Quotes about Achievement

Did I win? Did I lose? Those are the wrong questions. The correct question is: Did I make my best effort? That's what matters. The rest of it just gets in the way.

Perfection is what you are striving for, but perfection is an impossibility. However, striving for perfection is not an impossibility. Do the best you can under the conditions that exist. That is what counts.

Don't mistake activity for achievement. To produce results, tasks must be well organized and properly executed; otherwise, it's no different from children running around the playground—everybody is doing something, but nothing is being done; lots of activity, no achievement.

The heights by great men reached and kept, Were not attained by sudden flight. But they, while their companions slept, Were toiling upward in the night." —Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

don't worry about whether you're better than somebody else, but never cease trying to be the best you can become. You have control over that; the other you don't.

Never try to be better than anyone else, but never cease to be the best you can be. That's achievement.

You never fail if you know in your heart that you did the best of which you are capable. I did my best. That is all I could do. Are you going to make mistakes? Of course. But it is not failure if you make the full effort.

To my way of thinking, when you give your total effort—everything you have—the score can never make you a loser. And when you do less, it can't somehow magically turn you into a winner.

never dreamed about winning a national championship. It happened before I even thought it was possible. What I was dreaming about each year, if you want to call it that, was trying to produce the best basketball team we could be.

Set your standards high; namely, do the absolute best of which you are capable. Focus on running the race rather than winning it. Do those things necessary to bring forth your personal best and don't lose sleep worrying about the competition. Let the competition lose sleep worrying about you. Teach your organization to do the same.

I never dreamed about winning a national championship. What I was dreaming about was trying to produce the best basketball team we could be. My thoughts were directed toward preparation, our journey, not the results of the effort. That would simply have shifted my attention to the wrong area, hoping for something out of my control.

You must define success as making the complete effort to maximize your ability, skills, and potential in whatever circumstances—good or bad—may exist.