Hard Challenges Quotes & Sayings

We are seeing some challenges and some changes in American business, American enterprise, but the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award is a reminder of things that must never change: the passion for excellence, the drive to innovate, the hard work that goes with any successful enterprise. — George W. Bush

Extraordinary change can happen in your life, but it will take extraordinary people, extraordinary courage and extraordinary faith to believe that this won't be a repeat of your past. — Shannon L. Alder

I like to eat healthily anyway and I think I've become more disciplined now I've retired - because I'm such a creature of habit, I don't find it hard to do. I quite enjoy the challenge. — Victoria Pendleton

People relate to life being challenging and hard, and still trying to keep a positive attitude and keep going. If you're alone, there's nothing wrong with that. That's fine. But, finding the right person is something that you would really like and hope for. — Charlotte Ross

Contrary to what we usually believe, moments like these, the best moments in our lives, are not the passive, receptive, relaxing times - although such experiences can also be enjoyable, if we have worked hard to attain them. The best moments usually occur when a person's body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile. Optimal experience is thus something that we
make happen. For a child, it could be placing with trembling fingers the last blockon a tower she has built, higher than any she has built so far; for a swimmer, it could be trying to beat his own record; for a violinist, mastering an intricate musical passage. For each person there are thousands of opportunities, challenges to expand ourselves. — Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

I learnt a lot from my Broadway experience, it was one of the most challenging things I will probably ever have to do in my entire life, because it was eight shows a week - live singing with really hard choreography - and the spontaneity, you don't know what's going to happen. — Ariana Grande

I think the differences between men and women, it's kind of hard to define what those are and the challenges, what they are. I think there are challenging things for everybody. — Nick Jonas

We have so many American and English films in Australia that we hear those accents often, so they're not too hard to pick up, but it's always a challenge. — Mia Wasikowska

Are there so many fascinating, exciting things to do or so many challenges pressing down upon you that it is hard to keep focused on that which is essential? When things of the world crowd in, all too often the wrong things take highest priority. Then it is easy to forget the fundamental purpose of life. Satan has a powerful tool to use against good people. It is distraction. He would have good people fill life with 'good things' so there is no room for the essential ones. Have you unconsciously been caught in that trap? — Richard G. Scott

Don't complain if your're facing hard moments in life. Challenge yourself to face it, challenge yourself to beat it. — Jayson Engay

We need women friends, women who challenge us. I have chosen not to have any more plastic surgery. Sally Field and I have kind of made a pact about that. It's really hard, especially if you're a public person. But I want to give a face to aging. — Jane Fonda

Its hard to measure yourself if nobody is challenging you. — John Tomac

It's hard for anyone in the 24-hour news cycles that we all live in now to follow something that the first round is played in March and the final finishes in December. I understand the challenges there. — Jim Courier

Our theme for this year's festivities, Dreams and Challenges of Asian Pacific Americans, speaks to the many generations of Asian Pacific Americans who worked hard to overcome economic hardship, racism and other barriers in their pursuit of the American dream. — Lucille Roybal-Allard

You just never give up, no matter how hard the challenges are, and observe this world with a healthy dose of criticism and don't just follow the herd like somebody else might do. — Renny Harlin

Why is it, I wonder, that people suffer, when there is so little need, when an effort of will and some hard work would bring them from their misery into peace and contentment. — Richard Llewellyn

In the most trying times, you would trust your people; you would extend hard challenges to them and allow them space to fulfill their responsibilities. You would access their intelligence in a way that would actually make them smarter. — Liz Wiseman

Our challenges may be new. The instruments with which we meet them may be new. But those values upon which our success depends - honesty and hard work, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism - these things are old. These things are true. They have been the quiet force of progress throughout our history. What is demanded then is a return to these truths. What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility - a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation, and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task. — Barack Obama

Jack Bogle's passionate cry of Enough! contains a thought-provoking litany of life lessons regarding our individual roles in commerce and society. Employing a seamless mix of personal anecdotes, hard evidence and all-too-often-underrated subjective admonitions, Bogle challenges each of us to aspire to become better members of our families, our professions and our communities. Rarely do so few pages provoke so much thought. Read this book. — David F. Swensen

My concern is that you will face some delays and disappointments at this formative time in your life and feel that no one else in the history of mankind has ever had your problems or faced those difficulties. And when some of those challenges come, you will have the temptation common to us all to say, "This task is too hard. The burden is too heavy. The path is too long." And so you decide to quit, simply to give up. Now to terminate certain kinds of tasks is not only acceptable but often very wise. If you are, for example, a flagpole sitter then I say, "Come on down." But in life's most crucial and telling tasks, my plea is to stick with it, to persevere, to hang in and hang on, and to reap your reward. — Jeffrey R. Holland

Two thousand years after Jesus lived here, Christians still have a hard time accepting his upside-down world, in which we are expected to work for justice on behalf of others but not to demand or expect it for ourselves (Matthew 5:6,10-12). This is one of the hardest challenges of Jesus' message. It demands an expanded heart and mind. — Richard Rohr

May the Lord grant you grace to endure the times. — Lailah Gifty Akita

For all of us, it's very hard to think about money, and because of that, we need help. In the same way that for all of us, it is hard to eat well, and we need some help. The poor have a particular challenge, which is that their life is actually much more complex - and they're much more complex cognitively. — Dan Ariely

The challenges of change are always hard. It is important that we begin to unpack those challenges that confront this nation and realize that we each have a role that requires us to change and become more responsible for shaping our own future. — Hillary Clinton

It is sometimes hard to be a family. — Maurice Sendak

In times of suffering, may God strengthen you. — Lailah Gifty Akita

It's very hard to find good and wholesome, edifying and challenging writing for the students to perform. In my classroom I strive to do that as best as I can. — Patricia Mauceri

One of the biggest challenges we had in the first decade was not that many people had personal computers. There weren't that many people to sell to, and it was hard to identify them. — Steve Case

When we're shooting, I commute to the UK, every three weeks or so, and that's hard. That's probably the toughest, physically, on me. It's a much longer commute than I've ever had to deal with. And then, there are the challenges of this particular production. It's not the kind of show that has standing sets. — Ronald D. Moore

It always feels good and comforting to relax whilst there is work to be done but, it feels fulfilling to work hard, overcome slothfulness and challenges with tenacity and achieve your aim when you should have relaxed — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

Not the challenges necessarily, but the way in which you get ready because your technique has improved over the years and you perhaps know how to be more economical than perhaps you used to be when you tried to work perhaps too hard. — Christopher Plummer

Often it's when you come in contact with challenges other people find hard but you find easy that you know you're in possession of a valuable soft asset.3 — Reid Hoffman

When we encounter challenges and problems in our lives, it is often difficult for us to focus on our blessings. However, if we reach deep enough and look hard enough, we will be able to feel and recognize just how much we have been given. — Thomas S. Monson

Even the securest financial plan and the finest health coverage aren't enough to hold us steady when the challenges come ... We need something more, something deeper and unshakeable, something that will see us through life's hard times. — Billy Graham

The United States will continue its efforts to improve our understanding of climate change - to seek hard data, accurate models, and new ways to improve the science - and determine how best to meet these tremendous challenges. — George H. W. Bush

The best players in any high-stakes field - business, entertainment, law, surgery, as well as sport - recognize that pressure occurs at the moments when meaningful accomplishment is possible. In fact, that is the reason why performers perform: for the opportunity to tackle challenges head on, to do something significant, to demonstrate what their hard work and talent can produce. — John Eliot

As we approach each of the great social challenges of our time we must acknowledge that old thinking will not provide the new solutions we need. These solutions will be uncomfortable, hard to sell and risky to execute. But the cost of not doing so is even greater. — Simon Mainwaring

Life sure can hit you hard! Suddenly, when you least expect it, WHAM; life has a knack for challenging you in ways that you don't feel prepared for. I feel like life sometimes tests and shapes you in a manner in which you feel least equipped. It seems you don't get to choose the exercise equipment God challenges and builds your strength with. When this is happening, it's easy to drop into a victim mindset. It's easy to feel stuck, defeated, and like you are a losing player in the game of life. This victim mindset argues (very loudly) that we have lost; that nothing good is on the horizon. Never forget that the volume of an argument does not reflect the validity of the argument. Just because the victim mentality argues that we are losing, doesn't mean that it's true. In fact, I have come to realize that during the times in my life where I thought I was losing, I was actually winning. — Bryant McGill

It may seem hard to extend our gratefulness and appreciation to the time in which we live and the challenges it presents ... It would be much easier to appreciate an era of good feeling, peace and calm stability! But difficult times are also times of growth, of new insights and opportunities, of creativity, and of emergence. — David Spangler

Why are we so hard on one another? I wonder. Hadn't the world already given us challenges enough? — Pam Jenoff

Our experiences always teach us something. If the experience is "bad", then the lesson is even more powerful and meaningful. Every unfortunate incident makes us stronger and better equipped to handle new challenges. — Miya Yamanouchi

The most vulnerable people have tough exteriors because they are very scared inside, and it's very hard for people like that - people like me - to open up. But playing it safe means you stop being open to learning. I always try to find the challenges. — Christina Aguilera

It's hard work, writing, you know. Honestly, a fight every day against your own limitations. You have to squeeze books out of your brain, you're constantly trying to solve challenges. I think most writers enjoy the feeling of having written something, rather than the process of writing it. — Carlos Ruiz Zafon

We have been seduced by sound bites. It is difficult to imagine how we are going to have an intelligent conversation around complex theopolitical issues as long as the average news consumer in America is willing to be sound-bite driven. We face a sorry state of affairs in our culture when few people seem willing to take the time for nuanced discussion on the complicated challenges we face. Politicians of all parties have been willing to foster this sound-bite mentality because it has worked for them. Most Americans work hard and are faced with too little time and too many distractions to study the issues well enough to make an informed judgment on them. As long as news consumers are willing to be manipulated by sound bites and are unwilling to commit the time to understand the complexities, we will continue to see artificial and simplistic distinctions drive too much of our conversation, resulting in divisions and disagreements that rarely get at the substantive issues. — Charles E. Gutenson

Life sometimes brings enormous difficulties and challenges that seem just too hard to bear. But bear them you can, and bear them you will, and your life can have a purpose. — Barbara Walters

This is the crisis! Difficulty getting credit, slow growth, high unemployment, low consumer confidence-these are challenges entrepreneurs can overcome with hard work, smart risk and tenacious teamwork. This is precisely what entrepreneurs do! — Oliver DeMille

Challenges aren't frightening, defeats aren't terrifying either. A principle that I now insist and persist on is the understanding that you can fulfill your dreams when you work hard and don't give up. — Seungri

I've had several moments in my career where it seemed like I might not age out of the bracket the world wants to put you in. It's hard to keep growing up inside the performing arts. It's very difficult, and presents a lot of unique challenges. — Ethan Hawke

There's a truth to the fact that it's hard to be real. It's easy to be indulgent. It's easy to be bubble gum, but it's hard to find a real thing that really makes your soul tick. It's painful and honest. It can be more challenging than just a sad song. — Mat Kearney

I'm really trying hard not to do anything that has been done before. So knowing everything I can about the legacy of magic challenges my team and I to invent new illusions. — David Copperfield

Being born is easy. So is taking your last breath. Everything in between, that's the hard part. Life is in between, and it will offer challenges and opportunities beyond measure. — Avery Johnson

There were so many lessons I learned the hard way: missing out on a raise because I didn't know to ask, having colleagues consistently get credit for my ideas because of how I spoke up in meetings. When I looked for a resource that addressed the challenges I was facing, I couldn't find it. There was nothing. — Kathryn Minshew

You live in a time of great challenges and opportunities. As spirit sons of heavenly parents, you are free to make the right choices. This requires hard work, self-discipline, and an optimistic outlook, which will bring joy and freedom into your life now and in the future. — Dieter F. Uchtdorf

It's been very hard, after being mostly a mom, to develop an adult life of my own. And not being married anymore, I have to come up with challenges. — Danielle Steel

Don't get hung up on the hard times, the challenges. Tell your story by highlighting the victories. Because it's your victories that will inspire, motivate, encourage other people to live their stories in grander ways. — Iyanla Vanzant

The first order of things to be changed is me, the leader. After I consider how hard it is to change myself, then I will understand the challenge of trying to change others. This is the ultimate test of leadership. — John C. Maxwell

The true test of the American ideal is whether we're able to recognize our failings and then rise together to meet the challenges of our time. Whether we allow ourselves to be shaped by events and history, or whether we act to shape them. Whether chance of birth or circumstance decides life's big winners and losers, or whether we build a community where, at the very least, everyone has a chance to work hard, get ahead, and reach their dreams. — Barack Obama

I love doing action films that do challenge me physically. I feel it's my job to keep my stamina up and be as physically fit as possible, so that I can just jump in and do it. It takes its toll sometimes and it's hard work, but I love that. — Julie Benz

The transfer is guaranteed to be safe and secure, everyone knows that the transfer has taken place, and nobody can challenge the legitimacy of the transfer. The consequences of this breakthrough are hard to overstate, — Marc Andreessen

I don't mind failing because that means I'm trying. But giving up, now that's something that I'm just not willing to do. I will continue to try and try again. I will keep my peace, stay focused, and know that my time will come. My positive attitude will not depart me. I will hold it close and keep on striving, knowing that what's meant for me, will be. Nothing and nobody can stop it! My dedication and hard work won't fail me, but most importantly, I won't fail myself. I'm a winner and I'm a fighter! I don't allow challenges to stop me. — Stephanie Lahart

Taking baths in Africa was a real challenge at times. I got real dirty, and sometimes I stayed like that for 2 days. That was pretty hard going. — Kim Basinger

I've often thought that when something is hard for you, whether it's going to law school or anything else that challenges you, that's probably what you should do. — Hillary Clinton

For those of you who think that I have my life altogether, I definitely do not. Every season brings new challenges. For example, since I had my fifth child, I am notoriously 5-10 minutes late everywhere no matter how hard I try to be on time. I would like to say that I am "fashionably" late, but that isn't the truth either. Running in a mad dash in a parking lot (all holding hands of course) to make it somewhere 5 minutes late (instead of 6 minutes cause that makes a big difference) while one child is missing shoes and my hair is going in every direction. Yep, that is my family. — Tamara L. Chilver

If we don't allow ourselves to experience joy and love, we will definitely miss out on filling our reservoir with what we need when ... hard things happen. — Brene Brown

No matter what the day brings and no matter how hard life hits you, if you can breathe, smile and keep moving on! Once you have life, know that God is alive! — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

The lack of real contact between mathematics and biology is either a tragedy, a scandal or a challenge, it is hard to decide which. — Gian-Carlo Rota

The Lord is the Lord of my life. He gives me hope. — Lailah Gifty Akita

We endure hard times by the power of God. — Lailah Gifty Akita

The broader your knowledge, the bolder you can approach your challenges. Nobody goes to open the door without carrying a key ... Knowledge is key; grab it ... handle it with care! — Israelmore Ayivor

Working from home is so, so hard because I want to be present for them and yet there's so much to do work-wise. That's the biggest challenge for me. — Andy Serkis

If you are not discouraged about your writing on a regular basis, you may not be trying hard enough. Any challenging pursuit will encounter frequent patches of frustration. Writing is nothing if not challenging. — Maxwell Perkins

We need to develop new strategies overcome every challenge. — Lailah Gifty Akita

It's hard to be shocking now. It's hard to challenge people because the Internet has allowed everyone to become much more worldly, much more visual. It's very hard to surprise people. — Guido Palau

It's hard to give someone advice when you're an institution. I don't really put a lot of pressure on it - I'm just open to doing stuff that's challenging. — Nick Swardson

To be an effective organisation, the structure of the organisation must be willing to adapt to a network model, leaving the old hierarchy model behind. We see the efficacy of the network model daily in many areas of our lives, and this greatly challenges the old from-top-to-down hierarchical model that many organisations have a hard time letting go of. But I suppose at the end of the day, it is a matter of survival. Simply put, in order to survive, one must adapt and to adapt today, means to take on a more networked approach to doing things in organisations, groups, companies and even in society as a whole (including politics). So in other words, in order for society in all of its forms from big to small, to move forward strongly, it must adapt to a framework that sees itself as a network rather than a hierarchy. — C. JoyBell C.

Be Willing to Pay the Price If people knew how hard I had to work to gain my mastery, it wouldn't seem wonderful at all. MICHELANGELO Renaissance sculptor and painter who spent 4 years lying on his back painting the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel Behind every great achievement is a story of education, training, practice, discipline, and sacrifice. You have to be willing to pay the price. Maybe that price is pursuing one single activity while putting everything else in your life on hold. Maybe it's investing all of your own personal wealth or savings. Maybe it's the willingness to walk away from the safety of your current situation. But though many things are typically required to reach a successful outcome, the willingness to do what's required adds that extra dimension to the mix that helps you persevere in the face of overwhelming challenges, setbacks, pain, and even personal — Jack Canfield

I think it took me a little while to be true to myself as a designer, and in some ways I'm still trying to do that. I have to choose things that come naturally to me. Whenever I challenge something too much or try too hard, it never quite works out. — Stella McCartney

As much as I might have wanted to, I could never change my vote on Iraq. But I could try to help us learn the right lessons from that war and apply them to Afghanistan and other challenges where we had fundamental security interests. I was determined to do exactly that when facing future hard choices, with more experience, wisdom, skepticism, and humility. — Hillary Rodham Clinton

Every episode [in a TV series] is a challenge, and what's challenging in most episodes is the monster. You're always a heartbeat from the monster looking ridiculous. You really have to work so hard to make them not look like ridiculous when they turn up on the set. — Steven Moffat

Don't underestimate anyone else's pain, Mar. Everyone goes through hard times. Life's thrown us a lot of challenges, but we can't back down from them. We've just got to keep going. Keep fighting, keep living, keep having fun and working hard and always doing the best we can. — Kate Lattey

The joy in motherhood comes in moments. There will be hard times and frustrating times, but amid the challenges there are shining moments of joy and satisfaction. — M. Russell Ballard

In some stages in life, some individuals decide only to chose every hard option to achieve. His/her life turns onto confluence of challenges influenced only by destiny ... in which only few decide to accept because it is a matter of existence to them. — Sameh Elsayed

When you're acting you put so much of yourself into working. As much fun as it is, it's still hard work and it's still a challenge. — Dakota Fanning

All those years I had been making movies because I loved movies, and that's what made all the difference. If you're doing it because you love it you can succeed because you'll work harder than anyone else around you, take on challenges no one else would dare take, and come up with methods no one else would discover, especially when their prime drive is fame and fortune. All that will follow later if you really love what you do. Because your work will speak itself. — Robert Rodriguez

In times of trouble, fear not! God will deliver you. — Lailah Gifty Akita

I look for material that both interest me and challenges me. If I am drawn to the material and I have to work hard at it, the characters and the plots reflect the hours and hours of research. — David Baldacci

One of my challenges was to try to photograph the Great Wall of China. And I did actually take some photos, but it was hard to discern the wall with the naked eye. — Leroy Chiao

It's really hard to find parts that challenge me as an actor these days. At this point in my career, I feel like I can just sleepwalk through most of my roles and still do a better job than 90 percent of the actors out there. — Zach Braff

Finding a job is hard enough, but have you ever considered the odds and the challenges of finding a good man? — Mika Brzezinski

When you look at what is happening to our world-and it is hard to look at what's happening to our water, our air, our trees, our fellow species-it becomes clear that unless you have some roots in a spiritual practice that holds life sacred and encourages joyful communion with all your fellow beings, facing the enormous challenges ahead becomes nearly impossible. — Joanna Macy

Every era of coaches has their own set of problems and challenges. Today's player is different, but some things (about them) are better than they were in the past. I don't think (coaching today's players) is any tougher. I think we're a little too hard on the current day player because he's different. — Avery Johnson

We see the greatness of God in times of great challenge. — Lailah Gifty Akita

What is wrong with encouraging students to put "how well they're doing" ahead of "what they're doing." An impressive and growing body of research suggests that this emphasis (1) undermines students' interest in learning, (2) makes failure seem overwhelming, (3) leads students to avoid challenging themselves, (4) reduces the quality of learning, and (5) invites students to think about how smart they are instead of how hard they tried. — Alfie Kohn

It's hard but it's not too much of a challenge because i'm doing what i love — Greyson Chance

Sometimes life will be awesome. Sometimes, life will look blurry. Along the way in the journey of life, sometimes, life will be colder than warmer and sometimes warmer than colder but in all things we must remember that it is never over for a purposeful journey of life until the journey of life is over. Be it rough or smooth, good or bad, we must accomplish the task. It shall always not be good and it shall always not be bad; we only have to work hard. — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

We too often let the material things serve as indicators that we're doing well, even though something inside us tells us that were not doing our best. That we are avoiding that which is hard, but also necessary. That we are shrinking from rather than rising to the challenges of the age. — Barack Obama

Pastoral ministry is a sacrificial call with unique challenges. We are called to take the Gospel to those with hard hearts and blind eyes. — C.J. Mahaney

children who are praised for "being smart" often believe that every encounter is a test of whether they really are. So to avoid looking dumb, they resist new challenges and choose the easiest path. By contrast, kids who understand that effort and hard work lead to mastery and growth are more willing to take on new, difficult tasks. — Daniel H. Pink

Striving for happiness is a long, hard journey with many challenges. It requires eternal vigilance to win the victory. You cannot succeed with sporadic little flashes of effort. Constant and valiant living is necessary. — Jack H. Goaslind

The meal plan was hard at first because I am a snack eater, but the most challenging part is trying to change my pallet to like healthy food. — Ruby Gettinger