Once adulthood comes knocking on the door, our lives get attacked by change. We need to get a job, find a place to live, and continuously fill the fridge. All of these might sound mundane and boring, and depending on what you do and how much you love doing it, it might be hard to find that spark in the routine. That’s where motivational quotes for work come in.
Whatever the day might be, it can be hard to find proper motivation. Even if it’s the middle of the week, Friday, or the most ominous day to be at work—Monday. (P.S. Mondays suck so much that we made a separate post for Monday motivation quotes) However, in this list, you’ll find quotes for work motivation for any day of the week. The authors behind these wise sayings speak about creativity and how not to give up on anything—enough to keep your motivation levels up and going.
So don’t wait for anything else, and dive into this list of motivational quotes for work. Vote for your favorites and take in the inspiring power of these quotes. Just don’t forget to keep moving forward and refilling your motivation’s fuel tank, as we don’t want you to get stranded on a highway’s shoulder on your way to success!
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“You can do anything, but not everything. Prioritize better.”
This one's really good, I panic a little though when I think of everything I won't be able to do 😬😂
“The most effective way to do it is to do it.” - Amelia Earhart
True. One you do it, it will be the way it was done. So the most effective.
“A creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others.” - Ayn Rand
I don't know if this relates but I desire to always be the best but by shear determination and always educating myself to achieve it (even in things I don't necessarily want to educate myself in). I never cheat. I also don't care about beating others as I believe if I deliver the best it all coincides. I also live by and know its true that.... be respectful of everyone as you are going to meet some of the same people on the way down after being at the top. It's inevitable....
“What we fear doing most is usually what we most need to do.” - Tim Ferriss
Wow. Maybe I should just go back to school despite my fears of not being able to afford it. *not being sarcastic*
“Even if you’re on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.” - Will Rogers
“Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work.” - Stephen King
“You can’t change how people treat you or what they say about you. All you can do is change how you react to it.” - Mahatma Gandhi
“When one door of happiness closes, another opens, but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one that has been opened for us.” - Helen Keller
“The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.” - Alice Walker
“When someone tells me ‘no,’ it doesn’t mean I can’t do it, it simply means I can’t do it with them.” - Karen E. Quinones Miller
“Fall 7 times, stand up 8.” - Japanese Proverb
“One of the best pieces of advice I ever got was from a horse master. He told me to go slow to go fast. I think that applies to everything in life. We live as though there aren't enough hours in the day but if we do each thing calmly and carefully we will get it done quicker and with much less stress.” - Viggo Mortensen
“The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one.” - Mark Twain
“Try not to become a person of success, but rather try to become a person of value.” - Albert Einstein
“It does not matter how slowly you go, so long as you do not stop.” - Confucius
Just keep pushing on the job you like. Make sure you keep your eyes on the prize.
“There is virtue in work and there is virtue in rest. Use both and overlook neither.” - Alan Cohen
“Never give up on a dream just because of the time it will take to accomplish it. The time will pass anyway.” - Earl Nightingale
just believe that someone here there for you they here to help you along the way.
“It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.” - E. E. Cummings
“I am not a product of my circumstances. I am a product of my decisions.” - Stephen Covey
“The essence of self-discipline is to do the important thing rather than the urgent thing.” - Barry Werner
Sometimes you have to do the urgent thing in order to do the important thing. Balance priorities.
“The true meaning of life is to plant trees under whose shade you do not expect to sit.” - Nelson Henderson
“We must be willing to let go of the life we planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us.” - Joseph Campbell
“Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourselves.” - Chanakya
“I would visualize things coming to me. It would just make me feel better. Visualization works if you work hard. That’s the thing. You can’t just visualize and go eat a sandwich.” - Jim Carrey
“If something is wrong, fix it now. But train yourself not to worry, worry fixes nothing.” - Ernest Hemingway
“One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly important.” - Bertrand Russell
“How wonderful is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.“ - Anne Frank
“Go as far as you can see; when you get there, you’ll be able to see further.” - Thomas Carlyle
“If I had eight hours to chop down a tree, I’d spend six hours sharpening my ax.” - Abraham Lincoln
“Let me tell you the secret that has led me to my goals: my strength lies solely in my tenacity.” - Louis Pasteur
“If you want to make an easy job seem mighty hard, just keep putting off doing it.” - Olin Miller
“There are two primary choices in life: to accept conditions as they exist, or accept the responsibility for changing them.” - Denis Waitley
“Show me a person who has never made a mistake and I'll show you someone who has never achieved much.” - Joan Collins
“Strength does not come from winning. Your struggles develop your strengths. When you go through hardships and decide not to surrender, that is strength.” - Arnold Schwarzenegger
“I’ve learned that no matter what happens, or how bad it seems today, life does go on, and it will be better tomorrow.” - Maya Angelou
“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.” - Barrack Obama
“If a mind thinks with a believing attitude, one can do amazing things.” - Norman Vincent Peale
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, is not an act. But a habit.” - Aristotle
“Chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken.” - Warren Buffett
“If you don’t design your own life plan, chances are you’ll fall into someone else’s plan and guess what they have planned for you? Not much.” - Jim Rohn
“Develop success from failures. Discouragement and failure are two of the surest stepping stones to success.” - Dale Carnegie
“It’s not what you say out of your mouth that determines your life, it’s what you whisper to yourself that has the most power.” - Robert T. Kiyosaki
“Don’t aim for success if you want it, just do what you love and believe in and it will come naturally.” - David Frost
“Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.” - Thomas Edison
“Start by doing what’s necessary, then what’s possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible.” - Saint Francis
“Our greatest fear should not be of failure but of succeeding at things in life that don't really matter.” - Francis Chan
“Follow effective actions with quiet reflection. From the quiet reflection will come even more effective action.” - Peter Drucker
“Abandon anything about your life and habits that might be holding you back. Learn to create your own opportunities.” - Sophia Amoruso
“Work harder on you than everyone else and you will become unusually successful.” - Dani Johnson
“You’ve got to get up every morning with determination if you’re going to go to bed with satisfaction.” - George Lorimer
“Your talent determines what you can do. Your motivation determines how much you’re willing to do. Your attitude determines how well you do it.” - Lou Holtz
“I learned this, at least, by my experiment; that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.” - Henry David Thoreau
“You get to decide where your time goes. You can either spend it moving forward, or you can spend it putting out fires. You decide. And if you don’t decide, others will decide for you.” - Tony Morgan
And too often, the boss won't let you prevent fires in the first place, if they're not setting them in the first place.
“The only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle.” - Steve Jobs
“Never allow a person to tell you no who doesn’t have the power to say yes.” - Eleanor Roosevelt
“Try not. Do, or do not. There is no try.” - Yoda
I can try to pick up 100 pounds and be unable to. Then keep trying less weight until I can. Do a little more over time, and maybe I can. Or not.
“Very often a change of self is needed more than a change of scene.” - Arthur Christopher Benson
“Coming together is a beginning, keeping together is progress, working together is success.” - Henry Ford
“The size of your success is measured by the strength of your desire, the size of your dream, and how you handle disappointment along the way.” - Robert Kiyosaki
“Success is a state of mind. If you want success, start thinking of yourself as a success.” - Joyce Brothers
“Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work in hand. The sun's rays do not burn until brought to a focus.“ - Alexander Graham Bell
“I’m a greater believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it.” - Thomas Jefferson
“When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better too.” - Paulo Coelho
“Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant.” - Robert Louis Stevenson
“Time is an equal opportunity employer. Each human being has exactly the same number of hours and minutes every day. Rich people can't buy more hours. Scientists can't invent new minutes. And you can't save time to spend it on another day. Even so, time is amazingly fair and forgiving. No matter how much time you've wasted in the past, you still have an entire tomorrow.” - Denis Waitley
Rich people can buy time from poor people. Shopping, cooking, cleaning, a 20 minute drive instead of 2 hours on 3 busses or an expensive home in walking distance instead of an affordable one an hour commute away, having a mechanic pick up and deliver your car, a tutor instead of struggling with your kid's homework
“Happiness is not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort.” - Franklin D. Roosevelt
“Do more than is required. What is the distance between someone who achieves their goals consistently and those who spend their lives and careers merely following? The extra mile.” - Gary Ryan Blair
“You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.” - Martin Luther King, Jr.
”This is the real secret of life — to be completely engaged with what you are doing in the here and now. And instead of calling it work, realize it is play.” - Alan Wilson Watts
“In a moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing to do, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing.” - Theodore Roosevelt
“Don’t be afraid of hard work. Nothing worthwhile comes easily. Don’t let others discourage you or tell you that you can’t do it. In my day I was told women didn’t go into chemistry. I saw no reason why we couldn’t.” - Gertrude B. Elion
“Attitude is a choice. Happiness is a choice. Optimism is a choice. Kindness is a choice. Giving is a choice. Respect is a choice. Whatever choice you make makes you. Choose wisely.” - Roy T. Bennett
“If you don’t pay appropriate attention to what has your attention, it will take more of your attention than it deserves.” - David Allen
“A clay pot sitting in the sun will always be a clay pot. It has to go through the white heat of the furnace to become porcelain.” - Mildred Struven
“Much of the stress that people feel doesn't come from having too much to do. It comes from not finishing what they started.” - David Allen
“Once you have commitment, you need the discipline and hard work to get you there.” - Haile Gebrselassie
”Spend eighty percent of your time focusing on the opportunities of tomorrow rather than the problems of yesterday.” - Brian Tracy
“As long as they are well-intentioned, mistakes are not a matter for shame, but for learning.” - Margaret Heffernan
“Define success on your own terms, achieve it by your own rules, and build a life you’re proud to live.” - Anne Sweeney
“I’m a success today because I had a friend who believed in me and I didn’t have the heart to let him down.” - Abraham Lincoln
“In every day, there are 1,440 minutes. That means we have 1,440 daily opportunities to make a positive impact.” - Les Brown
“If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more, and become more, you are a leader.” - John Quincy Adams
“It’s our choices… that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.” - J. K. Rowling
“The individual who says it is not possible should move out of the way of those doing it.” - Tricia Cunningham
“Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal. Nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong attitude.” - Thomas Jefferson
“Developing a good work ethic is key. Apply yourself at whatever you do, whether you're a janitor or taking your first summer job because that work ethic will be reflected in everything you do in life.” - Tyler Perry
“Success means doing the best we can with what we have. Success is the doing, not the getting; in the trying, not the triumph. Success is a personal standard, reaching for the highest that is in us, becoming all that we can be.” - Zig Ziglar
Zig Ziglar is one of my favorite philosophers ... he had a combination of wise and funny that made him wonderful.
“Things may come to those who wait, but only the things left by those who hustle.” - Abraham Lincoln
“Talent means nothing, while experience, acquired in humility and with hard work, means everything.” - Patrick Suskind
“Motivation is a fire from within. If someone else tries to light that fire under you, chances are it will burn very briefly.” - Stephen R. Covey
“Nothing in the world can take the place of perseverance. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost legendary. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Perseverance and determination alone are omnipotent.” - Calvin Coolidge
“Nothing is less productive than to make more efficient what should not be done at all.” - Peter Drucker
“It is not a daily increase, but a daily decrease. Hack away at the inessentials.” - Bruce Lee
“It isn’t the mountains ahead to climb that wear you out; it’s the pebble in your shoe.” - Muhammad Ali
“Your ability to discipline yourself to set clear goals, and then to work toward them every day, will do more to guarantee your success than any other single factor.” - Brian Tracy
“I have always believed, and I still believe, that whatever good or bad fortune may come our way we can always give it meaning and transform it into something of value.” - Hermann Hesse
“If you are not where you want to be, do not quit, Instead reinvent yourself and change your habits.” - Eric Thomas
“You have the power on your mind, not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.” - Marcus Aurelius
“To succeed in your mission, you must have single-minded devotion to your goal.” - A. P. J. Abdul Kalam
“Don't be afraid to give your best to what seemingly are small jobs. Every time you conquer one it makes you that much stronger. If you do the little jobs well, the big ones will tend to take care of themselves.” - William Patten
“Success seems to be connected with action. Successful people keep moving. They make mistakes, but they don’t quit.” - Conrad Hilton
“Dreams can come true, but there is a secret. They're realized through the magic of persistence, determination, commitment, passion, practice, focus and hard work. They happen a step at a time, manifested over years, not weeks.” - Elbert Hubbard
“Plenty of men can do good work for a spurt and with immediate promotion in mind, but for promotion you want a man in whom good work has become a habit.” - Henry L. Doherty
“The price of success is hard work, dedication to the job at hand, and the determination that whether we win or lose, we have applied the best of ourselves to the task at hand.” - Vince Lombardi
“Whatever you do, do it with all your might. Work at it, early and late, in season and out of season, not leaving a stone unturned, and never deferring for a single hour that which can be done just as well as now.” - Margaret Fuller
“When you get into a tight place and everything goes against you, till it seems as though you could not hang on a minute longer, never give up then, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn.” - Harriet Beecher Stowe
“When we long for life without difficulties, remind us that oaks grow strong in contrary winds and diamonds are made under pressure.” - Peter Marshall
“We can easily manage if we will only take, each day, the burden appointed to it. But the load will be too heavy for us if we carry yesterday’s burden over again today, and then add the burden of the morrow before we are required to bear it.” - John Newton
“Self-esteem comes from achieving something important when it’s hard to do.” - Clayton M. Christensen
