While new year’s resolutions have become a cliché in society, the new year is an opportunity to reflect and reset. It’s not so much about taking on a brand-new persona and doing something extraordinary as people make it out to be. January is a chance to take stock of your dreams and goals and how you can best achieve them through dedication and commitment. It’s also a time for people to give themselves some grace for the things that may have negatively impacted them in the past year or so. With that in mind, here are 10 inspirational quotes to reset for the new year.
1. “Take a long, hard look down the road you will have to travel once you have made a commitment to work for change. Know that this transformation will not happen right away. Change often takes time. It rarely happens all at once.”
— John Lewis
U.S. Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) listens during a news conference Sept. 25, 2017, on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)
2. “Always ask yourself if what you’re doing today is getting you closer to where you want to be tomorrow.”
— Paulo Coelho
3. “Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly.”
— Langston Hughes
4. “If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude.”
— Maya Angelou
Dr. Maya Angelou attends her 82nd birthday party with friends and family at her home on May 20, 2010, in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. (Photo by Steve Exum/Getty Images)
5. “It will always seem impossible until it’s done.”
— Nelson Mandela
6. “Cheers to a new year and another chance for us to get it right.”
— Oprah Winfrey
7. “Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.”
— Barack Obama
U.S. President Barack Obama (L) leaves after his address to a joint session of Congress as House Majority Whip Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC) looks on in the House Chamber of the U.S. Capitol Feb. 24, 2009, in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Pablo Martinez Monsivais-Pool/Getty Images)
8. “I get angry about things, then go on and work.”
— Toni Morrison
Novelist Toni Morrison is presented with a Presidential Medal of Freedom by U.S. President Barack Obama during an East Room event May 29, 2012, at the White House in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)
9. “Change is made of choices and choices are made of character.”
— Amanda Gorman
10. “The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.”
— Alice Walker
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