Blog

Zig Ziglar Quotes: This article is a collection of top Zig Ziglar quotes with a narrative about them. We talk about 15 famous quotes by Zig Ziglar, along with a debate on their meaning. The purpose of these quotes is to not only motivate us but also creatively question our approach. The ultimate goal of all quotes is to make us think and inspire us into action. In this debate, we will try to do the same.

I’d love to know your favourite one from this collection or if there are any missing ones you like. I found some of these quotes in conflict with vulnerability and transparency in facing situations. However, they get us thinking in the right direction which is a great way to move forward.

Zig Ziglar Quotes

These top Zig Ziglar quotes fill us with fervour and passion. Some of the most popular themes and quotes in this article are:

• Motivation is like bathing and hence we recommend it daily
• Your attitude will determine your altitude
• Positive thinking will let you do everything better
• A failure is an event, not a person
• If you learn from defeat, you haven’t really lost

You’ll find more in this collection as you scroll through. But I was too tempted to talk about these 5 top zig Ziglar quotes before getting into the details. I’d love to know what your top pick is!

Motivation doesn’t last long, and neither does bathing!

Everything worthwhile demands effort. We are all creatures of habit – first we make our habits and then our habits make us. It is unfair to expect motivation to stay forever if we don’t do anything about it. A great way to maintain this balance is by understanding the difference between motivation and inspiration. Inspiration is an inherent, long-lasting driver. But motivation is a powerful short-term spurt that can help sustain inspiration.

Things take effort. In order to achieve anything – we need to show commitment, perseverance and passion for it. It fizzles with time if we don’t apply consistency. Probably this is my top zig Ziglar quote for the fact that it talks about continuous development. It reiterates the point that success is a journey rather than an unrealistic one-off event. Motivation needs nourishment, care and consistent growth. Just like with everything else, motivation is an integral and continuous part of who we are as people.

People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing – that’s why we recommend it daily.

Zig Ziglar

Your attitude will determine your altitude – Top Zig Ziglar Quotes

This is probably an overused quote – mostly in the hiring parlance. It is easier to teach technical skills as opposed to attitude or behaviour. Our attitude is such a compelling factor in our personality. It has the ability to view outcomes in a different perception to reality.

Sometimes, this attitude helps us but some other times benefits us immensely. We must identify elements of personality that strengthen us and ensure that this forms a part of our daily attitude. There will be some weaknesses or unhelpful traits, but the biggest success lies in our ability to achieve balance.

These powerful thoughts of Zig Ziglar continue to motivate because your attitude is in your control and continued nourishment.

Your attitude, not your aptitude, will determine your altitude.

Zig Ziglar

Failure is a detour, not a dead end – Zig Ziglar’s inspirational quotes

Does failure have to be fatal? We’ve had so many different quotes talking about the temporary nature of the failure. Yet, it is the most common fear out there – the fear of failure. Even in this collection of top Zig Ziglar quotes, you’ll find 2-3 about failure, fear and a positive attitude. A comprehensive list of failure quotes can help us reframe the approach.

Although they’re all dependent on the circumstances, it is fair to say that failure sometimes gets more importance than it deserves. if we are able to put failure in its place, we can create a feedback loop to continually grow and evolve.

Failure is a detour, not a dead-end street

Zig Ziglar

Desire takes mediocrity and turns it into an outstanding success

Desire sounds like a negative word. But what would we be without these desires? Our lives would be in a forever status quo without a positive seed of inspiration. I’d like to argue that it is a fundamental positive trait that motivates us to move away from our comfort zone.

It is important however for us to understand what our desires are. Again, some desires help us whereas others can harm us. Ultimately it is about the right balance and using desire in such a way that it continues to help our growth and fulfilment.

 Desire is what takes the hot water of mediocrity and turns it into the steam of outstanding success

Zig Ziglar

Positive thinking will let you do everything better – Zig Ziglar

I will probably cringe a bit at this quote. Positive thinking is great but doesn’t always give you the results. If things are not working out, we ought to recognise and find a way to resolve it.

But I see a point in this quote, positive thinking alone will not solve your problems. But just staring at your problems will not solve them either. Ultimately, the only way to face your problems is head-on. You need to find a solution to what’s bothering you. Or else, the value of the challenge is completely lost.

Instead of worrying or feeling sad – embrace emotions as they come. Ultimately, these emotions are asking you to do something. And perhaps positive thinking is a good starting point.

Positive thinking will let you do everything better than negative thinking will

Zig Ziglar

Remember that failure is an event, not a person – Zig Ziglar

The moment something goes wrong, our minds are trained to fixate on responsibility. Culturally responsibility is never the best thing because you are always blamed for it. Maybe because people want to wash their hands off on someone and say that they are safe.

However, if we are looking at life from an individual level, our personal failures most times are not because of us or our incapabilities. It is because of certain events not happening the way we want or certain events happening which wrecked our plans. Sometimes all it takes is for us to cut some slack and be a little more realistic about things and move towards a solution as fast as possible. (Related: How to deal with failure?)

Remember that failure is an event, not a person

– Zig Ziglar

When you do more than you’re paid for, eventually you’ll be paid for more than you do – Zig Ziglar

I love this quote – not because it makes you work hard, but because it shifts focus from a short-term gain to a long-term approach.

I will defer you back to the book – Drive by Daniel Pink. Money works only for short-term, transactional and boring tasks. Our inspiration is intrinsic and intertwined with who we are as a person. If someone sees you doing more, you become more indispensable, you become more dependable and valuable. People at this stage pay you more to get value rather than just transactional work. In the long run, that pays you more than the simple overtime pay!

When you do more than you’re paid for, eventually you’ll be paid for more than you do

– Zig Ziglar

If you learn from defeat, you haven’t really lost – Zig Ziglar

Everything comes at a cost –  a success does and so does a failure. And failure most times is the learning cost, the opportunity cost and a lot of other costs which we cannot put a finger on. But if we let it slide, it will be under the covers without any real good coming out of it.

If you want to make the most of a defeat, then dig a little deeper, look beyond what you can see and you can see the wonders. You can see the solutions which can solve not just the current problem but the ones which can occur later. Things are always deeper than they appear and if we are able to habituate that depth, life is at a different level altogether.

If you learn from defeat, you haven’t really lost

– Zig Ziglar

This reminds of Abdul Kalam’s quote on failure

Lack of direction, not lack of time, is the problem – Zig Zaglar Quotes

It is a common excuse when someone says that they don’t have time. True, I could not agree more, time is a very limited resource in this world and not the easiest to have control over. But something equally strong most of us suffers from is the lack of direction. When we say direction, we mean that single goal or desire which is talked about in the first quote. Kinda like the principle that everything we do leads us there.

It might feel romantic when someone says that the entire universe conspires to make a dream come true, but there is also this reality that we make it happen. The moment we identify that unified goal, we can start seeing the connections between the finer things we do and how they merge together to form the bigger picture. It is kinda like the small goals leading to the bigger picture.

Lack of direction, not lack of time, is the problem. We all have twenty-four hour days.

Zig Ziglar

If you have enough push, you don’t have to worry about the pull.

This is one quote we discussed in detail very recently – The Push and Pull of Motivation. I strongly believe that both of them play a very important role in keeping us on track to achieving our goals in life. Granted that the ‘Pull’ is a more dominating force since it goes deeper to the source question of “WHY” – asks you about why exactly you are doing something.

But that doesn’t mean we can completely neglect the push factors as well. If we go by the thought of small goals leading to the larger ones, it makes sense to motivate ourselves to the shorter goals which in turn lead to the larger ones. The Pull factors provide us with the long-term motivation needed to stay with the cause while the short spurts act as constant catalysts and symbols that the goal indeed can be turned into a reality.

If you have enough push, you don’t have to worry about the pull

– Zig Ziglar

It’s not what you’ve got, it’s what you use that makes a difference – Zig Ziglar

It is the simple difference between potential energy and kinetic energy. We all have the expertise and the resources to achieve the goals we set our minds to. The only thing that is stopping us is the motivation to perspire and make that goal a reality. In reality, there are few things which we strongly care for, some of us take it a notch ahead and show our passion for it. Some of them take it even further and make something credible and sensible out of it and that is how achievement is done. This is primarily the difference between hard work and talent – talent doesn’t succeed if you don’t have hard work to support it.

Maybe I am simplifying the concept of achievement here. But that is how all achievements are aren’t they? It is not some genius guy/gal who goes out to achieve. It is and can be done by any one of us and that is the beauty of a possibility. And come on, it is not the fastest fish or the one with the biggest gills that is the most successful, it is the one which has enough reasons to be successful.

It has a lot more to do with how we use our strengths than just having a few to tick some boxes!

It’s not what you’ve got, it’s what you use that makes a difference

– Zig Ziglar

Success is the doing, not the getting; in the trying, not the triumph. Success is a personal standard, reaching for the highest that is in us, becoming all that we can be. If we do our best, we are a success.

The journey is more important than the results. It is one quote that is overly used and sort of cliched as well. But then it is cliched for a reason, it is common knowledge because it is the truth that so many people have realised time and again.

I think there is something very powerful in what we become in the journey, how we gain some qualities and become stronger as people. People seem to have a wrong tendency of looking at success as this one big blob which can turn around our lives. Maybe they do it because it helps them live in the world of fantasy where all problems can be sorted out in one single go. But if you think closely, doesn’t it sound ludicrous?

I mean how can we get something unless we become capable of it?

Success is the doing, not the getting; in the trying, not the triumph. Success is a personal standard, reaching for the highest that is in us, becoming all that we can be. If we do our best, we are a success.

Zig Ziglar

Obstacles are the things we see when we take our eyes off our goals – Zig Ziglar Quotes

There will always be roadblocks, challenges, things which will keep us a bit tensed and worried. Nothing worthwhile in life has ever been easy – not even getting to school on time. But the point is not in counting the number of challenges we see along the way. They will always be there.

With time, we have to gain this capacity of living life through and beyond these problems. That doesn’t mean we neglect them, it means that we know where to place them. The thorns should not be given as much importance as the rose is. We are not after the thorns are we?

Obstacles are the things we see when we take our eyes off our goals

– Zig Ziglar Quotes

Expect the best. Prepare for the worst – Zig Ziglar Quotes

It finally boils down to this – hope that things will work out – gives you the motivation to get things in order and work accordingly.

Prepare for the worst because there will be obstacles. Life doesn’t necessarily work as simplistic as your plan. It will throw you off guard and challenge you constantly. But you cannot let that beat you away from your real purpose. Capitalize on what comes – I think this is important, something we need to train ourselves on to make the best of any situation that comes in front of us. Left to itself everything on earth is hard, it is up to us to simplify and make sense of it.

Expect the best. Prepare for the worst. Capitalize on what comes.

Zig Ziglar

Success is like a ladder, and no one has ever climbed a ladder with their hands in their pockets.

Success is never easy, it is never going to be easy. We all need to work hard, and we all need to get out of our comfort zone. We all need to make that stretch and believe in the impossible when no one else believes in us.

But that is part of the package, you cannot get one without getting the other. So instead of cursing the things that cannot work for us, look at life the way you can get the most of it. You are not the only target, there are hundreds of us in the same zone, and we have to fight for what we believe in.

Success is like a ladder, and no one has ever climbed a ladder with their hands in their pockets.

Zig Ziglar

References:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zig_Ziglar