generates action. Frank Tibolt
• Don’t wait until you feel positive to move forward. Act your way into feeling good. John Maxwell
• Inspiration,  Innovation

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Initiative creates its own luck

• You can’t manage luck directly, but you can manage your career in a way that makes it easier for luck to find you. To succeed, first you must do something. And if that doesn’t work, which can be 90% of the time, do something else. Luck finds the doers. Scott Adams
• Luck

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Initiative creates momentum

• It can take a good amount of energy and initiative to get yourself started in a new activity – but it takes far, far less to keep yourself doing it once you’ve started. Jeff Olson
• It takes considerable energy to get yourself into motion and moving. But it takes much less energy to keep yourself moving, once you get going. Brian Tracy
• Chance favors those in motion. James Austin
• Success comes from taking the initiative and following up… persisting… eloquently expressing the depth of your love. What simple action could you take today to produce a new momentum toward success in your life? Tony Robbins
• Momentum

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Initiative sets the universe on your side

• Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation) there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would not otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favour all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance which no man would have dreamed would come his way. H. Murray
• The universe

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Not taking initiative comes at a price

• The difference between getting somewhere and nowhere is the courage to make an early start. The fellow who sits still and does just what he is told will never be told to do big things. Charles M. Schwab
• Doing nothing is a comfortable alternative because it is without immediate risk, but it is an absolutely fatal way to manage a business. Thomas Watson Jr.
• Folks who never do any more than they get paid for, never get paid for any more than they do. Elbert Hubbard

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Take initiative in creating the life you want

• “The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.” Is it? Or maybe you just need to get up off your lazy ass and mow the lawn, water it, pull some weeds, fertilize it, take care of your own grass and stop looking over the fence. Craig Sanford

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Take the initiative to create the circumstances you want

• People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I do not believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and if they cannot find them, make them. George Bernard Shaw
• When life does not go our way, or we inadvertently make a mistake, it is so easy to make excuses, place blame on others, or argue that circumstances were against us. But we only progress in life to the extent that we take responsibility for our actions and attitudes and put forth the initiative necessary to create our own circumstances. Stephen Covey
• It will never rain roses: when we want to have more roses, we must plant more roses. George Eliot

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Take initiative in seizing opportunity

• I have found opportunities do not come to those who wait. They are captured by those who attack. William Danforth
• It is not often that a man can make opportunities for himself. But he can put himself in such shape that when or if the opportunities come he is ready. Theodore Roosevelt
• Opportunity

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Take initiative in creating positive, new habits

• We must make automatic and habitual, as early as possible, as many useful actions as we can…in the acquisition of a new habit, we must take car to launch ourselves with as strong and decided initiative as possible. Never suffer an exception to occur till the new habit is securely rooted in your life. William James
• Habit

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What simple action can you take today?

• Success comes from taking the initiative and following up… persisting… eloquently expressing the depth of your love. What simple action could you take today to produce a new momentum toward success in your life? Tony Robbins
• The important thing is to concentrate upon what you can do – by yourself, upon your own initiative. Harry Browne
• You can’t do everything at once, but you can do something at once. Zig Ziglar
• Action,  The power of small steps,   Making a start

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Quit talking and preparing and make a start

• There never was a winner who wasn’t a beginner. Denis Waitley
• Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
• The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing. Walt Disney
• If you want to be useful, you can always start now, with only 1 percent of what you have in your grand vision. It’ll be a humble prototype version of your grand vision, but you’ll be in the game. You’ll be ahead of the rest, because you actually started, while others are waiting for the finish line to magically appear at the starting line. Derek Sivers
• The man who removes a mountain begins by carrying away small stones. William Faulkner
• You don’t have to be great to get started, but you have to get started to be great. Les Brown
• Lord, help me to begin to begin. George Whitefield
• There comes a moment when you have to stop revving up the car and shove it into gear. David Mahoney
• Making a start

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Make the decision to act

• The most difficult thing is the decision to act; the rest is merely tenacity. The fears are paper tigers. You can do anything you decide to do. You can act to change and control your life; and the procedure, the process is its own reward. Amelia Earhart
• Those who get the most out of life and those who give the most are those who make the choice to act. Stephen Covey
• The first choice we make each and every day is, “Will we act upon life, or will we merely be acted upon?” Stephen Covey
• Decision making

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Make things happen rather than waiting for them to happen

• Let us not be content to wait and see what will happen but give us the determination to make the right things happen. Peter Marshall
• If you want to accomplish anything in life, you can’t just sit back and hope it will happen. You’ve got to make it happen. Chuck Norris
• You are essentially who you create yourself to be and all that occurs in your life is the result of your own making. Stephen Richards
• There is a time to let things happen and a time to make things happen. Hugh Prather
• Life isn’t fair. It isn’t going to be fair. Stop sniveling and whining and go out and make it happen for you. Dick Butler
• You can commit no greater folly than to sit by the roadside until someone comes along and invites you to ride with him to wealth or influence. John Gough
• Don’t wait for your ship to come in, swim out to it. Cathy Hopkins

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Don’t live in a world of “someday.”

• Most people spend their entire lives on a fantasy island called ‘Someday I’ll’. Denis Waitley
• “Some day” doesn’t exist, never has, and never will. There is no “some day”. There’s only today. When tomorrow comes, it will be another today; so will the next day. They all will. There is never anything but today. Jeff Olson

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Don’t wait until all the conditions are perfect – for they never are

• A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault. Cardinal Newman
• Every successful man I have heard of has done the best he could with conditions as he found them, and not waited until the next year for better. Edgar Watson Howe
• Those who wait until all the lights are on green before starting will never leave home. Zig Ziglar

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Initiative requires judgement

• Notice carefully that sound judgment must precede the exercise of initiative. Charles Gow
• Organization can never be a substitute for initiative and for judgment. Louis D. Brandeis
• Wisdom,  Common sense

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Initiative requires a willingness to fail and learn from mistakes

• It is common sense to take a method and try it. If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something. Franklin Delano Roosevelt
• Failure,  Mistakes

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• Genius is initiative on fire. Holbrook Jackson
• The key is taking responsibility and initiative, deciding what your life is about and prioritizing your life around the most important things. Stephen Covey
• Employers and business leaders need people who can think for themselves – who can take initiative and be the solution to problems. Stephen Covey
• There are two kinds of men who never amount to much: those who cannot do what they are told and those who can do nothing else. Cyrus Curtis
• Details often kill initiative, but there have been few successful men who weren’t good at details. Don’t ignore details. Lick them. William Given Jr.
• The few who do are the envy of the many who only watch. Jim Rohn
• Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle. Abraham Lincoln
• What you think about, talk about, and get off your ass and do something about is what comes about! Larry Winget
• Most people have been brainwashed into believing that their job is to copyedit the world, not to design it. Seth Godin
• To do anything in this world worth doing, we must not stand back shivering and thinking of the cold and danger but jump in and scramble as well as we can. Sydney Smith
• There’s no difference between a pessimist who says, “Oh, it’s hopeless, so don’t bother doing anything,” and an optimist who says, “Don’t bother doing anything, it’s going to turn out fine anyway.” Either way, nothing happens. Yvon Chouinard
• Implement now, perfect later. Larry Winget
• The first part of success is Get-to-it-iveness; the second part of success is Stick-to-it-iveness. Orison Marden
• God gives every bird his worm, but he does not throw it into the nest.
• Two sure ways to fail: Think and never do, or do and never think. Zig Ziglar
• If your ship doesn’t come in, swim out to meet it. Jonathan Winters
• You can’t cross a sea by merely staring into the water. Rabindranath Tagore
• You can always find a capable helping hand at the end of your own sleeve. Zig Ziglar
• Do not wait for leaders; do it alone, person to person. Mother Teresa

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• A lot of people never use their initiative because no-one told them to. Banksy
• There are two ways to climb an oak tree. You can climb it, or you can sit on an acorn and wait for it to grow.
• God gives the nuts, but he does not crack them. Franz Kafka

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