Focusing On The Good Quotes & Sayings

focusing on what not to do has made all the difference. Good habits are important, but it's often our bad habits that prevent us from reaching our full potential. You can have all the good habits in the world, but if you keep doing the bad habits alongside the good ones, you'll struggle to reach your goals. Think of it this way: you're only as good as your worst habits. Bad — Amy Morin

Those people who think the same thoughts every day, most of them negative, have fallen into bad mental habits. Rather than focusing on all the good in their lives and thinking of ways to make things even better, they are captives of their pasts. — Robin S. Sharma

What makes me feel alive is community, connectedness. Certainly family, parenting, relationships, friendship. All the way into colleague relationships and relationship with spirit, relationship with one's own self and inner child, and animals, earth, planet. Fostering and nurturing and really focusing on connection - connection in relationship with other and my own self and God. When I don't feel connected in all those three areas, life is not very good. — Alanis Morissette

Once I started focusing on the things I wanted, they all started coming true. — Brooke Burke

When preparing a presentation, it's never a good idea to begin with a rule. If you do, you're focusing on the appearance of good delivery and not the effect of it. — Dale Ludwig

I've never written a song that's hopeless. I'm not a hopeless person. I'm crazily optimistic. I crazily see the good in people. - singer Michael Stipe of R.E.M. Focusing on the tiniest details, finding magic in even the smallest inspirations, embracing the briefest moments-that's where passion is. — Linda Kaplan Thaler

We have no control over outcomes, but we can control the process. Of course, outcomes matter, but by focusing our attention on process, we maximize our chances of good outcomes. — Michael Mauboussin

If you're feeling really sad, there is only one reason: it's because you're deleting all the reasons you could be feeling good. And if you're feeling good, it's because you're deleting all the bad things you could be focusing on. — Tony Robbins

With every record, with each band, I just try to make a song good. I'm not so much focusing on my technique. There are a million better drummers than me. I try to adapt to the songwriter; I try to adapt to the situation and retain my sort of melodic power. My goal is for the band to be good. — Janet Weiss

A good friend of mine took me out and had me hit off a tee. He made me understand what was my strike zone and - with my speed - the importance of making contact. So I give him a lot of credit for changing my game and making me the player I became. He showed me how to work on me and my game, and not worry about patterning myself after someone else and focusing on what they were capable of doing rather than what I was capable of doing. — Rickey Henderson

By the time the two got around to focusing on the iPhone, Steve had become closer to Jony than anyone he had ever worked with. "The bond became so strong between us," says Ive. "We could just be honest and straightforward and not have to articulate precisely why this is a good idea or why this is a valuable idea. And we also were honest enough to be able to say 'Nah, that's a terrible idea,' without worrying about each other's feelings so much. — Brent Schlender

In some sports, you can just get by on a lot of natural talent. In swimming, it helps to be long and lean, but you can't be good at it without putting in the work. There is a direct connection between what you put into it and what you get out of it. If you have big ears or trouble focusing, but you work harder than the guy in the lane next to you, you'll beat him." In — Michael Phelps

Here is my theory: If smoking is really good, you should be able to smoke and do nothing else at the same time, really focusing all your attention on smoking and how it makes you feel. — Gudjon Bergmann

What good does it do to have all the riches of the world and all the world's pleasures? They will all disappear in the flash we call a human lifetime. Focusing on the pleasures of the world keeps the mind too distracted to search for the inner Self. — Rama Swami

If we treat another person as essentially bad, we dehumanize him or her. If we take the view that every human being has some good in them, even if it is only 0.1 percent of their makeup, then by focusing on their good part, we humanize them. By acknowledging and attending to and rewarding their good part, we allow it to grow, like a small flower in a desert. — Simon Baron-Cohen

It's been a struggling school for many, many years, and [that's] not surprising since it's serving some of the most disadvantaged kids in the city. It wasn't the only one by any means, but it was among those. It shows that things like good, steady, stable leadership makes a huge difference; focusing on the culture of the schools as a place where kids feel supported and want to be; supporting the teachers, so they want to stay and work hard. — Pedro Noguera

A good coach is postive. Your job when coaching is not correcting mistakes, finding fault, and assessing blame. Instead, your function is achieving goals by coaching your staff to peak performance. Focusing on the positive means that you start with what's good and what works, and spend your attention and energy there. — Marshall Cook

You invite judgment into your life every time you judge others. To avoid this invitation to negativity, it's best to stop focusing on others' darkness. Instead, pay attention to their strengths. Today, be a horse with blinders. Look at only the good. As you develop this power, you will attract positive forces into your life. — Yehuda Berg

There are Harvard grads, free thinkers, feminists, abolitionists, well-to-do people who want to go write poetry and live on a farm and cook and laugh and have a good time. As they themselves described it, it was an "inward facing" community. They were focusing on making a better existence for themselves, which I think is also the driving force of 20th century communalism in the US, the thought being that the world is corrupt, and we're going to build this little garden of innocence. — Christine Jennings

But what does it mean to be on God's side? I believe it starts with focusing on the common good - not just in politics, but in all the decisions we make in our personal, family, vocational, financial, communal, and, public lives. That old but always new ethic simply says we must care for more than just ourselves or our own group. We must care for our neighbor as well, and for the health of the life we share with one another. It echoes a very basic tenet of Christianity and other faiths - love your neighbor as yourself - still the most transformational ethic in history. — Jim Wallis

JANUARY 19 Expect the Blessings of God Wait and hope for and expect the Lord; be brave and of good courage and let your heart be stout and enduring. PSALM 27:14 Sometimes you may feel discouraged, miserable, and depressed. In those times you need to take a close look at what's been going on in your mind. Isaiah 26:3 tells you when you keep your mind on the Lord you will have "perfect and constant peace." By focusing on the goodness of God and waiting, hoping, and expecting Him to encourage you and fill you with His peace and joy, you can overcome negative thoughts that drag you down. Think and speak positively. Begin believing right now that you are about to see God's goodness in your life. Wait, hope, and expect His blessings to be abundant in your life. — Joyce Meyer

Everybody has a list of 100 things they would like to change about themselves. But it's all about focusing on the good things. — Taylor Swift

Don't waste the rest of your time here worrying about other people - unless it affects the common good. It will keep you from doing anything useful. You'll be too preoccupied with what so-and-so is doing, and why, and what they're saying, and what they're thinking, and what they're up to, and all the other things that throw you off and keep you from focusing on your own mind. — Marcus Aurelius

Focusing on the good isn't just about overcoming our inner grump to see the glass half full. It's about opening our minds to the ideas and opportunities that will help us be more productive, effective, and successful at work and in life. — Shawn Achor

The Roman philosopher Seneca the Younger (tutor to Nero) complained that his peers were wasting time and money accumulating too many books, admonishing that "the abundance of books is a distraction." Instead, Seneca recommended focusing on a limited number of good books, to be read thoroughly and repeatedly. — Daniel J. Levitin

Our plump predicament comes from the way we think. In America life has
become a daily quest for instant gratification. Do we think about the long term? Rarely. We ask ourselves, "What sounds good?" That's where we get into trouble focusing on what we want rather than what we need. Then we invent new ways to satisfy ourselves. — Aaron Blaylock

Instead of focusing on men and focusing on what we can do to prop them up, people seem really incredibly focused on the fact that women are doing well and maybe that's not such a good thing. — Jessica Valenti

Focusing on the negative often creates situations that demoralize people. When good performance is followed by a positive response, people naturally want to continue that behavior. — Kenneth H. Blanchard

Wanderlove is about forgetting the bad things and focusing on the good. Out with the old and in with the new ... The only way to escape the past is to keep moving forward. — Kirsten Hubbard

Are you introverted or extroverted? When you're socializing with people, do you get energized or fatigued? Do you need details or do you prefer focusing on the big picture? In your lifetime, what was your favorite job or position? What specifically did you like about it? When you work on a team, what is the one role that you wish you would always get? When you get your evaluation feedback, what is the one thing that your boss always compliments you on? What are you really good at? What are you really bad at? If you could design your perfect job, what would it be? Why? — Scott Peltin

Focusing on individual nutrients, their identities, their contents in food, their tissue concentrations, and their biological mechanisms, is like using math and physics to catch balls. It's not the way nature evolved, and it makes proper nutrition far more difficult than it needs to be. Our bodies use countless mechanisms, strategically placed throughout our digestion, absorption, and transport and metabolic pathways, to effortlessly ensure tissue concentrations consistent with good health - no database consultation required. But as long as we let reductionism guide our research and our understanding of nutrition, good health will remain unattainable. — T. Colin Campbell

The European Parliament responded by focusing on corporate governance. If corporations wanted to be legal citizens they could damned well shoulder the responsibilities of good citizenship as well as the benefits. Social as well as financial audits were the order of the day. Directives outlining standards for corporate citizenship were drafted and a lucrative niche for a new generation of management consultants emerged - those who could look at an organization and sound a warning if its structure rewarded pathological behaviour. — Charles Stross

I got into the habit of filtering out all the good in my life, focusing on only the negative. I'm not sure why I did it, but it's a pretty depressing state. — Laura Mvula

Some creative writing programs seem evil, but my experience at Irvine was totally the opposite, where I feel like they were really good at focusing in on each writers voice and setting. When I felt like I was obligated to write a story that was more typical, no one really liked it. — Aimee Bender

Accepting Christ" is only the beginning, not the ultimate goal. Likewise, evangelism is vital, but so is discipleship. To go no deeper is to risk being like the seed that fell not on good soil but on rocky ground, sprouting up but bearing little or no fruit. Focusing solely on God's gift of free salvation is focusing on the minimum. — Ann Spangler

Don't overlook the most important thing you can do to grow your business and that is marketing.

Not focusing on marketing your business is like having a Ferrrari in the driveway, but refusing to put gas in it. What good is that doing? — Max Fortune

We don't stray away from good doctrine or truth by focusing on justice and compassion for those in the margins - rather, we find Jesus and truth in the margins. — Ken Wytsma

I'm into a lot of Eastern philosophy. It's kind of like theosophy; it's about finding the relationships between all the great religions and focusing in on the good stuff. — Weyes Blood

My point is that focusing on the past, present or future can have both positive and negative effects. Excessive worry about the future can be bad, while hopes and dreams can be good. Regret because of the past can be destructive, but learning lessons from previous events and having good memories can be great. Focusing intently on the present is usually stress-relieving and liberating, but sometimes the present moment is too sad or horrible to dwell on. — Gudjon Bergmann

Our society is all about focusing on the externals, "These people like me, I'm successful because of these people, they view me as being good" and we need to take that vision and instead of expanding it outwards we need to look inside ourselves. — Rainn Wilson

tenure at Treasury was not as successful as his career at Alcoa. Almost immediately after taking office he began focusing on a couple of key issues, including worker safety, job creation, executive accountability, and fighting African poverty, among other initiatives. However, O'Neill's politics did not line up with those of President Bush, and he launched an internal fight opposing Bush's proposed tax cuts. He was asked to resign at the end of 2002. "What I thought was the right thing for economic policy was the opposite of what the White House wanted," O'Neill told me. "That's not good for a treasury secretary, so I got fired. — Charles Duhigg

It's very important that you focus on winning games and being consistent down the stretch. I think that's what we're focused on. All of the other stuff about who wins and who loses and how many wins do we need, if we're focusing on that, then that's not good. — Mike Singletary

Your feelings are cosmic communication! The good feelings mean, GOOD FOR YOU. The bad feelings are to get your attention so that you will change what you are focusing on. — Rhonda Byrne

Feminism will be just as oppressive to women as the media if it compels us to change who we are. The ends will not justify the means. It is like a corset that, although originally intended to make us feel good, about ourselves, has been pulled so tight that we are not left with enough room to breathe. Feminism often seems to be looking down its nose at us these days, as it militantly tells us how to behave- focusing on appearances according to a male dominated society. Have they forgotten that it is the societal viewpoint which needs to be changed? Somewhere along the line this movement got off track.


After all, we are constantly being told how to look, how to age, how to eat, how to act. Can't we at least think what we want? — Nancy Madore

If I start thinking, 'Is this movie going to open? Is this movie going to do well?' I'm not focusing on the job. The job is to make a good movie. — Taylor Lautner

There's something about outward appearances that has always been important to me. I always thought I was so ugly. I mean, I really did. I remember being in L.A. at my mom's house as a little kid and just staring into the mirror for hours. It was like, if I looked long enough, maybe I'd finally be handsome. It never worked. I just got uglier and uglier. Nothing about me ever seemed good enough. And there was this sadness inside me - this hopelessness. Focusing on my physical appearance was at least easier than trying to address the internal shit. — Nic Sheff

We're focusing on the whole pie, not a slice. A slice is good, but it's not good enough to get you fat. We're trying to get fat. — Shaquille O'Neal

For the most part I've been focusing on my knees, trying to keep those as good as possible. I'm 100% now, you know with rehab and rest and I feel great. As far as training and the routine I get up and bike for awhile, and go in and have a great leg day, and get a full day in at the gym and try to improve. — Brandon Spikes

Love is not first a feeling. Though the feelings come later and grow thick in the basic loam of love, they don't constitute the sum and substance of love. Love is doing whatever good God says you must do for another, to please God, whether (at first) it pleases you or not. You must do so because He says so; and you don't wait until you feel like doing so. Love begins with obedience toward God in which one gives to another whatever the other needs. Love is not a gooey, sticky sentimental thing; it is hard to love. Often it hurts to love. Love meant going to the cross through the garden of Gethsemane. Christ did not feel like dying for your sins, Christian, but He did so nonetheless. The Scriptures teach that he endured the cross while focusing on the subsequent joy that it would bring. — Jay E. Adams

The church has gotten it wrong a few times on science, and I think that we probably are better off leaving science to the scientists and focusing on what we do - what we're really good at, which is - which is theology and morality. — Rick Santorum

The past is gone and the future is still to happen. Only the present moment is real. I believe we all know this very well. As for me, I have been practising the art of being in the here and now for three decades. I have used many techniques aimed at focusing the attention on the present, while releasing attachment to past and future. There are also many courses and workshops on the topic. And I can provide details, if you are interested. Yet, I warn you, learning to be in the present requires lots of hard work, time and money. Yet there is one circumstance when results are immediate, with no effort and also free of charge. This is when both looking ahead or backwards is so painful and horrible, that the only option is looking straight into the present. Hence, if it is the case for you now, rejoice, this may be your greatest chance, and you are in good company! — Franco Santoro

Catholics are pretty good at keeping Jesus nailed to that cross, rather than focusing more on that happy bit where he rose from the dead and freed us from sin and evil. — Bonnie-Sue Hitchcock

Currying favor with special interests at the expense of the public good is a way for politicians to fund their campaigns and secure their future for when they leave government. It has been firmly enshrined as the primary source of money for politics since the Sherman Act did away with patronage. So long as politicians are able to tap special interests for these purposes, they will find ways to reward them with public policy - and they will do whatever it takes to protect the programs they have already put in place. What reformers really need to do first is attack the way the business of politics is conducted, rather than focusing on the products of that business. Then, and only then , will the cancer of cronyism be removed from the body politic. — Anonymous

If I wasn't a writer, I would probably be a watchmaker. I like putting puzzles together, and that is what a watch is, figuring out how all the gears and everything else works together. I'm patient and good at focusing on a single task. — Karin Slaughter

Collaboration begins with focusing on the collective good rather than personal gain. — Jane Ripley

With experience as their guiding light, Christian monks and nuns could, for example, come together with Sufis and Yogis to pray and meditate, then discuss their experiences by talking about how silence and inner peace have changed their lives, instead of talking about the content of their prayers or focusing on theology. Hindus, Christians, and Muslims, who tread the path of goodness, could come together and do good works. Doing good side by side would show them that they are not as different as previously thought and that their various beliefs can lead to similar outcomes. — Gudjon Bergmann

When there's so much left to do, why spend your time focusing on things you've already done, counting trophies or telling stories about the good old days? — Dave Grohl

It is certainly good to have fans but I am always focusing on the next thing and continuing to do good work. Onward and upward. — John Magaro

Some days I'll have good starts, and some days I'll have bad starts. I'm really focusing on having more good starts than bad starts, and I traditionally do. But I would hate to make it all the way to the Olympics and have a bad starting day. — Nate Holland

Being a good, innovative librarian means taking a humanistic stance toward policy, decision-making, and experimentation. It means focusing on the heart. — Michael Stephens

Don't neglect these tools in your journey : an eye to look and see and to differentiate flowers from leaves, a mind to comprehend and be focused, ears to listen and hear, a heart to understand what is truly worth our time and what not to give attention to, and a good strength to dare unceasingly in wit and with courage, focusing on only the true factors of the matters that truly matter for distinctive footprints in the end! — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

It suddenly hit me - it was nearly impossible to take good care of something I hated. I'd spent so long hating my body that I didn't know how to respect and nurture myself or my body. By focusing so much on my exterior, I also robbed myself of the opportunity to feel good about myself and my body, simply because I didn't meet a cultural standard of beauty that is obsessed with thinness. That created stress that interfered with my weight loss and with my own happiness. — Jessica Ortner

This process of being mature in an anxious organisation has been likened to learning to sail against the wind; and as any sailor will tell you, this requires concentration and tolerating some tension as the wind pressures the vessel to let it take over the controls. Good skippers know how to tolerate sufficient tension to keep a steady course. They don't try to overpower their vessel with too much sail in order to get to the finish line faster, as they know this will inevitably knock them backwards. They also know not to panic and retreat to the safe harbour of familiarity. They focus on their key tasks of setting the course and letting the crew know their intensions so that each person can get on with focusing on their own tasks. There's only one path to growing this ability: through patient, thoughtful perseverance in the midst of experience ... no short cuts to be found. — Jenny Brown

To call for close reading, in fact, is to do more than insist on due attentiveness to the text. It inescapably suggests an attention to this rather than to something else: to the 'words on the page' rather than to the contexts which produced and surround them. It implies a limiting as well as a focusing of concern - a limiting badly needed by literary talk which would ramble comfortably from the texture of Tennyson's language to the length of his beard. But in dispelling such anecdotal irrelevancies, 'close reading' also held at bay a good deal else: it encouraged the illusion that any piece of language, 'literary' or not, can be adequately studied or even understood in isolation. It was the beginnings of a 'reification' of the literary work, the treatment of it as an object in itself, which was to be triumphantly consummated in the American New Criticism. — Terry Eagleton

What we perceive as dejection over the futility of life is sometimes greed, which the monastic tradition perceives as rooted in a fear of being vulnerable in a future old age, so that one hoards possessions in the present. But most often our depression is unexpressed anger, and it manifests itself as the sloth of disobedience, a refusal to keep up the daily practices that would keep us in good relationship to God and to each other. For when people allow anger to build up inside, they begin to perform daily tasks resentfully, focusing on the others as the source of their troubles. Instead of looking inward to find the true reason for their sadness - with me , it is usually a fear of losing an illusory control - they direct it outward, barreling through the world, impatient and even brutal with those they encounter, especially those who are closest to them. — Kathleen Norris

Learning to trust yourself means focusing on the good you are, the good you have, and the good you desire so that the truth can heal all error thought and allow you to see the blessing hidden in all that you have been through, gone through, and grown through. — Iyanla Vanzant

Focusing on thoughts or images that make you feel good will enable you to be at a higher level energetically and, consequently, will draw to you a higher level of vibrational experience. In other words, positive thoughts will attract positive experiences. The reverse is also true. If you've fallen into the habit of negative obsessing and/or fear-based thinking, you need to know that you can shift to a healthier, happier mindset. — Susan Barbara Apollon