My Favorite Quotes From “The 15 Invaluable Laws of Growth” By John C. Maxwell

Potential is one of the most wonderful words in any language. To reach your potential you must grow. And to grow, you must be highly intentional about it.

You cannot change your life until you change something you do every day.

1. The Law of Intentionality: Growth Doesn’t Just Happen

Hope isn’t a strategy.

Focus on growth, you will grow and always hit goals.

Outside of my faith, the decision to grow has impacted my life more than any other.

Motivation is like love and happiness. It’s a by-product. When you’re actively engaged in doing something, it sneaks up and zaps you when you least expect

The question in my mind changed from “How long will this take?” to “How far can I go?”

Most people underestimate the unimportance of nearly everything in their lives.

2. The Law of Awareness: You Must Know Yourself to Grow Yourself

You have to know who you are to grow to your potential. But you have to grow in order to know who you are.

I believe it’s very important not only to know what you want to do, but also why you want to do it.

My goal is always to help them to become more than they are, not to try to make them something they’re not.

“There are two great days in a person’s life: the day you were born and the day you discover why.” Mark Twain

3. The Law of the Mirror: You Must See Value in Yourself to Add Value to Yourself

If you don’t realize that you have genuine value and that you are worth investing in, then you will never put in the time and effort needed to grow to your potential.

“It’s impossible to consistently behave in a manner inconsistent with how we see ourselves.” Zig Ziglar

It’s hard to feel bad about yourself when you’re doing something good for someone else.

If you want to feel valuable, add value to others.

4. The Law of Reflection: Learning to Pause Allows Growth to Catch Up with You

Experience is not the best teacher, evaluated experience is.

I believe a person’s secret of success is found in his daily agenda.

5. The Law of Consistency: Motivation Gets You Going—Discipline Keeps You Growing

When you expand yourself, you expand your horizons, your options, your opportunities, your potential.

Small disciplines repeated with consistency every day lead to great achievements gained slowly over time.

Persian poet Saadi instructed, “Have patience. All things are difficult before they become easy.”

Progress cannot happen if you don’t value the process.

Discipline and motivation are two sides of the same coin. If you have the motivation you need, discipline is no problem. If you lack motivation, discipline is always a problem.

You will never change your life until you change something you do daily.

Anyone who does what he must only when he is in the mood or when it’s convenient isn’t going to be successful.

6. The Law of Environment: Growth Thrives in Conducive Surroundings

If you’re always at the head of the class, then you’re in the wrong class.

One of the ways to judge whether you’re growing and in a conducive growth environment is to discern whether you’re looking forward to what you’re doing or looking back at what you’ve done.

Hot Poker Principle. “Do you know how to get a poker hot… Put it next to the fire.”

Social psychologist Dr. David McClelland of Harvard, the people with whom you habitually associate are called your “reference group,” and these people determine as much as 95 percent of your success or failure in life.

“You are the same today that you are going to be in five years from now except for two things: the people with whom you associate and the books you read.” Charles “Tremendous” Jones

“Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin.” Mother Teresa

1. The Law of Design: To Maximize Growth, Develop Strategies

I look at all the meetings and appointments I had and determine which ones I should do more of and which I should eliminate.

There’s no substitute for being strategic.

Most people allow their lives to simply happen to them.

Life has a way of becoming complicated, and it is only through great effort that we can keep it simple.

Multiplying everything by two infuses realism into my optimism.

“Systems permit ordinary people to achieve extraordinary results predictably.” —Michael Gerber

‘What is the most valuable use of my time right now?’

“When is my most valuable time?”

“If you can’t measure something, you can’t understand it. If you can’t understand it, you can’t control it. If you can’t control it, you can’t improve it.” James Harrington

Measurement is key to improvement.

The plan creates the track. The action provides the traction.

Where can I use this? When can I use this? Who needs to know this? This has become a discipline in my life, so I always have a bias toward action when I learn something new.

Time has a way of getting away from most people, yet time is what life is made of.

You will never change your life until you change something you do daily.

The secret of your success is found in your daily routine.

1. The Law of Pain: Good Management of Bad Experiences Leads to Great Growth

Allow loss to lead to others’ gain.

Life’s difficulties do not allow us to stay the same.

Where there is no struggle, there is no progress.

Facing difficulties is inevitable. Learning from them is optional.

If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always gotten.

9. The Law of the Ladder: Character Growth Determines the Height of Your Personal Growth

Most people focus too much on competence and too little on character.

If you do the things you need to do when you need to do them, then someday you can do the things you want to do when you want to do them.

10. The Law of the Rubber Band: Growth Stops When You Lose the Tension Between Where You Are and Where You Could Be

“God’s gift to us: potential. Our gift to God: developing it.”

Rubber bands are useful only when they are stretched!

Sadly, a third of high school graduates never read another book for the rest of their lives, and 42 percent of college graduates similarly never read a book after college.

“For all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these: ‘It might have been.’ ” Greenleaf Whittier

Measure what you’re doing against what you’re capable of. Measure yourself against yourself.

When we stop stretching, I believe we stop really living.

I’m not where I’m supposed to be, I’m not what I want to be, But I’m not what I used to be. I haven’t learned how to arrive; I’ve just learned how to keep going.

The greatest enemy of tomorrow’s success is today’s success.

11. The Law of Trade-Offs: You Have to Give Up to Grow Up

If you want to grow up to your potential, you must be willing to give up some things you value.

I have a tendency to overestimate the value of what I currently have and underestimate the value of what I may gain by giving it up.

The difference between where we are and where we want to be is created by the changes we are willing to make in our lives.

We want a change, but we don’t want to wait for the result.

“The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.” Henry David Thoreau

Value opportunity over security.

Delegate so you’re working smarter, not just harder. Do what you do best and drop the rest. Get control of your calendar; otherwise other people will. Do what you love because it will give you energy. Work with people you like so your energy isn’t depleted.

My attitude in the beginning was, “What can I do for others?” But that is addition. Once I began to learn leadership, my question changed to, “What can I do with others?” That’s multiplication.

12. The Law of Curiosity: Growth Is Stimulated by Asking Why?

“Some men see things as they are and ask why. Others dream things that never were and ask why not.” —GEORGE BERNARD SHAW

You must go after growth.

“The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery every day. Never lose a holy curiosity.” Albert Einstein

Anyone who knows all the answers is not asking the right questions.

Keep asking if there is a better way to do things.

“The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.” —Dorothy Parker

13. The Law of Modeling: It’s Hard to Improve When You Have No One but Yourself to Follow

Personal growth without the benefit of personal mentors could take me only so far.

“To know the road ahead, ask those coming back.” Chinese Proverb

We should take great care when determining which people we ask to mentor us.

We’re all just one step away from stupid.

“Great things happen whenever we stop seeing ourselves as God’s gift to others, and begin seeing others as God’s gift to us.” James S. Vuocolo

14. The Law of Expansion: Growth Always Increases Your Capacity

More work will not necessarily increase your capacity. More of the same usually results in more of the same, when what we actually want is better than what we have.

I realized that the problem was that I valued effort over effectiveness. I was doing a lot of things instead of the right things.

Stop thinking can I? Start thinking how can I?

Everything looks like a failure in the middle.

Stop thinking one door and start thinking many doors.

15. The Law of Contribution: Growing Yourself Enables You to Grow Others

You cannot give what you do not have.

Think of yourself as a river instead of a reservoir.

When a leader attempts to engage people, the first question they ask is not, “Where are you going?” Their first question is, “Do you care for me?”

The measure of success is not the number of people who serve you, but the number of people you serve.

“I consider the success of my day based on the seeds I sow, not the harvest I reap.” —Robert Louis Stevenson

If you want to keep giving, you have to keep growing.

The greatest gift you can give to someone is your own personal development.