Even if you are not into spirituality or gurus, I am pretty sure you at least know and love one guru: Master Yoda from Star Wars. Yoda is one of my absolute favorite Hollywood heroes. Each of his quotes is pure wisdom. Here is a collection of my personal top 10 Yoda quotes. I believe it helps to integrate those wise words into our daily lives.
“Do or Do not. There is no try!”
So often we doubt before things have actually even really started. This quote is an inspiration to make a true decision first, and then really abide with it – without looking back our doubting it – you just follow through, go your way and keep chasing your goal.
“Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.”
Fear easily tends to take over control in life. The fear of missing out, the fear of not being enough, the fear of not being understood, the fear of not being able to make it or not being able to meet our debts. Fear to let go, fear to show emotions, fear to follow our own path. Fear has very many faces. But at the end of the day, fear leads to suffering, as this magical quote by Yoda perfectly depicts. Instead of dwelling on fear and being controlled and haunted by it, we should rather laugh fear in the face and focus on trust and love instead. Don’t you agree?
“Always pass on what you have learned.”
We more and more live in a “sharing is caring” kind of world nowadays. The free publication of content and information is becoming more normal. Sometimes though, information is still held back, we hide it or hold it back, because we might think we are not ready yet to share it. But when are you ever really ready? If you are always waiting until you are ready, you’ll be waiting forever. I believe the path is the goal, not just the goal itself. And it is great and shows strength if you are able to share what you are experiencing on your way as well, while still walking it. We are all a “work-in-progress”, nobody is perfect and seldomly we are directly “born Jedi”. Encourage sharing your experiences with others, especially with young “apprentices” that you can help. It is ok to learn and grow!
“Patience you must have.”
Foto: L.Güntsche, The Dignified Self
We always want every thing immediately. It is never too fast. “Asap” (as soon as possible) is one of the most used abbreviations in business environments. Things should always be accelerated. But sometimes the answer lies in the stillness, in the patience and in the serenity. There is a reason why we sometimes feel we need to sleep on something before we make a decision. And there is a reason why top managers meditate or visit a Yoga class before they feel positively empowered to meet their next challenge. I believe it is very significant to be still sometimes and cultivate inner trust. Everything comes to you in exactly the right moment. So “patience you must have”, as Yoda said. Thats where the strength within lies.
“You must unlearn what you have learned (…) – Always in motion the future is.”
The digital transformation challenges us to rethink and redefine old patterns. Here it can be useful to apply this quote by Master Yoda. Sometimes it is ok to learn and try something new – instead of clinging to how it has always been in the past. In this openness we might find new answers. If we always do exactly the we always have, there is little space for surprises of even better outcomes. The future is always in motion – every day, every second. It potentially changes with each of our decisions and deeds. Nothing is as certain as change – especially in digital times and in the technology age, this perception is quite relevant.
“To answer power with power, the Jedi way this is not. In this war, a danger there is, of losing who we are.”
There is probably always a certain situation or person that easily has a way to cause a feeling of anger inside of us. In moments like this, it helps to wait a bit before you respond. The stimulus- reaction time is entirely up to us. If we react in anger, words might be said that we later regret. Here an inner balance and calmness and mindfulness can prevent you from hurtful disputes. This can be practiced well with mindfulness meditations.
“Train yourself to let go of everything you fear to lose.”
The art of letting go is probably one of the hardest. But surely one, that can bring the highest level of freedom, too.
“When you look at the dark side, careful you must be. For the dark side looks back.”
If we focus on the negative and bad, the likelihood of increasing exactly that, is quite high. This is also knows as the law of attraction. If we believe in it or not, the focus on the things that are positive and that we truely want, surely leads to an inner smile. This smile quite often leads to similar reactions in the external world. Where as if you focus on what you do not want and on the negative, you tend to attract negative reactions as well, as you probably sending our a negative vibe. Everything has different perspectives and angles, and it is fun to actually decide to look at the ones, you really like and that excite you. This is, for example, communicated and applied well in NLP (Neuro-Linguistic-Programming) trainings.
“Truly wonderful, the mind of a child is.”
What did we like to do as a kid? How did we feel? Children have the gift of following their intuition. They behave the way they feel and want to, without considering and reconsidering all the time. They are simply themselfes – which is wonderful. As grown-ups, we tend to forget about that or have difficulty hearing and following our intuition sometimes, here we can really learn from children. Reawaken the child inside of you every now and then and just be!
(Luke:) “I can’t believe it”. (Yoda:) “That is why you fail.”
Believe that you can do it, and you most likely will achieve it! Dream big!
