Willpower Self Control Quotes & Sayings

I've only really had one period when I lost myself and felt like I was going to lose my career, and that was when I first began presenting 'X-Factor' spin-off 'The Xtra Factor' two years ago. I was worried if I did a rubbish job live on Saturday night TV that my music career was going to get affected and I would lose everything. — Olly Murs

Science is showing us that there are neurological (brain) factors that contribute to self-control and willpower, along with learning and upbringing. And when these brain systems are functioning improperly or become damaged, normal levels of self-control and willpower are impossible. — Russell Barkley

Self-control is an exhaustible resource. This is a crucial realization, because when we talk about "self-control," we don't mean the narrow sense of the word, as in the willpower needed to fight vice (smokes, cookies, alcohol). We're talking about a broader kind of self-supervision. Think of the way your mind works when you're giving negative feedback to an employee, or assembling a new bookshelf, or learning a new dance. You are careful and deliberate with your words or movements. It feels like there's a supervisor on duty. That's self-control, too. — Chip Heath

The biggest enemies of willpower: temptation, self-criticism, and stress. ( ... ) these three skills - self-awareness, self-care, and remembering what matter most - are the foundation for self-control. — Kelly McGonigal

It takes more to abstain than to err, more to avoid mistakes than to make mistakes; but the good thing is that it gets better with practice. — Innocent Mwatsikesimbe

We all believe that we can defeat that plague or that disease, should it befall us, through sheer willpower. It is a common mental defense against the inevitability we all know we share. I wonder, then, if the worst reality of a lingering death is the sense that your own body is beyond your ability to control. In — R.A. Salvatore

Are ordinary people really populations of interests rather than something more solid? It's disturbing to think of yourself as so fluid, so potentially unstable, held together only by the shifting influence of available rewards. It's like being told that atoms are mostly empty and wondering how they can bear weight. Yet the bargaining of interests in a society can produce highly stable institutions; perhaps that's also true of the internal interests created by a person's rewards. — George Ainslie

Every one of our sinful actions has a suicidal power on the faculties that put that action forth. When you sin with the mind, that sin shrivels the rationality. When you sin with the heart or the emotions, that sin shrivels the emotions. When you sin with the will, that sin destroys and dissolves your willpower and your self-control. Sin is the suicidal action of the self against itself. Sin destroys freedom because sin is an enslaving power. — Timothy Keller

Self-control is not control by oneself through one's own willpower but rather control of oneself through the power of the Holy Spirit. — Jerry Bridges

You forgot the 'my precious,'" Anna said dryly. "If you want to act like a freaking nutcase, you have to do it right. — Patricia Briggs

Elaina owned me completely and it was so good belonging to someone. So fuckin' good. I belonged to her as much as she belonged to me. Even more, really. — Raine Miller

The is a secret for greater self-control, the science points to one thing: the power of paying attention. — Kelly McGonigal

I think the whole point about self-control, the whole point about willpower, is to help people understand that there are endless self-nudge techniques that can be enormously helpful and are very simple. — Walter Mischel

Neuroscientists have discovered that when you ask the brain to meditate, it gets better not just at meditating, but at a wide range of self-control skills, including attention, focus, stress management, impulse control, and self-awareness. — Kelly McGonigal

What we give to the poor, we lend to the Lord. — Sojourner Truth

With a deep regret, I wiggled out from under him despite his sleepy protests and grabbed articles of clothing as I tiptoed to his door. What amazing willpower I had. What fantastic self-control. I'd come over for one reason, and everything but that reason seemed to be resolved. When I reached the door, I saw what looked like another note. But this was his door, not mine. I peeled it off, then angled it until I could read it by the light of the fire.
Is that all you've got?
With a smile spreading slowly across my face, I dropped everything I'd just picked up and went back for more. — Darynda Jones

Ultimately, self-control lets you relax because it removes stress and enables you to conserve willpower for the important challenges. — Laura Vanderkam

In every artist there is poetry. In every human being there is the poetic element. We know, we feel, we believe. — Ernst Haas

The poem is not, as someone put it, deflective of entry. But the real question is, 'What happens to the reader once he or she gets inside the poem?' That's the real question for me, is getting the reader into the poem and then taking the reader somewhere, because I think of poetry as a kind of form of travel writing. — Billy Collins

The Pro-Life cause is the preeminent cause of our time, and this struggle between the gospel of life and the culture of death will determine the destiny of mankind. — Peter Garrett

Fear and shame are the backbone of my self-control. They are my source of inspiration, my insurance against becoming entirely unacceptable. They help me do the right thing. And I am terrified of what I would be without them. Because I suspect that, left to my own devices, I would completely lose control of my life. I'm still hoping that perhaps someday I'll learn how to use willpower like a real person, but until that very unlikely day, I will confidently battle toward adequacy, wielding my crude skill set of fear and shame. — Allie Brosh

Only two things better in the world than your frosted sugar cookies with daisy sprinkles and those are pigs in a blanket and a man with a fine package. This I know as fact. — Kristen Ashley

You decide your own level of involvement. — Chuck Palahniuk

I like being by the ocean. — Ellie Goulding

Science as an intellectual exercise enriches our culture, and is in itself ennobling. — Henry Taube

In other words, the best way to win the war against fat is to give up the fight. Turn over control to your body and you will settle at a healthy weight. And regardless of whether you do lose weight, your health and well-being will markedly improve. You will find that biology is much more powerful than willpower. — Linda Bacon

Research shows that people who think they have the most willpower are actually the most likely to lose control when tempted.1 For example, smokers who are the most optimistic about their ability to resist temptation are the most likely to relapse four months later, and overoptimistic dieters are the least likely to lose weight. Why? They fail to predict when, where, and why they will give in. They expose themselves to more temptation, — Kelly McGonigal

Keep people in your life who truly love you, motivate you, and make you happy. If you know people who do none of these things, let them go. — Ziad K. Abdelnour

Sometimes, we feel conscious but unable to move our body.
The first thing to do is focus in a prayer, then start to wink frequently.
By this way, slowly but sure our body can be moved totally by our persistent willpower. — Toba Beta

the tougher you are on yourself, the easier life will be on you. The quality of your life ultimately is shaped by the quality of your choices and decisions, ones that range from the career you choose to pursue to the books you read, the time that you wake up every morning and the thoughts you think during the hours of your days. When you consistently flex your willpower by making those choices that you know are the right ones (rather than the easy ones), you take back control of your life. — Robin S. Sharma

What stress really does, though, is deplete willpower, which diminishes your ability to control those emotions. — Roy F. Baumeister

When people are asked to do something that takes self-control, if they think they are doing it for personal reasons - if they feel like it's a choice or something they enjoy because it helps someone else - it's much less taxing. If they feel like they have no autonomy, if they're just following orders, their willpower muscles get tired much faster. In both cases, people ignored the cookies. But when the students were treated like cogs, rather than people, it took a lot more willpower. — Charles Duhigg

Mischel refers to this skill as the "strategic allocation of attention," and he argues that it's the skill underlying self-control. Too often, we assume that willpower is about having strong moral fiber. But that's wrong. Willpower is really about properly directing the spotlight of attention, learning how to control that short list of thoughts in working memory. It's about realizing that if we're thinking about the marshmallow, we're going to eat it, which is why we need to look away. — John Brockman

The next suitable person you're in light conversation with, you stop suddenly in the middle of the conversation and look at the person closely and say, "What's wrong?" You say it in a concerned way. He'll say, "What do you mean?" You say, "Something's wrong. I can tell. What is it?" And he'll look stunned and say, "How did you know?" He doesn't realize something's always wrong, with everybody. Often more than one thing. He doesn't know everybody's always going around all the time with something wrong and believing they're exerting great willpower and control to keep other people, for whom they think nothing's ever wrong, from seeing it. — David Foster Wallace

we can develop willpower skills. It's more about strategy than grit or impulses. While we can't control what we think and feel, we can control what we do - which is where strategy comes into play. — Ted Spiker

Ah, cruel 'tis to love, And cruel not to love, But cruelest of all To love and love in vain. — Anacreon

You wrote this right?" he said. "It tells how to defeat Set."
Thoth unfolded the papyrus pages. "Oh, dear. I hate reading my old work. Look at this sentence. I'd never write it that way now." He patted his lab coat pockets. "Red pen - does anyone have one?"
Isis chafed against my willpower, insisting that we blast some sense into Thoth. One fireball, she pleaded. Just one enormous magical fireball?
I couldn't say I was tempted, but I kept her under control.
"Since when does drool make you powerful? — Rick Riordan

You must endure long enough to be victorious. — Lailah Gifty Akita

The gun lobby finds waiting periods inconvenient. You have only to ask my husband how inconvenient he finds his wheelchair from time to time. — Sarah Brady

The discipline gave me a sense of achievement. Not least, fasting is a test of willpower and, whenever I felt my willpower weakening, I would tell myself that I could eat as much as I wanted after sunset. But then the strange thing was that after fasting all day long, I tended to feel full with just a small snack. — Kristiane Backer