“The only source of knowledge is experience.”
-Albert Einstein

“Opportunities multiply as they are seized.”
-Sun Tzu

The biggest improvements we make usually come from upgrading areas of weakness and developing important skills and offerings we currently lack. Ignoring those challenges constrains growth and fosters stagnation – or worse. It becomes a vicious cycle: We tend to get weaker and weaker in the areas we avoid; and the weaker those qualities get, the more unpleasant they become, and therefore the more we want to avoid them.

There is also an additional benefit in confronting our areas of weakness and discomfort. We are enormously resourceful beings, and by demonstrating that we can make a significant difference if only we try, we not only raise our skill set and improve the issue at hand, we also strengthen our self-image.

“The most essential feature of man is his improvableness.”
-John Fiske

“A man’s worth is no greater than the worth of his ambitions.”
-Marcus Aurelius Antoninus

“Those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.”
-George Bernard Shaw

“In this country, every man is the architect of his own ambitions.”
-Horton Bain

“A man’s greatest enemies are his own apathy and stubbornness.’’
-Frank Tyger

“What gets measured gets improved.”
-Peter Drucker

“There is a difference between self-confidence and arrogance. Self-confidence is the belief you can succeed no matter the odds. Arrogance is the belief you cannot fail.”
-Joshua Kennon

“People never improve unless they look to some standard or example higher and better than themselves.”
-Tryon Edwards

Or put another way –
”People seldom improve when they have no other model but themselves to copy.”
-Oliver Goldsmith

“When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better, too.”
-Unknown

“We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves strong. The amount of work is the same.”
-Carlos Castaneda