I spent some time reading quite a few books on purpose, to understand what made them best sellers and whether they have any common themes. They do, and one of them is "don't settle".
What does "don't settle" mean? In his 2005 Stanford University commencement address, Steve Jobs described it well - "If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on."
"Don't settle" means persistence, endurance, being uncomfortable and trying harder every time you fail. Here's some great "don't settle" quotes from these 5 worthwhile reading purpose books.
"We’ve been trained to prefer being right to learning something, to prefer passing the test to making a difference, and most of all, to prefer fitting in with the right people, the people with economic power. Now it’s your turn to stand up and stand out."
Seth Godin, The Icarus Deception: How High Will You Fly?
"You and everyone you know are going to be dead soon. And in the short amount of time between here and there, you have a limited amount of fucks to give. Very few, in fact. And if you go around giving a fuck about everything and everyone without conscious thought or choice—well, then you’re going to get fucked."
Mark Manson, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life
"Remarkable visions and genuine insights are always met with resistance. And when you start to make progress, your efforts are met with even more resistance. Products, services, career paths - whatever it is, the forces for mediocrity will align to stop you, forgiving no errors and never backing down until it's over. If it were any other way, it would be easy. And if it were any other way, everyone would do it and your work would ultimately be devalued ... without people pushing against your quest to do something worth talking about, it's unlikely to be worth the journey. Persist." Seth Godin, Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us
"So often, we pretend we’ve made a decision, when what we’ve really done is signed up to try until it gets too uncomfortable." Jen Sincero, You Are a Badass: How to Stop Doubting Your Greatness and Start Living an Awesome Life
"Failure is not an option if success is just a matter of trying harder." W. Bruce Cameron, A Dog's Purpose