effective self-talk

Effective self-talk is usually simple. It's usually brief, even dull. A phrase is often better than a sentence, and a word will sometimes do just fine. Here are some examples researchers have collected from successful athletes:

Good job, do it again.

Concentrate. Breathe.

Stay tough.

There is a difference between self-take that is aspirational and self-talk that is delusional. The difference is not in the words. The difference lies in practice. You can try to talk yourself up before a big context, but if you haven't done the training, you won't believe your own talk. Self-talk tied to disciplined practice enhances your power. Self-talk divorced from practice is just self-delusion.

Resilience: Hard-won Wisdom for Living a Better Life by Eric Greitens. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. 2015. p.177

not all pain matters

There are people whose attention is consistently drawn away from their purpose and toward their pain, like a moth to a light. Such people, who pay attention to every annoyance and obstacle in their way, are usually unsuccessful in their endeavors. In extreme cases they are mentally ill. A healthy person, a flourishing person, learns to move past a lot of annoyance and a good deal of pain.

Resilience: Hard-won Wisdom for Living a Better Life by Eric Greitens. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. 2015. p.168,169

those torrential rivers

I think it may be true that fortune determines one half of our actions, but that, even so, she leaves us to control the other half, or thereabouts.

And I compare her to one of those torrential rivers that, when they get angry, break their banks, knock down trees and buildings, strip the soil from one place and deposit it somewhere else. Everyone flees before them, everyone gives way in the face of their onrush, nobody can resist them at any point. But although they are so powerful, this does not mean men, when the waters recede, cannot make repairs and build banks and barriers so that, if the waters rise again, either they will be safely kept within the sluices or at least their onrush will not be so unregulated and destructive. 

The same thing happens with fortune: She demonstrates her power where precautions have not been taken to resist her; she directs her attacks where she knows banks and barriers have not been built to hold her.

Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli

Resilience: Hard-won Wisdom for Living a Better Life by Eric Greitens. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. 2015. p.160

a small daily task

A small daily task, if it be really daily, will beat the labours of a spasmodic Hercules.

Anthony Trollope

Resilience: Hard-won Wisdom for Living a Better Life by Eric Greitens. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. 2015. p.154

hold two opposed ideas

The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.

F.Scott Fitzgerald

Resilience: Hard-won Wisdom for Living a Better Life by Eric Greitens. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. 2015. p.132