8 Life-Changing Quotes From Jim Rohn to Make You a Better Person
Jim Rohn was an American entrepreneur, motivational speaker, and best-selling author. He was born in 1930 in Washington State and passed away in 2009 in California. After a very successful early career in direct sales, Rohn went on to become a speaker in venues worldwide and was famously a mentor to Tony Robbins. Rohn became world-renowned for his business philosophies and personal development strategies.
In his 1981 book The Seasons of Life, Rohn “shows the parallels between life and the changing seasons. To realize that the seasons will change without fail and what we can do to utilize each season to get the greatest rewards. It is basically based on the parable of the sower and the reaper. What to do in one season, to ensure success in another season.”
You can purchase The Seasons of Life as an ebook, audiobook, or paperback on Amazon and other retailers.
Life is ever-changing, and as HG Wells once said in 1945, “Adapt or perish, now as ever, is nature’s inexorable imperative.”
I’ve gathered my top eight quotes from Jim Rohn’s beautiful book that give you not only real, genuine life and business advice but also show you definitive actions you can take right now to be more successful and help you on your journey of growth and self-reflection.
1. Change Your Attitude First
“Attitude determines choice, and choice determines results.” - Jim Rohn
If you want to change your results, changing your actions gives you the best chance. But before you can change the choices you make, you need to have the right attitude. If you have the mindset that you “can’t change” or that you are satisfied with sitting on the couch and not chasing your dreams, chances are you are not going to do something meaningful or live up to your true self’s potential. Ask yourself what kind of person you want to be and make specific, actionable changes to become that person. Go in with the attitude that you CAN and WILL make changes and choices to be your best self starting right now.
2. Stay Away From Toxic People
“Eating alone is better than mingling with those whose conversation is negative.” - Jim Rohn
What we can achieve in this world is very much a reflection of our state of mind. Stay away from toxic thoughts and toxic conversations to keep your mind in its best shape. It’s not a selfish act. You need a clear mind to contribute meaningfully to the world. It’s not just your own toxic thoughts and actions you should steer clear of, either. You do not have to keep toxic people in your life just because they have been there for a long time. Don’t invest time and energy into people who bring you down, belittle you, or bring toxicity into your life. Look into sunk cost fallacy - just because you’ve invested time into something doesn’t mean you should invest more if it’s not doing any good for you.
3. Read Regularly
“There is little difference between those who cannot read and those who will not read—the result of both is ignorance. ” - Jim Rohn
Reading allows us to learn from others’ successes and, more importantly, their failures. The best way to learn is probably from our own experience and mistakes. However, to make us reflect deeper on our own experience, we need to get ideas from good books. Reading expands your horizons, your vocabulary, and your imagination. Nothing bad comes from reading! Try reading for just 20 minutes per day if you are not a daily reader.
4. Expect Winter And Just Keep Working
“To make a constant and conscious effort to improve ourselves in the face of changing circumstances is to assure a tolerance for the winters of life's events, and to permit ourselves the full enjoyment of the blessings of life's harvest come the autumn.” - Jim Rohn
Life is full of randomness. It only makes sense that the wind is sometimes against us. Being aware of the inevitable obstacles is a great start to overcome them. Build your character strong enough to withstand them. Build your system strong enough to minimize its negative effects. To do this, you have to not only understand that life is cyclical and will inevitably have hard downtimes, but also prepare for them. For example, a freelancer or seasonal business can know when the slower months are and prepare for them by scheduling more work prior to those times, adjusting how they market their services during those months, and/or adjust their expectations. Or perhaps they choose to spend the time working on personal projects or going on vacation during the slow months.
5. Don’t Procrastinate
“Today’s procrastination will surely be tomorrow’s regret.” - Jim Rohn
When we procrastinate, most of the time, it is usually for a deeper reason than just being lazy. Maybe the task is so big that you have to break it down into manageable steps or chunks. For example, “write a book” is a huge task. But breaking it down into steps will make it feel less overwhelming and much more doable. Start with writing a list of tasks. Something like “Step 1: Brainstorm ideas for a book. Step 2: Write out an outline of the story.” Step 3: Write the introduction to the book.” And so on.
Procrastination is an effect. You have to figure out the cause or root and solve it. Don’t beat yourself up if you procrastinate. It doesn’t help. Instead, find ways to minimize your chances of procrastinating. This may be writing to-do lists, setting up an incentive for when you finish things, or finding a time management or focusing technique that works for you. Timeboxing and the Pomodoro Technique are popular and effective ones.
6. Invest Your Time And Energy Wisely
“The greatest value of the past is how wisely we invest it in the future. Let the past be a servant for making the future both more enjoyable and profitable.” - Jim Rohn
To invest your time and energy wisely, you must ask yourself what things you need to do to achieve your goals. This means defining and articulating your specific goals, whether those are starting a business, retiring early, buying a home, or any other goal in life. Once you know what your goals ARE and what you need to do to work toward them, spend your time and effort on taking steps every day that will put you on the path to reaching those goals. For example, if buying a home is one of your goals, then spending time researching your ideal location, home prices, interest rates, and working on your credit are all great steps to getting there.
7. Deliberately Work on Becoming Better Than Your Yesterday Self
“Learn to work harder on your own personal growth than anything else.” - Jim Rohn
If you are not sure what your highest-level goal is, a good approach to live a meaningful life is to just work on becoming a little better every day. Meanwhile, your highest-level goal may gradually become more clear. Personal growth and self-improvement are a major part of living your best life. To become better, we must learn, grow, and self-reflect. We have to work each day to be better, whether that is learning to better control our emotions, quiet the mind, or even just accept that self-care is essential and incorporate it into our lives.
8. Never Complain
“Do not blame the problems and challenges of life for your humbling circumstances. Does the seed complain because of the rocks it must grow over, under, around, or through?” - Jim Rohn
Here, Rohn explains that situations and circumstances are simply obstacles to plow through, jump over, go around, or burrow underneath. You can choose to complain about your situation in life, or you can make conscious choices to move forward and overcome the obstacles in your path to become stronger.
One example of this might be someone not being able to afford to go to college. Instead of taking on massive debt for a degree they are not quite sure of, that person may choose to spend a few years working and learning and then go to college later when they can afford to pay mostly out of pocket and know exactly what career path they want. Or perhaps they choose to go to community college first to save money. Or maybe they take a gap year to gain experience working and research scholarships and grants.
In that example, the person is finding a way around the obstacle instead of stopping and complaining that the obstacle exists, which is far more productive and aids in personal growth.
Conclusion
If you can implement even some of Jim Rohn’s advice, it’s almost inevitable that you will live a more purposeful life. Don’t try to change everything in your life all at once. Remember, real, lasting change comes from developing new habits and improving in incremental, gradual ways all the time. Start with one thing at a time and deliberately work on becoming better every day. Your improvement will eventually compound, and you will get closer and closer to the best version of yourself.
