Neil A. Fiore > Quotes

“There’s a myth that time is money. In fact, time is more precious than money. It’s a nonrenewable resource. Once you’ve spent it, and if you’ve spent it badly, it’s gone forever.”
― Neil A. Fiore

“...I’ve discovered that if you want to reach your
true potential, it’s much more effective to ignite a new passion for
life than to dwell on past problems.”
― Neil A. Fiore, Awaken Your Strongest Self: Break Free of Stress, Inner Conflict, and Self-Sabotage

“In most cases you are the one who confuses just doing the job with testing your worth.

Replace 'I have to' with 'I choose to'.”
― neil fiore, The Now Habit: A Strategic Program for Overcoming Procrastination and Enjoying Guilt-Free Play

“The choice is not working or not working, but which type of work; even feeling guilty because of procrastinating takes some effort. When you commit to a goal, you're committing to a form of work that brings ongoing rewards. When you procrastinate, you're choosing a self-punishing form of work.”
― Neil A. Fiore, The Now Habit: A Strategic Program for Overcoming Procrastination and Enjoying Guilt-Free Play

“the fear of failure, the fear of being imperfect (perfectionism), and the fear of impossible expectations (being overwhelmed) that prevent us from acting on and attaining humanly possible goals and relationships.”
― Neil A. Fiore, The Now Habit: A Strategic Program for Overcoming Procrastination and Enjoying Guilt-Free Play

“Replace “This project is so big and important” with “I can take one small step.”
― Neil A. Fiore, The Now Habit: A Strategic Program for Overcoming Procrastination and Enjoying Guilt-Free Play

“Remember to avoid self-criticism about setbacks or obstacles that appear in the midst of your project. As management consultant Michael Durst says, “You may not be responsible for causing what happens to you, but you are responsible for what you do to correct it.” This powerful message contains a crucial concept that many people miss: let go of worrying about the initial cause of the problem so that you can direct your energies to where they can do the most good—on the solution.”
― Neil A. Fiore, The Now Habit: A Strategic Program for Overcoming Procrastination and Enjoying Guilt-Free Play

“People don’t procrastinate just to be ornery or because they’re irrational. They procrastinate because it makes sense, given how vulnerable they feel to criticism, failure, and their own perfectionism.”
― Neil A. Fiore, The Now Habit: A Strategic Program for Overcoming Procrastination and Enjoying Guilt-Free Play

“Just because you find more work and problems on your path than you anticipated doesn’t mean that you made a wrong choice or a mistake!”
― Neil A. Fiore, The Now Habit: A Strategic Program for Overcoming Procrastination and Enjoying Guilt-Free Play

“you are the one who confuses just doing the job with testing your worth, where one possible mistake would feel like the end of the world.”
― Neil A. Fiore, The Now Habit: A Strategic Program for Overcoming Procrastination and Enjoying Guilt-Free Play

“Keep on starting and finishing will take care of itself.”
― Neil Fiore

“Whenever you begin to feel overwhelmed by the large, grand project that looms before you, remind yourself, “I can take one small step. One small step; one rough, rough draft; one imperfect sketch; one small hello. That’s all I need to do now.”
― Neil A. Fiore, The Now Habit: A Strategic Program for Overcoming Procrastination and Enjoying Guilt-Free Play

“You’ll need to drop the model of self-alienation that you learned as a child—the one that tells you, “You are lazy and need someone to force you to work.”
― Neil A. Fiore, The Now Habit: A Strategic Program for Overcoming Procrastination and Enjoying Guilt-Free Play

“Procrastination is a mechanism for coping with the anxiety associated with starting or completing any task or decision.”
― Neil A. Fiore, The Now Habit: A Strategic Program for Overcoming Procrastination and Enjoying Guilt-Free Play

“I’m not leaving the plane that way,” I said to myself. That’s when I discovered the power of choice—a third place that is neither “have to” or “want to.” That discovery freed me to move forward to make two other choices: I’m not going to be kicked out of this plane; and If I’m going to leave this plane, it will be under my own power. I’m going to maximize my chances of a safe exit. The change in my feelings at that moment was quite dramatic. Stress was replaced with purposeful action; a sense of victimhood was transformed into empowerment. There was no hesitation, no ambivalence.”
― Neil A. Fiore, The Now Habit: A Strategic Program for Overcoming Procrastination and Enjoying Guilt-Free Play

“In extreme cases of perfectionism, there is no distinction between judgment of one’s work and one’s sense of value as a person.”
― Neil A. Fiore, The Now Habit: A Strategic Program for Overcoming Procrastination and Enjoying Guilt-Free Play

“Having a fear of failure means you believe that even the smallest error could be evidence that you are a worthless and awful person. Having a fear of being imperfect means that it is difficult for you to accept yourself as you are—imperfect and, therefore, perfectly human—and so you interpret any criticism, rejection, or judgment by others as a threat to your very tenuous grasp on perfection. Having a fear of impossible expectations means fearing that even after you’ve worked hard and achieved the goals set for you, your only reward will be continually higher and more difficult goals to achieve, with no rest and no time to savor your achievements.”
― Neil A. Fiore, The Now Habit: A Strategic Program for Overcoming Procrastination and Enjoying Guilt-Free Play

“The Now Habit perspective does not accept that laziness, disorganization, or any other character defect is the reason you procrastinate.”
― Neil A. Fiore, The Now Habit: A Strategic Program for Overcoming Procrastination and Enjoying Guilt-Free Play

“Denis Waitley, the author of The Psychology of Winning and The Joy of Working, who defines procrastination as “a neurotic form of self-defensive behavior” aimed at protecting one’s self-worth.”
― Neil A. Fiore, The Now Habit: A Strategic Program for Overcoming Procrastination and Enjoying Guilt-Free Play

“Procrastination is not the cause of our problems with accomplishing tasks; it is an attempt to resolve a variety of underlying issues, including low self-esteem, perfectionism, fear of failure and of success, indecisiveness, an imbalance between work and play, ineffective goal-setting, and negative concepts about work and yourself.”
― Neil A. Fiore, The Now Habit: A Strategic Program for Overcoming Procrastination and Enjoying Guilt-Free Play

“The main reason we learn any habit, as Drs. Frederick Kanfer and Jeanne Phillips tell us in Learning Foundations of Behavior Therapy, is that even a seemingly counterproductive habit like procrastination is immediately followed by some reward. Procrastination reduces tension by taking us away from something we view as painful or threatening. The more painful work is for you, the more you will try to seek relief through avoidance or through involvement in more pleasurable activities. The more you feel that endless work deprives you of the pleasure of leisure time, the more you will avoid work.”
― Neil A. Fiore, The Now Habit: A Strategic Program for Overcoming Procrastination and Enjoying Guilt-Free Play

“To make changes, you’ll need to break out of automatic pilot and start making conscious choices when”
― Neil A. Fiore, The Now Habit: A Strategic Program for Overcoming Procrastination and Enjoying Guilt-Free Play

“you don’t have to do anything to be a worthwhile person. If you’re going to do it, however, you might as well choose to do it with full responsibility for the consequences. Your mind and body will be able to cooperate with that message. Every ‘I have to’ needs to be replaced with an adult decision about how you will begin the project or how you will explain to your boss that you will not do it.” She began after that first session to challenge every “I have to” with a decision—a clear choice that she made as a mature adult.”
― Neil A. Fiore, The Now Habit: A Strategic Program for Overcoming Procrastination and Enjoying Guilt-Free Play

“The healthy individual has an appetite for fruitful activity and for a high quality of life. —GEORGE BERNARD SHAW”
― Neil A. Fiore, The Now Habit: A Strategic Program for Overcoming Procrastination and Enjoying Guilt-Free Play

“In my work with thousands of procrastinators I have discovered that there is one main reason why we procrastinate: it rewards us with temporary relief from stress.”
― Neil A. Fiore, The Now Habit: A Strategic Program for Overcoming Procrastination and Enjoying Guilt-Free Play

“The Now Habit is based on the fact that somewhere in your life there are leisure activities and forms of work that you choose to do without hesitation [...] When you turn your attention toward what you love to do—activities that foster your spontaneity, motivation, and curiosity—you know that you are more than a procrastinator, more than just lazy.”
― Neil A. Fiore, The Now Habit: A Strategic Program for Overcoming Procrastination and Enjoying Guilt-Free Play

“But a failure to a perfectionist is like a small cut to a hemophiliac. It doesn’t seem like much to a robust person, but it can be fatal to someone whose system is overly sensitive. And a perfectionist is even more sensitive to failure because having his or her work judged “average” is tantamount to being considered “a failure as a person.” In extreme cases of perfectionism, there is no distinction between judgment of one’s work and one’s sense of value as a person. The need to procrastinate as a protection against criticism and failure is particularly strong for those who feel they have to succeed at one specific goal, seeing no acceptable alternatives. Those who gain their sense of identity from many areas are more resilient when failing in any one area. For example, a professional tennis player is more likely to be upset by losing”
― Neil A. Fiore, The Now Habit: A Strategic Program for Overcoming Procrastination and Enjoying Guilt-Free Play

“Yale psychologist Patricia W. Linville, who found that the more complex and varied your sense of self, the less likely you are to become depressed over stress in one area, because “you have these uncontaminated areas of your life that can act as buffers.”
― Neil A. Fiore, The Now Habit: A Strategic Program for Overcoming Procrastination and Enjoying Guilt-Free Play

“One of the most tragic things I know about human nature is that all of us tend to put off living. We are all dreaming of some magical rose garden over the horizon—instead of enjoying the roses that are blooming outside our window today. —DALE CARNEGIE”
― Neil A. Fiore, The Now Habit: A Strategic Program for Overcoming Procrastination and Enjoying Guilt-Free Play

“The fear of judgment is the key fear that stems from over-identifying who you are, your worth as a person, with your work. From this fear follows the counterproductive drive toward perfectionism, severe self-criticism, and the fear that you must deprive yourself of leisure time in order to satisfy some unseen judge.”
― Neil A. Fiore, The Now Habit: A Strategic Program for Overcoming Procrastination and Enjoying Guilt-Free Play