Quotes about Challenge

life wouldn't be worth living without love and challenge

life wouldn't be worth living without love and challenge

I, with a deeper instinct, choose a man who compels my strength, who makes enormous demands on me, who does not doubt my courage or my toughness, who does not believe me naive or innocent, who has the courage to treat me like a woman.

NO CHALLENGE, NO CHANGE !  Forget the no pain no gain thing.  If it's pain, then STOP!  I made up the phrase 'no challenge no change' over 15 years ago when I realized it was not the pain that made one change, but the challenge that was overcome.  It started out with references to working out and then I realized I could apply that idea to every part of my life, including motherhood, relationships, school, work, etc.  I will continue to live by this phrase and hope to instill it in my daughter as well.  It has gotten me through so many hard times, including divorce, losing my mom 3 years ago, and while being in school for the last 7 years... getting closer to that PhD every semester.  There have been an insane amount of challenges I have dealt with in my life, so my goal is that the changes that result will in turn have an insane impact, not only on myself, but my daughter, and everyone I come into contact with. 

The harder you work, the harder it is to surrender.

Only he who attempts the absurd is capable of achieving the impossible.

Change is a challenge and an opportunity, not a threat.

Everyone must concede that there is in existence something wiser than himself. Now there is a challenge, there is a challenge which few even investigate. We're going to do that now. Let's see what we're talking about. All troubled people, which is all people, must if they are going to be delivered from themselves, must make the concession that there is a force, an entity, a power that is higher than their own present nature.

My throat was parched and my entire body was leprous with cuts, yet my mind was exceedingly clear. I knew I was in deep s**t. I didn’t know how deep--just that I still hadn’t touched bottom.

Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising that tempt you to believe your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to the end requires some of the same courage that a soldier needs. Peace has its victories but it takes brave men and women to win them.

     WORK: A SONG OF TRIUMPH

Work!
Thank God for the might of it,
The ardor, the urge, the delight of it--
Work that springs from the heart's desire,
Setting the brain and the soul on fire--
Oh, what is so good as the heat of it,
And what is so glad as the beat of it,
And what is so kind as the stern command,
Challenging brain and heart and hand? ...

(excerpt of poem by Angela Morgan)

Our challenge, which is also a tremendous opportunity, is to open up to a literally life-changing way of thinking ourselves into existence.

Whether you think you can or can't, either way you are right.

Whatever ideas you hear, challenge it. Sometimes people just don't know what they are talking about. No matter how enthuiastic they may be

What is a Hero?  by Daisaku Ikeda

"A truley heroic way of life lies in squarely confronting and courageously overcoming the pounding vicissitudes that life always throws in our paths" - Daisaku Ikeda

"The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort, and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy"

I was in rehearsals, waiting behind a door to come out while a couple onstage were having a row. They started throwing furniture and a chair lodged in front of the door.

My cue came and I could only get halfway in. I stopped and said, 'I can't get in. The chair's in the way.'

And the producer said, 'Use the difficulty.'

I said, 'What do you mean?'

And he said, 'Well, if it's a drama [you're acting in], pick up the chair and smash it. If it's a comedy, fall over it.'

This idea stuck in my mind, and I taught it to my children -- that any situation in life that's negative, there is something positive you can do with it.

Aliveness


Aliveness is energy. It's the juice,the vitality, and the passion that wakes up our cells every morning. It's what makes us want to dance. It's the energy that moves a relationship from the status quo to something grander and much more expansive, something that makes our hearts beat faster, our minds, and our eyes open wider than ever before. Everything is of interest to a person who is truly alive, whether it's a challenge, a loving moment, a bucket of grief, or a glimpse of beauty.

You have to find something that you love enough to be able to take risks, jump over the hurdles and break through the brick walls that are always going to be placed in front of you. If you don't have that kind of feeling for what it is you're doing, you'll stop at the first giant hurdle.

Do not stop thinking of life as an adventure. You have no security unless you can live bravely, excitingly, imaginatively, unless you can choose a challenge instead of a competence.
Eleanor Roosevelt

All rising to great places is by a winding stair.

When heaven is about to confer a great responsibility on any man, it will exercise his mind with suffering, subject his sinews and bones to hard work, expose his body to hunger, put him to poverty, place obstacles in the paths of his deeds, so as to stimulate his mind, harden his nature, and improve wherever he is incompetent.

My father left me with the feeling that I had to live for two people, and that if I did it well enough, somehow I could make up for the life he should have had. And his memory infused me, at a younger age than most, with a sense of my own mortality. The knowledge that I, too, could die young drove me both to try to drain the most out of every moment of life and to get on with the next big challenge. Even when I wasn't sure where I was going, I was always in a hurry.

If a culture treats a particular illness with compassion and enlightened understanding, then sickness can be seen as a challenge, as a healing crisis and opportunity. Being sick is then not a condemnation or a moral judgement, but a movement in a larger process of healing and restoration. When sickness is viewed positively and in supportive terms, then illness has a much better chance to heal, with the concomitant result that the entire person may grown and be enriched in the process. ~ Ken Wilber ~

In the middle of every difficulty lies opportunity.

In love, each man is his own personal challenge.

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.

The challenge of the path of joy is to create freedom. True joy comes from operating with Inner-Directedness and recognizing who you are.

People with a sense of challenge realize that they'll never achieve peak creativity or experience joy unless they take some risks.

Hardy folks don't run from change; they exult in its challenges.