Welcome to the Daily Quote, the podcast designed to kickstart your day in a positive way. I'm your host, Andrew McGivern, and this episode is brought to you by the Great News podcast. Because great news should be heard, and the link is right here in the show notes.
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Today’s quote is from Plato. He was an ancient Greek philospher and one of the most influencial thinkers in Western history. A student of Socrates and a teacher of Aristotle, Plato explored justice, knowledge, virtue, politics, love, and what it means to live a good life.
Plato once said,
“The first and greatest victory is to conquer yourself”
This is so true. The only person that truly has the ability to hold yourself back is YOU.
Managing our own impulses, reactions and emotions is hard.
Self-mastery is not about suppressing yourself. It isn’t about having less freedom. It is about being able to choose your response before automatically reacting. It is about taking control of your habits instead of letting your habits unconsciously controlling you. Self-mastery actually gives you more freedom by giving you more choices. Don’t be a slave to your impulses and bad habits.
The battles we face are not always external. Even when facing an external conflict or circumstance the real obstacle isn’t the circumstance itself but the story we are telling ourselves about the circumstance.
Plato is saying the best thing you can do, your greatest victory, is to conquer yourself! To overcome the internal struggle that is limiting your potential.
The longer version of Plato’s quote takes this idea a step further though.
“The first and greatest victory is to conquer yourself; to be conquered by yourself is of all things most shameful and vile.”
Plato is saying not only is self-mastery the greatest victory you can achieve, but that failing to do so is the worst possible outcome.
To be conquered by yourself is of all things most shameful and vile.
Think about your own life and how failing to conquer yourself is hurting you.
Maybe it is the bad habit of procrastination. You didn’t consciously choose this habit. You acquired it over time. Maybe it is time to conquer it.
Maybe it is a limiting belief that you acquired from your family, religion, culture or friends. If this belief is stopping your progress then it is time to replace it with an empowering belief.
Beliefs are just thoughts we have labeled as truth.
Maybe you have an irrational fear of moving outside your comfort zone. Maybe you don’t want to put yourself out there because you might be criticized or laughed at. Maybe you just can’t play life at the next level because you fear failure, or fear success or fear change.
Maybe you know what you need to do but you sabotage yourself every time.
Overcoming these internal challenges are the greatest victories you can have in life.
So here’s the question:
What is one part of yourself you’d like to have a little more control over today?
And what can you do right now to conquer that part of yourself?
Personal progress is worth celebrating. We often look for huge external achievements, while some of our most important victories happen quietly inside us.
The key insight here is that those little internal victories make the external big wins possible!
This is why Plato says the FIRST and greatest victory is to conquer yourself.
Put the oxygen mask on yourself first…
That’s going to do it for today. I’m Andrew McGivern signing off for now, but I’ll be back… tomorrow! Same pod time, same pod station with another Daily Quote.
