Shinsa and Shiai – Quotes for Inspiration (Part 1)

Here’s some inspiring quotes for those preparing for a shinsa or shiai on the topics of:

• Preparation
• Practice
• Habits
• Success and Failure

Additional quotes on the very related topics of “Determination, Effort, Winning and Losing” can be found in a separate post “Shinsa and Shiai – Quotes for Inspiration (Part 2).  It is interesting how they seem to apply to many aspects of life.

On Preparation:

• “Before anything else, preparation is the key to success.”  – Alexander G. Bell.
  
• “There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, learning from failure.” – Colin Powell.
• “Poise and confidence are not possible unless you have prepared correctly.  Failing to prepare is preparing to fail. Poise and confidence are a natural result of proper preparation.” – John Wooden
• “The score (Shinsa) will take care of itself when you take care of the effort that precedes the score (Shinsa).” – John Wooden (with the text in parentheses added).
• “It’s not the will to win that matters—everyone has that. It’s the will to prepare to win that matters.” – Paul “Bear” Bryant.
• “You have to rely on your preparation. You got to really be passionate and try to prepare more than anyone else, and put yourself in a position to succeed, and when the moment comes you got to enjoy, relax, breathe and rely on your preparation so that you can perform and not be anxious or filled with doubt.” – Steve Nash.
  
• “If you fail to prepare, you’re prepared to fail.” – Mark Spitz.
• “The key is not the will to win… everybody has that. It is the will to prepare to win that is important.” – Bobby Knight.
• “Spectacular achievements are always preceded by unspectacular preparation.” – Roger Staubach.

On Practice:

• “Talent is never enough. With few exceptions the best players are the hardest workers.” – Magic Johnson.
• “You can only fight the way you practice.” – Miyamoto Musashi.
• “The greatest mistake is to continue to practice a mistake.” – Bobby Bowden.
• “Practice doesn’t make perfect. Perfect practice makes perfect.” – Vince Lombardi.
• “The vision of a champion is someone who is bent over, drenched in sweat, at the point of exhaustion, when no one else is watching.” – Anson Dorrance.
• “If you don’t practice you don’t deserve to win.” – Andre Agassi.
• “If you can’t do it slow you can’t do it fast.” – Unknown.

On Habits:

• “Good habits are difficult to acquire, but easy to live with. Bad habits are easy to acquire, but difficult to live with.” – Zig Ziglar.
• “Habits are like a cable. We weave a strand of it everyday and soon it cannot be broken.” – Horace Mann.
• “A habit is something you can do without thinking – which is why most of us have so many of them.” – Frank Clark.
• “Bad habits are your enemy.  Starve them the fuel of repetition and they will begin to fade.” – J. J. Goldwag.
• “Correcting one bad work habit will introduce your mind to the endless possibilities.” – J. J. Goldwag.
• “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” – Aristotle.
• “Motivation is what gets you started.  Habit is what keeps you going.” – Jim Ryun.
• “Bad habits are easier to abandon today than tomorrow.” – Yiddish Proverb

On Success and Failure:

• “Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any other one thing.” – Abraham Lincoln.
• “I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life, and that is why I succeed.” – Michael Jordan.
• “Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm.” – Sir Winston Churchill.
• “Things that hurt, instruct.” – Benjamin Franklin.
• “It’s not whether you get knocked down.  It’s whether you get up.” – Vince Lombardo.
• “History has demonstrated that the most notable winners usually encountered heartbreaking obstacles before they triumphed. They won because they refused to become discouraged by their defeats.” –  Bertie C. Forbes.
• For more quotes on ‘failure’, here’s “30 Powerful Quotes on Failure” by Ekaterina Walter