Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit. Aristotle

• discipline
• practice
• habit
• excellence

What we hope ever to do with ease we may learn first to do with diligence. Samuel Johnson

• practice

The first thing any man has to know is how to handle himself. Training counts. You can't win any game unless you are ready to win. Connie Mack

• sports
• preparation
• practice

We talk in coaching about "winners" - kids, and I've had a lot of them, who just will not allow themselves or their team to lose. Coaches call that a will to win. I don't. I think that puts the emphasis in the wrong place. Everybody has a will to win. What's far more important is having the will to prepare to win. Bobby Knight

• sports
• preparation
• practice

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Discipline is the refining fire by which talent becomes ability. Roy L. Smith

• discipline
• talent
• ability
• practice

The greatest mistake is to continue to practice a mistake. Bobby Bowden

• practice
• mistakes

If you see players who hate practice, their coach isn't doing a very good job. Bill Walsh

• sports
• coaching
• practice

The absolute bottom line in coaching is organization and preparing for practice. Bill Walsh

• preparation
• coaching
• practice

Anything worth doing well is worth doing poorly at first. Anonymous

• excellence
• practice

If I was murdered as soon as practice is over, there would be so many suspects among the players that they wouldn't even try to investigate. Lou Holtz

• sports
• football
• practice

Practice doesn't make perfect. Perfect practice makes perfect. Vince Lombardi

• practice
• coaching
• sports

Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection we can catch excellence. Vince Lombardi

• perfection
• practice

We can’t get good at something solely by reading about it. And we’ll never make giant leaps in any endeavor by treating it like a snack food that we munch on whenever we’re getting bored. You get good at something by doing it repeatedly. And by listening to specific criticism from people who are already good at what you do. And by a dedication to getting better, even when it’s inconvenient and may not involve a handy bulleted list. Merlin Mann

• self improvement
• practice

The first step to getting good is admitting that you aren't (yet.) Seth Godin

• self improvement
• practice

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The factor that seems to explain the most about great performance is something the researchers call deliberate practice. Exactly what that is and isn't turns out to be extremely important. It definitely isn't what most of us do on the job every day, which begins to explain the great mystery of the workplace - why we're surrounded by so many people who have worked hard for decades but have never approached greatness. Deliberate practice is also not what most of us do when we think we're practicing golf or the oboe or any of our other interests. Deliberate practice is hard. It hurts. But it works. More of it equals better performance. Tons of it equals great performance. Geoff Colvin

• practice

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Deliberate practice is characterized by several elements, each worth examining. It is activity designed specifically to improve performance, often with a teacher's help; it can be repeated a lot; feedback on results is continually available; it's highly demanding mentally, whether the activity is purely intellectual, such as chess or business-related activities, or heavily physical, such as sports; and it isn't much fun. Geoff Colvin

• practice

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Great performers isolate remarkably specific aspects of what they do and focus on just those things until they are improved; then it's on to the next aspect. Geoff Colvin

• excellence
• practice

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Doing things we know how to do well is enjoyable, and that's exactly the opposite of what deliberate practice demands. Instead of doing what we're good at, we insistently seek out what we're not good at. Then we identify the painful, difficult activities that will make us better and do those things over and over. After each repetition, we force ourselves to see - or get others to tell us - exactly what still isn't right so we can repeat the most painful and difficult parts of what we've just done. We continue that process until we're mentally exhausted. Geoff Colvin

• practice

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The reality that deliberate practice is hard can even be seen as good news. It means that most people won't do it. So your willingness to do it will distinguish you all the more. Geoff Colvin

• practice

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Our delight in any particular study, art or science rises in proportion to the application which we bestow upon it. Thus, what was at first an exercise becomes at length an entertainment. Joseph Addison

• practice

When people ask me now if I miss coaching UCLA basketball games, the national championships, the attention, the trophies, and everything that goes with them, I tell them this: I miss the practices. John Wooden

• practice
• coaching

For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them. Aristotle

• education
• practice

You don't become great by trying to be great. You become great by wanting to do something, and then doing it so hard that you become great in the process. Randall Munroe

• greatness
• excellence
• practice

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Some men learn all they know from books; others from life; both kinds are narrow. The first are all theory; the second are all practice. It's the fellow who knows enough about practice to test his theories for blow-holes that gives the world a shove ahead, and finds a fair margin of profit in shoving it. George Horace Lorimer

• education
• practice

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You can't look good and get better at the same time. Anonymous

• self improvement
• appearance
• practice

Nobody likes practice, but what's worse: practicing, or sucking at something? Sam Halpern

• practice

There's no denying the importance of practice. The hard part is figuring out what to practice. Scott Adams

• practice

This is the source.

All athletes talk about hard work; they all talk about “grindin'.” Commercials celebrate the guy who always does more, never stops, pours sweat, and keeps on working. It's a cliché and it's meaningless; in sports, hard work is assumed, and results are what matter. Can you work efficiently, productively, in a way that hones your performance and gives you an advantage? Idan Ravin

• coaching
• practice