Most people aspire to become better than they are at this moment. They view life as a journey toward growth and development—one they need to tackle with total enthusiasm. However, when theory turns into practice, you might find yourself stalling.
Perhaps you’ve been elevated to a new position at work where you have more responsibilities than ever before. Or maybe you’re starting your own business, and the path ahead appears rocky and unstable. When faced with these crossroads, we can get nervous or even fearful. All that talk about growing as a person gets pushed aside as we fight for survival.
When we’re feeling down about personal stagnation, quotes about growth can help to inspire us and ignite a growth mindset. “Individuals who believe their talents can be developed (through hard work, good strategies, and input from others) have a growth mindset,” writes Carol Dweck, author of Mindset: The New Psychology of Success. “They tend to achieve more than those with a more fixed mindset (those who believe their talents are innate gifts).”
Through these self-improvement quotes, you can receive encouragement to overcome any challenge you face. When you feel like you’re not making the progress you want, check out the following growth quotes to inspire you to endure and come out better on the other side.
70 Quotes About Growth and Development
“Be patient with yourself. You are growing stronger every day. The weight of the world will become lighter . . . and you will begin to shine brighter. Don’t give up.” —Robert Tew
“If you don’t give anything, don’t expect anything. Success is not coming to you. You must come get it.” —Marva Collins
“The man who views the world at 50 the same he did at 20 has wasted thirty years of his life.” —Muhammad Ali
“Don’t go through life, grow through life.” —Eric Butterworth
“Problems are not stop signs, they are guidelines.” —Robert H. Schuller
“The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do.” —Steve Jobs
“Unless you’re willing to have a go, fail miserably, and have another go, success won’t happen.” —Phillip Adams
When we stop growing, we stop living and start existing. —Warren Wiersbe
“With self-discipline most anything is possible.” —Theodore Roosevelt
“When you’ve got something to prove, there’s nothing greater than a challenge.” —Terry Bradshaw
“Those who improve with age embrace the power of personal growth and personal achievement and begin to replace youth with wisdom, innocence with understanding, and lack of purpose with self-actualization.” —Bo Bennett
“Opportunities to find deeper powers within ourselves come when life seems most challenging.” —Joseph Campbell
“Obstacles and challenges will arise no matter who you are or what you are trying to accomplish but it is only those who know there is a solution and keep digging until they find it that will conquer the day.” —Byron Pulsifer
“If there is no struggle, there is no progress.” —Frederick Douglass
“Press forward. Do not stop, do not linger in your journey, but strive for the mark set before you.” —George Whitefield
“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” —Anaïs Nin
“The tragedy in life doesn’t lie in not reaching your goal. The tragedy lies in having no goal to reach.” —Benjamin Mays
“Life keeps throwing me stones. And I keep finding the diamonds.” —Ana Claudia Antunes
“Growth is the great separator between those who succeed and those who do not. When I see a person beginning to separate themselves from the pack, it’s almost always due to personal growth.” —John C. Maxwell
“You may not realize it when it happens, but a kick in the teeth may be the best thing in the world for you.” —Walt Disney
“In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity!” —Albert Einstein
“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” —Viktor Frankl
“No one is coming to save you. You can’t have an ideal partner without working towards your ideal self.” —Jeff Moore
“Happy is he who makes daily progress and who considers not what he did yesterday but what advance he can make today.” —St. Jerome
“What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.” —Jane Goodall
“When you get into a tight place and everything goes against you . . . never give up then, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn.” —Harriet Beecher Stowe
“Look for the good in every situation, seek the valuable lesson in every setback, look for the solution to every problem. Think and talk continually about your goals.” —Brian Tracy
“One can choose to go back toward safety or forward toward growth. Growth must be chosen again and again; fear must be overcome again and again.” —Abraham Maslow
“Trust yourself. You know more than you think you do.” —Benjamin Spock
“Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth.” —John F. Kennedy
“Challenges are an opportunity to test you and rise to the next level.” —Angelica Montrose
“Sometimes in life we take a leap of faith. Remember, the leap is not about getting from one side to the other. It’s simply about taking the leap . . . and trusting the air, the universal breath, will support your wings so that you may soar.” —Kristi Bowman
“Being bridled, or yielding obediently to restraint, is necessary for our personal growth and progression.” —James E. Faust
“We miss the height of our fullest potential by not engaging the quiet parade of days.” —John Soforic
“An expert is a person who has made all the mistakes that can be made in a very narrow field.” —Niels Bohr
“Sure I am this day, we are masters of our fate, that the task which has been set before us is not above our strength; that its pangs and toils are not beyond our endurance. As long as we have faith in our own cause and an unconquerable will to win, victory will not be denied us.” ―Winston Churchill
“The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain.” —Dolly Parton
“We should not judge people by their peak of excellence; but by the distance they have traveled from the point where they started.” —Henry Ward Beecher
“Accept challenges, so that you may feel the exhilaration of victory.” —George S. Patton
“Be patient with yourself. Self-growth is tender; it’s holy ground. There’s no greater investment.” —Stephen Covey
“Don’t give up at halftime. Concentrate on winning the second half.” —Paul “Bear” Bryant
“Growth occurs when one goes beyond one’s limits. Realizing that is also part of training.” —Uchiha Itachi
“We’ve observed that people who stall in their personal growth work often have counterproductive soft addictions that stand in their way of growth and having the life they say they want. It can be a simple thing, such as watching TV instead of finishing a project.” —Judith Wright
“Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.” —Thomas Edison
“My dad encouraged us to fail. Growing up, he would ask us what we failed at that week. If we didn’t have something, he would be disappointed. It changed my mindset at an early age that failure is not the outcome, failure is not trying. Don’t be afraid to fail.” —Sara Blakely
“Why waste time proving over and over how great you are, when you could be getting better? . . . The passion for stretching yourself and sticking to it, even (or especially) when it’s not going well, is the hallmark of the growth mindset. This is the mindset that allows people to thrive during some of the most challenging times in their lives.” —Carol Dweck
“Obstacles don’t have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don’t turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it.” —Michael Jordan
“It’s only after you’ve stepped outside your comfort zone that you begin to change, grow, and transform.” —Roy T. Bennett
“Work hard now. Don’t wait. If you work hard enough, you’ll be given what you deserve.” —Shaquille O’Neal
“The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity.” —Amelia Earhart
“Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value.” —Albert Einstein
“Energy and persistence conquer all things.” —Benjamin Franklin
“Why are you going to choose failure when success is an option?” ―Jillian Michaels
“We can’t become what we need to be by remaining what we are.” —Oprah Winfrey
“Be not afraid of growing slowly; be afraid only of standing still.” —Chinese Proverb
“The greater the obstacle, the more glory in overcoming it.” —Molière
“The moment you doubt whether you can fly, you cease forever to be able to do it.” —J. M. Barrie
“We find comfort among those who agree with us and growth among those who don’t.” —Frank A. Clark
“Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed no hope at all.” —Dale Carnegie
“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” —Mark Twain
“A winner is a dreamer who never gives up.” —Nelson Mandela
“If at first you don’t succeed, you are running about average.” – M.H. Alderson
“Don’t be too timid and too squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment.” —Ralph Waldo Emerson
“There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.” —Ernest Hemingway
“What we fear doing most is usually what we most need to do.” —Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Remember, you were created to be a champion and ready for any battle.” —Pernell Stoney
“Dreams don’t work unless you do.“ —John C. Maxwell
“Ever since I was a child, I have had this instinctive urge for expansion and growth. To me, the function and duty of a quality human being is the sincere and honest development of one’s potential.” —Bruce Lee
“People are like dirt. They can either nourish you and help you grow as a person or they can stunt your growth and make you wilt and die.” —Plato
“Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm.” —Winston Churchill
Other Ways to Develop a Growth Mindset
These quotes about growth indicate that having a growth mindset is important if you want to develop skills and grow as a person. For those looking to work on their own growth mindset, here are some helpful tips you can follow.
- Learn new skills with regularity.
- Identify areas in your life where you can improve.
- Serve others with enthusiasm.
- Reject perfectionism.
- Ask for feedback from close family and friends.
- Recognize the limiting beliefs that are restricting your growth.
You can learn more about developing a growth mindset by reading Growth Mindset: Creating an Environment For Innovation.
Additionally, if you are looking for more inspirational quotes, check out the following: