I have a complicated relationship with motivational quotes.
Half of them make me want to roll my eyes — the “boss babe energy”, the “she believed she could so she did” stuff plastered over stock photos of women laughing at salads. I find them a bit hollow, to be honest. Like being cheered on by someone who’s never had a hard day.
But there are some quotes I come back to again and again. Ones that land differently depending on where you are in life. I’ve got a few pinned in my notes app that have genuinely helped me through rubbish patches.
So this is that list.
June 2026
- Short motivational quotes (for when you need something fast)
- Motivational quotes for when life feels hard
- Motivational quotes for building something slowly
- Motivational quotes for confidence and self-belief
- Motivational quotes for Monday mornings (or any morning, really)
- How to actually use motivational quotes
Short motivational quotes (for when you need something fast)
These are the five-words-or-fewer ones. Good for when you’re tired and don’t need a speech, you just need a nudge.
- “Start where you are.”
- “Done is better than perfect.”
- “One day or day one.”
- “Progress, not perfection.”
- “This too shall pass.”
- “Small steps still move you forward.”
- “You’ve done hard things before.”
- “Rest, then try again.”
- “You don’t have to be ready.”
- “Less comparing, more doing.”
- “It gets easier. Keep going.”
- “Slow is still movement.”
- “Be where your feet are.”
- “Not everything needs to be figured out today.”
- “You’re closer than you think.”
- “Good enough is still good.”
- “Just start. Fix it later.”
- “One thing at a time.”
- “Your pace is valid.”
- “Show up anyway.”
Motivational quotes for when life feels hard
Not the “look on the bright side” ones. The honest ones, for when things are actually difficult.
- “It’s okay not to be okay — just don’t unpack and live there.” — Nate Dallas
- “The only way out is through.” — Robert Frost
- “Rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.” — J.K. Rowling
- “You don’t have to be positive all the time. It’s perfectly okay to feel sad, angry, annoyed, frustrated, scared. Having feelings doesn’t make you a negative person.” — Lori Deschene
- “Fall seven times, stand up eight.” — Japanese proverb
- “When you can’t control what’s happening, challenge yourself to control how you respond.”
- “Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes it’s the quiet voice at the end of the day saying ‘I will try again tomorrow.'” — Mary Anne Radmacher
- “The hardest step is the one you take when you don’t feel like moving.”
- “You are allowed to be both a masterpiece and a work in progress simultaneously.” — Sophia Bush
- “Not all storms come to disrupt your life. Some come to clear your path.”
- “Everything you’re going through is preparing you for everything you asked for.”
- “Some days the mountain is smaller than it looks. Some days it isn’t. Keep walking either way.”
- “It’s a bad day, not a bad life.”
- “You survived every difficult day so far. That’s a 100% success rate.”
- “Pain is real. But so is hope.”
- “Healing is not linear. Neither is progress.”
- “You’re not behind. You’re on your own path.”
- “Every expert was once a beginner. Every pro was once an amateur. Every icon was once an unknown.”
- “The struggle you’re in today is developing the strength you’ll need tomorrow.”
- “Hard days are the ones that build you.”
Motivational quotes for building something slowly
I work for myself. I’ve been building this blog for over a decade. There are weeks where it feels like nothing is happening — but something is always happening, just slowly. These are the quotes I come back to when I need reminding of that.
- “Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together.” — Vincent Van Gogh
- “A river cuts through rock not because of its power, but because of its persistence.”
- “Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out.” — Robert Collier
- “You don’t have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great.” — Zig Ziglar
- “Inch by inch, life’s a cinch. Yard by yard, life is hard.”
- “The secret of getting ahead is getting started.” — Mark Twain
- “Consistency is more important than intensity.”
- “Repetition is the mother of skill.”
- “Discipline is choosing between what you want now and what you want most.”
- “The work you do today that nobody sees is the foundation everyone will notice tomorrow.”
- “You don’t need to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.” — Martin Luther King Jr.
- “A year from now you’ll wish you started today.”
- “Build something every day, even if it’s small.”
- “The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.” — Lao Tzu
- “Every master was once a disaster.”
- “Talent is a starting point. Everything else is work.”
- “Don’t count the days. Make the days count.” — Muhammad Ali
- “Be patient with yourself. Nothing in nature blooms all year.”
- “You’re not stuck. You’re just in the middle of your story.”
- “The grind is part of the glory.”
Motivational quotes for confidence and self-belief
Some of us spend a lot of time not quite believing in ourselves. I’m very much one of those people. These are the ones that help.
- “Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right.” — Henry Ford
- “You have been criticising yourself for years and it hasn’t worked. Try approving of yourself and see what happens.” — Louise Hay
- “You are enough, exactly as you are.”
- “Believe in yourself even when no one else does. Especially then.”
- “You’ve been assigned this mountain to show others it can be moved.”
- “The most common form of despair is not being who you are.” — Søren Kierkegaard
- “Don’t shrink yourself to fit into spaces you’ve outgrown.”
- “You owe yourself the love you so freely give to others.”
- “Your value doesn’t decrease based on someone’s inability to see your worth.”
- “Stop waiting for someone to tell you you’re allowed.”
- “Your opinion of yourself is the only one that really matters.”
- “Be yourself. Everyone else is already taken.” — Oscar Wilde
- “The most powerful thing you can do is believe you deserve good things.”
- “You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.” — A.A. Milne
- “Doubt kills more dreams than failure ever will.”
- “If you’re waiting for a sign, this is it.”
- “No one has ever made a difference by being like everyone else.”
- “You belong in the room.”
- “Other people’s opinions of you are none of your business.”
- “Self-confidence is the best outfit. Rock it and own it.”
Motivational quotes for Monday mornings (or any morning, really)
Let’s be honest. Most of us need a bit of a push at the start of the day. These are the ones that help me get out of bed and into it.
- “Today is a good day to have a good day.”
- “Every morning you have two choices: continue to sleep with your dreams, or wake up and chase them.”
- “Make today so good that yesterday gets jealous.”
- “Rise up, start fresh, see the bright opportunity in each new day.”
- “You’ve got this. Seriously.”
- “Motivation gets you started. Habit keeps you going.”
- “Don’t watch the clock. Do what it does — keep going.” — Sam Levenson
- “Good morning. Time to be brilliant.”
- “The only bad workout is the one that didn’t happen.”
- “Your future self is watching you right now through your memories. Make it a good one.”
- “You don’t find the time. You make it.”
- “The hardest part of any task is starting.”
- “Eat the frog. Get the hardest thing done first.”
- “Do something today your future self will thank you for.”
- “Mornings are for fresh starts.”
- “Wake up. Show up. Keep up. Glow up.”
- “Today’s effort is tomorrow’s result.”
- “Three things you can do today: start, try, improve.”
- “Small actions done consistently lead to massive results.”
- “Today is the day. Not tomorrow. Today.”
How to actually use motivational quotes
If you’re anything like me, you collect these things, screenshot them, pin them to your notes app and then completely ignore them when things get hard. I’ve been there. Here’s what actually helps.
Write the ones that land. When you read something that genuinely gives you a feeling in your chest, write it down somewhere physical. On a Post-it. In a notebook. On your phone wallpaper. The act of writing it makes you more likely to remember it.
Don’t collect them, read them. Having fifty motivational quotes saved somewhere you never look is the equivalent of buying running shoes and leaving them in the box. Pick three or four that genuinely mean something to you right now and come back to those.
Match the quote to the problem. “Progress, not perfection” is not going to help you when you’re going through something genuinely hard. And “it’s a bad day, not a bad life” isn’t much use when you’re trying to build something slowly. Use the right quote for the right moment.
Say them out loud. I know that sounds a bit much. But there’s a difference between reading something and hearing yourself say it. Try it with one that particularly resonates and see if it lands differently.
If you’re looking for motivational quotes specifically for mums, I’ve got a whole separate post over at Motivational Quotes for Mums — they’re a bit more tailored to the particular kind of tired that comes with parenting.
Which ones resonated with you? Drop a comment below — I always find it interesting to know which quotes land for different people.
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