Barbara Sher Quotes & Sayings

A direct statement about yourself is considered objective only if it is negative. If it's positive, it is considered subjective. And 'objective' means it is accurate, and 'subjective' means it is conceited self-delusion. — Barbara Sher

How can families harm us when they love us? Very easily, unfortunately. Most of us overlook one important fact when we think love is enough: Love and respect aren't the same thing.
Love is fusion. As a baby, you belong to your parents, you're extension of them.
Respect is differentiation: you belong to yourself, and you're an extension of no one.
Differentiation is essential for happiness of adults. — Barbara Sher

In the rush of daily living it's easy to forget all the remarkable people, real or fictional, who have been a part of your life. But if you just imagine they are near for a moment, you will realize that anyone who ever touched your heart is always with you, patiently waiting to emanate warmth and support whenever you remember to think of them. — Barbara Sher

Resistance is clear evidence of high self-esteem. It shows that on the deepest level, you intend to survive. And trust me, successful people know all about resistance, they've just developed ways to get around it (like hiring trainers and managers and secretaries and having deadlines to keep them moving). — Barbara Sher

You cannot tell your heart what it wants. Your heart will tell you — Barbara Sher

Doing what you love isn't a priviledge; it's an obligation. — Barbara Sher

Did you know that on one of the islands of Orkney, in the North of Scotland, there are some runes that when translated turned out to be Viking graffiti? Eight feet up a wall it says "A tall Viking wrote this." You gotta love that. — Barbara Sher

Doing is a quantum leap from imagining. — Barbara Sher

Doing your own thing is a generous act. Being gifted creates obligations, which means you owe the world your best effort at the work you love. You too are a natural resource. — Barbara Sher

And our dreams are who we are. — Barbara Sher

The cure for sorrow is to learn something. — Barbara Sher

You don't have to get it right the first time. — Barbara Sher

Now is the operative word. Everything you put in your way is just a method of putting off the hour when you could actually be doing your dream. — Barbara Sher

Resentment is weak and lowers your self-esteem. — Barbara Sher

You don't need endless time and perfect conditions. Do it now. Do it today. Do it for twenty minutes and watch your heart start beating. — Barbara Sher

Each destination you reach only opens out into wider horizons, new and undiscovered countries for you to explore. — Barbara Sher

You can waste a perfectly good life trying to meet the standards of someone who thinks you're not good enough because they can't understand who you are. — Barbara Sher

What you're really supposed to be doing is whatever makes your heart sing. — Barbara Sher

We are like violins. We can be used as doorstops, or we can make music. — Barbara Sher

Real Dreams don't require you to abandon your family, quit your job, and move to Tahiti with your paintbrush. They just require that you search your soul for that deep dream you put aside-and go for it. And watch your life light up. — Barbara Sher

Since then I've come to believe you don't always have to use things you love, and it's not always so practical to be so practical. Now that I've grown up, I realize that all that delicious dilettantism pays its way as much as any degree in medicine or engineering, by making me remember every day - whenever I pick up a book or watch the Science Channel or try to read a map of Asia for no particular reason - that life is amazing and there is no end to the wonder of it. — Barbara Sher

Not fulfilling your dreams will be a loss to the world, because the world needs everyone's gift - yours and mine. — Barbara Sher

You can wonder forever how many teeth a horse has - or you can find a horse, open its mouth, and count its teeth. — Barbara Sher

Every time you have to make a choice about anything, think "Does this go toward or away from what I want?" Always choose what goes toward what you want. — Barbara Sher

You can learn new things at any time in your life if you're willing to be a beginner. If you actually learn to like being a beginner, the whole world opens up to you. — Barbara Sher

It's essential to distinguish between events that are really beyond your control and events you caused yourself. — Barbara Sher

In your fantasies you imagine that you'd love to have all the clutter gone so you could relax, but in fact, nobody really wants to relax. Not for very long, anyway. Everybody needs something to do. — Barbara Sher

What you are is a human being, sensitive and alive, with genius inside of you. Not only that, but you are one of a kind. There has never been anyone like you before. You see the world in a unique way because you have unique gifts. That's the way nature made you. And it will feel like nothing less than fulfilling your destiny to follow those gifts to a rich and exciting life, full of purpose and meaning and enjoyment. — Barbara Sher

A good work is a partnership between you and nature ... Nature will help you every step of the way. — Barbara Sher

Let's end the notion that ideas have no value unless they turn into a business or have some other practical use. Save them all in a beautiful book like Leonardo did. You might want to give them away someday, perhaps to someone who needs an idea. Or your great-great-grandchildren might love knowing what a fascinating mind you had. Or your biographer might be very happy after you're gone. — Barbara Sher

The problem is that most of us have limited our imagination to what we have been told is possible - and usually we've been told by people without much experience. — Barbara Sher

Find what you love, because greatness is based on great gifts. If you love something, you can count on the fact that you are genetically gifted at it. — Barbara Sher

I imagine there are orderly, well-organized Scanners in the world, but there can't be very many of them. It's far more common to hear a Scanner mumbling, Now, where did I put that lizard? — Barbara Sher

Sometimes the only thing we do to avoid success is refuse to be energetic on our own behalf — Barbara Sher

We weigh ourselves down with so many obstacles we can't even buy a goldfish bowl. — Barbara Sher

Life isn't supposed to be an all or nothing battle between misery and bliss. Life isn't supposed to be a battle at all. And when it comes to happiness, well, sometimes life is just okay, sometimes it'comfortable, sometimes wonderful, sometimes boring, sometimes unpleasant. When your day's not perfect, it's not a failure or a terrible loss. It's just another day. — Barbara Sher

A goal is the basic unit of life design. — Barbara Sher

We all need to learn a new language for love - a language that speaks not in socks, pancakes, and paychecks, but in shared fascination with physics or poetry, delight in each other's uniqueness, and mutual practical and emotional support. — Barbara Sher

Human beings are not comparable. You can't compare us any more than you can compare roses and oranges, or mountains and the sea. You might prefer living by the sea to living in the mountains. You certainly like some people better than you like others. Preferences are perfectly valid ... they're just your style asserting itself again. But you'd feel pretty silly saying 'The sea is better than the mountains.' It's every bit as silly to go around saying 'I'm better than Mary, but Joe is better than me.' — Barbara Sher

No, being too busy isn't your reason for keeping clutter in your life. Uncomfortable though it may be to have so much unfinished work surrounding you, you keep those magazines and broken antiques because all that potential feels nice. Now take one more step in your thinking and what you'll find is a tiny but powerful fear of commitment. — Barbara Sher

Your creativity is waiting for you like a dancing partner. — Barbara Sher

Whenever you do what you really love, your heart lifts, your mind opens, and everything changes. You wake up. That's what true adventure really is. — Barbara Sher

Every single one of us can do things that no one else can do - can love things that no one else can love. We are like violins. We can be used for doorstops, or we can make music. You know what to do. — Barbara Sher

When you play it too safe, you're taking the biggest risk of your life. Time is the only wealth we're given. — Barbara Sher

Happy people have two things in common. They know exactly what they want and they feel they're moving toward getting it. — Barbara Sher

Down deep we really know our worth, but we don't have easy access to that knowledge. We need to hear praise coming from outside ourselves or we won't remember that we deserve it. — Barbara Sher

Wishing and dreaming are the beginning of all human endeavor. — Barbara Sher

Being judgmental about your own behavior is actually another cop-out because it makes you feel as though you're doing something virtuous. — Barbara Sher

Imaginary obstacles are insurmountable. Real ones aren't. — Barbara Sher

Remember that to yourself, you are and always will be the strongest element in your environment. That's why any job, right or wrong, will teach you important lessons about yourself. The truth is that personal development is the real reason you should be working in the first place. — Barbara Sher

You must go after your wish. As soon as you start to pursue a dream, your life wakes up and everything has meaning. — Barbara Sher

And be grateful that you're a Scanner. Not everyone can have this much fun with nothing but what's between her ears. — Barbara Sher

Start small.
Start now.
Start everything.
And don't bother to finish any of it. — Barbara Sher

Sometimes life isn't about who you were or are, but it's about who you are becoming. — Barbara Sher

Becoming mature means learning to accept what you cannot change, facing unresolved sorrows and learning to love life as it really happens, not as you would have it happen. — Barbara Sher

I believe you can have whatever you really want in this life, in one form or another, sooner or later. All you have to do is take care of your health and be lucky enough to live for a while. But you can't have it all at once and you can't have it forever. No life has the room for everything in it, not on the same day. — Barbara Sher

Whatever your dreams are, start taking them very, very seriously. — Barbara Sher

In the days before automobiles, people in horse-drawn wagons used to sleep if they were tired. They didn't worry about getting lost, because the horse knew the way home. Your heart knows the way to your gifts. You can trust it to take you to them. — Barbara Sher

Every time you worry that you could get trapped in some kind of work you don't care about, you're dealing with the problem of meaningfulness. I guarantee that in the back of your mind is the thought that somehow you have to make a contribution to something, be acknowledged, do something that matters
or you're just fooling around. — Barbara Sher

Originality is genius. If you respect and care for it, it will take you on the ride of your life. — Barbara Sher

The first step is to find out what you love - and don't be practical about it. The second step is to start doing what you love immediately, in any small way possible. — Barbara Sher

Everyone has unique gifts and talents. What you love is what you're gifted at. To be completely happy, to live a completely fulfilled life, you have to do what you love. — Barbara Sher

Bitterness isn't as authentic as it looks. Believe it or not, one of the reasons we choose to feel bitter is because it's easier than feeling pain. It makes us feel tough. Being bitter gives the illusion that you're fighting, that you're not taking defeat lying down. But bitterness is a log jam. It won't let you get moving. — Barbara Sher

The environment that creates winners is almost always made up of winners. — Barbara Sher

About things you merely like? Would you rather learn how to plant a garden, work with friends to paint a house, or just have a great day with — Barbara Sher

The amount of good luck coming your way depends on your willingness to act. — Barbara Sher

I don't believe you live the good life by doing what you can do; you live it by doing what you want to do. I don't even think your greatest talents necessarily show up in your skills. All of us are good at things we're not madly in love with. And all of us have talents we've never used. Relying on your skills to guide you is simply unacceptable. That's why I don't intend to give you personality tests or skills assessments to find out what you should be doing. I know what you should be doing. You should be doing what you love. What you love is what you are gifted at. Only love will give you the drive to stick to something until you develop your gift. — Barbara Sher

The two most important rules for any dream are: Start small. Start now. For Scanners, add two more: Start everything and Don't bother to finish any of it. (Just save it in your Daybook!) — Barbara Sher

A scholar is someone who sticks to things.
A poet is someone who uses whatever sticks to him. — Barbara Sher

What you want is what you need. Your dearest wish comes straight from your core, loaded with vital information about who you are and who you can become. — Barbara Sher

Time is clay; make something. — Barbara Sher

Change is not only likely, it's inevitable. — Barbara Sher

DO IT RIGHT, DO IT WRONG, BUT DO IT. Squeeze your eyes shut and jump. Because a wonderful thing happens then. Your focus shifts from yourself, your nervousness, and your imagined inadequacies to the task at hand. — Barbara Sher

Find out what you love.
Do it because you love it.
Stick with it.
Start now. — Barbara Sher

But who you are is not a concept in the sky, and it's not a record of you accomplishments either. The most original and creative side of you can re-emerge only when you get time of your own, free time, wide-open time, uncommitted time, time in which to go after dreams or do absolutely nothing if you choose. Without it you can't have a self. — Barbara Sher

Being judgmental is cheap. Any fool can do it. — Barbara Sher

It's only too late if you don't start now. — Barbara Sher

Action helps you think and raises your self-esteem. Good luck happens when you're in action. Ask yourself, "Does this go toward or away from what I want?" There's an animal in us, and it has great instincts. Scan for a desire and follow it. Set a goal, any goal, and start doing everything you can think of to achieve it. — Barbara Sher

Unkind criticism is never part of a meaningful critique of you. Its purpose is not to teach or to help, its purpose is to punish. — Barbara Sher

If you don't know how you feel, you won't know what you want. — Barbara Sher

You just have to forget whatever you were taught about "meaningful work" and start noticing whatever has meaning to you. — Barbara Sher

Real obstacles don't take you in circles. They can be overcome. Invented ones are like a maze. — Barbara Sher

Isolation is a dream killer. — Barbara Sher

Thinking about swimming isn't much like actually getting in the water. Actually getting in the water can take your breath away. — Barbara Sher

When you start using senses you've neglected, your reward is to see the world with completely fresh eyes. — Barbara Sher

Isolation is the dream killer. — Barbara Sher

Irreverence is a declaration of independence. — Barbara Sher

What you love is as unique to you as your fingerprints. You need to know that because nothing will make you really happy but doing what you love. — Barbara Sher

There is always a realistic way to fulfill any dream. There has never been a dream that you can't have - at least, not the heart of it, not the part you love the most. — Barbara Sher

If you truly feared failure, you'd be very successful. — Barbara Sher