It has been said that it takes 21 days of consistent action to change a behavior or create a new habit. Often times we want something different but old tapes continue to play in our head that keep us from reaching our goals and dreams. This can range from trying to drop 10 lbs to gaining the courage to start your work at home business.

The truth is going from an employee to an entrepreneur can be a little scary. However one of the ways to reduce fear and increase success is to lean on the wisdom and experience of others who have been successful in life.

Some may be famous and others not. Nevertheless, the wisdom if you choose to listen can help you create a paradigm shift in thinking which the foundation to massive success. I have always loved to listen to the champions that have gone before.

Here are 21 quotes that I have thought about often and used to inspire me to down size my boss and it can do the same for you.

1. Once in a while it really hits people that they don’t have to experience the world in the way they have been told to. —Alan Keightley

Were you told to go to school and get a good job? I was. While I know my mother meant well and thought she was preparing me tobe able to have access to the pearly gates of success she could not know how things would change.

However, I knew that I wanted more? How about you? Remember, you don’t have to settle for 60 hour work weeks, 30 minute commutes, your kids in day care or relocating for the promise of career advancement. You don’t have to be part of the grind the rat race.

2. You will never change your life until you change something you do daily. — Mike Murdock

Are you afraid to get started? It may seem overwhelming but if you focus on simply daily actions the big goals take care of themselves.

3. No one lives long enough to learn everything they need to learn starting from scratch. To be successful, we absolutely, positively have to find people who have already paid the price to learn the things that we need to learn to achieve our goals —. Brian Tracy

Get help right out the gate. Find a mentor, coach, mastermind or become a part a community that will help to support you in your success. You want to become a life long learner. Attend seminars and boot camps in your specialized area knowledge. When you learn from people who have been successful and you model their activities you will get their results.

4. By stretching yourself beyond your perceived level of confidence you accelerate your development of competence. — Michael J. Gelb

The only way to gain confidence in a certain area is to take action. It is in the action you will start to have small victories which will increase your level of success.

5. If you don’t program yourself, life will program you! —Les Brown

don’t let other people make decision for your life. If you have no plan on you will create wealth during your working years your employer will. Have no retirement plan? You don’t the government to be your strategy. Remember, itís your life and itís now or never.

6. There are two primary choices in life: to accept conditions as they exist, or accept the responsibility for changing them. —Denis Waitley

No matter what your current conditions are you have the opportunity to change them. However, this only can happen if you take total responsible for the direction of your life. If you don’t like where you are forgive yourself and focus on solutions. don’t focus on problems or why you think something canít happen. Start to ask powerful questions the answers will start to appear.

7. Everything you need you already have. You are complete right now, you are a whole, total person, not an apprentice person on the way to someplace else. Your completeness must be understood by you and experienced in your thoughts as your own personal reality. — Dr. Wayne Dyer

8. Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. Who are we NOT to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous?  —Marianne Williamson

When I first heard this quote it brought tears to my eyes. What talent or gift do you have that you are allowing fear to rob you from achieving? Doing what you were called to do it is bigger than you. You are unique and sharing your gift with someone could make a difference in their life. Are you playing it too small? Are staying in a job that doesnít stretch you? What can you do to make a difference?

9. You’ll see things “you never knew you never knew.” — Disney’s Pocahontas

The journey and pursuit of freedom allows you to see the world in a different way than others. As you grow you will naturally see opportunities that others can not see. Jason Oman author of Conversation with Millionaires calls it “Money Goggles.” Even if you were in a pitch black room you will have infrared vision in the area of creating opportunities to make money.

10. A different world cannot be built by indifferent people. —Peter Marshall

You canít have what you want in life by being indifferent. Successful people are passionate and sometimes radical in pursuit of their dreams. don’t allow yourself to be in environments that discourage you.

11. What is it that you like doing? If you don’t like it, get out of it, because you’ll be lousy at it. You don’t have to stay with a job for the rest of your life, because if you don’t like it you’ll never be successful in it. —Lee Iacocca

Why would you ever spend most of your waking hours doing something that you don’t like? The key to success is finding something you love to and set the standard for excellence.

12. Simply making consistent investments in our self-education and knowledge banks pays major dividends throughout our lives. — Jim Rohn

The self-education I have pursued after college has been my greatest return on investment. There is something to be said when you develop skills that you know will support you in any economy. Specialized knowledge applied with all out massive results will yield hefty financial and emotional rewards.

13. Finding your purpose may be a lifelong pursuit or you may have discovered it when you were 5 years old. There’s no absolute timeline for anyone. Thatís a good reason never to give up, to keep on discovering things every day. — Donald Trump

If you have not discovered your life’s purpose don’t be hard on yourself. Start to ask yourself questions and enter into a discovery process. Allow yourself to dream without concerns of how you will get it done. Every time you think you have found the answer did a little deeper with more questions. Rarely are your true goals, purpose and desires on the surface of your soul. Often times they have been put away for safe keeping to protect yourself from disappointment. Keep discovering new things until your purpose is crystal clear.

14. What material success does is provide you with the ability to concentrate on other things that really matter. And that is being able to make a difference, not only in your own life, but in other people’s lives. —Oprah Winfrey

When you get the money out of the way your world expands even greater. Oprah exemplifies this principle. She now looks for ways to help others in everything she does. Whether it is giving more support to your family or contributing to a worthy cause, having freedom as a work from home entrepreneur will allow you make your mark in the world.

15. The world cares very little about what a man or woman knows; it is what the man or woman is able to do. — Booker T. Washington

So what can you create and add value to the world? I love this quote because it demonstrates very clearly that what matters are results at the end of the day. don’t get caught up in theories. Make sure you are constantly taking action that moves you towards a specific goal.

16. There are risks and costs to action. But they are far less than the long-range risks of comfortable inaction. — John F. Kennedy

Are you so afraid to fail that you just canít get out of the box? don’t be. Many people have “failed” their way to million dollar empires. It is better to do something and be wrong then to do nothing at all. When you choose to do nothing someone else usually makes a decision that impacts you and you ending up doing something you don’t want to do.

17. I don’t believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want. –George Bernard Shaw

There is no such thing as luck. You create luck by working and preparing for the opportunity. When you start to put yourself out there the universe gives back. Make sure you are clear of your intentions and then go and make it happen.

19. It’s not the hours you put in your work that counts, it’s the work you put in your hours. — Sam Ewing

You have the same 24 hours in the day as Bills Gate and Oprah. don’t sabotage yourself by saying, “Well they can do it because their rich.” Unless you inherit wealth there is a price that everyone has to pay. You don’t have to work all day at your work from empire. However, you must consistently put time in if you want success.

20. You must do the thing you think you cannot do. — Eleanor
Roosevelt.

One of the greatest gifts you can give yourself is to do something you think you can not do. It doesnít have to be something huge. A simple action of courage goes a long in adding to your confidence in every area of your life.

21. You will never leave where you are, until you decide where you’d rather be. — Dexter Yager

Until you know your purpose you will be at risk for staying in a job that slowly eats away at you. Why? You simply don’t have a strong enough goal to leave your current job. When the goal is strong enough you will search to find the answers.