The height of my goals will not hold me in awe, though I may stumble often before they are reached.

If you're facing a problem, don't tell yourself that you can't do it. Convince yourself that you have the strength to deal with almost anything because of the way you were raised. And you do! Recognizing your core strengths is an important step toward having joie de vivre. You can count on better days to come because of the good days that came before. And you can find joy in the moment because you have the resiliency to overcome the problems that may be hanging over you.

Fire feeds on obstacles.

We have various abilities, present in all rational creatures as in the nature of rationality itself. And this is one of them. Just as nature takes every obstacle, every impediment, and works around it—turns it to its purposes, incorporates it into itself—so, too, a rational being can turn each setback into raw material and use it to achieve its goal.

External things are not the problem. It's your assessment of them. Which you can erase right now. If the problem is something in your own character, who's stopping you from setting your mind straight? And if it's that you're not doing something you think you should be, why not just do it? —But there are insuperable obstacles. Then it's not a problem. The cause of your inaction lies outside you.

if in every particular action thou dost perform what is fitting to the utmost of thy power, let it suffice thee. And who can hinder thee, but that thou mayest perform what is fitting? But there may be some outward let and impediment. Not any, that can hinder thee, but that whatsoever thou dost, thou may do it, justly, temperately, and with the praise of God.

What stands in the way is the way.

Because a thing seems difficult for you, do not think it impossible for anyone to accomplish.

Don't spend time beating on a wall, hoping to transform it into a door.

There may be challenges or crosses that may have delayed your goals temporarily, but now it's time to move forward.

Temptations, when we meet them at first, are as the lion that reared upon Samson; but if we overcome them, the next time we see them we shall find a nest of honey within them.

Second place is meaningless. You can't always be first, but you have to believe that you should have been - that you were never beaten - that time just ran out on you.