10 Stoic Quotes To Help You Adjust To Your New Lifestyle

Stoicism has been used most effectively by both slaves and Emperors, athletes and business executives, and fighter pilots who were taken captive. Stoicism has, essentially, been used by people from every walk of life you could think of, for thousands of years. As Ryan Holiday would say, it works.

Yes, it is a philosophy, but it’s more like an operating system for human beings.

It teaches us how to deal with adversity, how to handle prosperity, and how to stay even-keeled through the inevitable ups and downs of everyday life. It becomes even more important as a way of life when you’re changing your way of life. Like when you’re changing your diet, for example.  

With that said, here are 10 Stoic quotes that will help you on your journey to lose weight sustainably and evolve your lifestyle into one you’re proud of:

1. “You have power over your mind—not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.” – Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

Imagine the following situation: it’s a co-worker’s birthday and he’s brought in donuts to celebrate. Maybe you’re annoyed. “I’m trying to be good, damn it!”

Let me ask you: is that annoyance helping? You have no control over whether or not the donuts exist, whether they’ll be at the office. The donuts are an outside event. They exist beyond you. However, you have complete control over whether or not you eat one. Sounds simple, because it is. It’s a choice.

Control your decisions, not your external environment.

2. “Because a thing seems difficult for you, do not think it impossible for anyone to accomplish.” – Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

Do you know anybody who has an amazing, healthy relationship with food? Someone who eats whatever they want, but all they seem to want to eat is food that’s good for them?

I’m talking about someone who can pass up the bread without a second glance, or who actually leaves food on the plate because they’re full and leave you asking yourself, “WTF is THAT about?!”.

Maybe it’s always been easy for that person. Or maybe that person struggled for years like you wouldn’t believe but came out the other side stronger than ever. You have no insight into her struggle, her story, her inner world.  

Either way, it doesn’t really matter if it’s easy or difficult for her to consistently stay in shape. What’s important is that this person has proved that it is possible to have a healthy relationship with food, to be in the best shape of her life, and to maintain it.

And she is composed of the same stuff as you. It’s likely that this kind of friend can teach you something if you just ask. Don’t just stand there in a judgment of your own projection.

3. “Here is a rule to remember in future, when anything tempts you to feel bitter: not ‘This is misfortune’, but ‘To bear this worthily is good fortune.’” – Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

Let’s be real: learning how to conquer your cravings and master your diet is going to be hard. Really hard. That’s why I write about it so frequently. There are going to be times when you’re tested, and I mean really tested. You are going to want to give in, I promise you that.

You are going to want to utter those infamous words—“F**k it”—and just go to town.

Remember, you always have a choice. Your temptation is a gift. An opportunity to say “No,” to choose otherwise than what every cell in your body feels like it’s screaming for.

The next time temptation strikes, imagine how powerful you’ll feel when you choose yourself and don’t give in.

And how much more prepared you’ll be for the next time.

4. “Do what you will. Even if you tear yourself apart, most people will continue doing the same things.” – Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

How many times have you been on a diet? 3, 4, 10 times? You might even be the type who’s always on some kind of diet.

You already know that “going on a diet” doesn’t work. You knew that after the first time you tried and (inevitably) failed. But how many more times did you try?

When you’re on a diet, you stress and put pressure on yourself to be perfect. When you’re not on the diet, you’re sabotaging yourself left and right. Bingeing because, after all, you’re “not on a diet anymore!” – or so you tell yourself. There’s no mindfulness about eating, you just eat whatever the hell you feel like without any regard for the consequences to your body or your mind. Are you tearing yourself apart, and continuing to do so?

What would happen if you weren’t afraid to take a risk? To try something else?

“Dieting” is fundamentally at odds with learning. It is the explicit reason why you haven’t been successful achieving or maintaining health and happiness up to now.

Deliberate practice is the only path toward building a lifestyle that’s yours to keep. You might have failed before, but it doesn’t need to continue being that way.

5. “Wherever there is a human being, there is an opportunity for a kindness.” – Seneca, Dialogues and Essays

When you’re “on a diet” and you inevitably make a mistake (or “f**k up,” as you likely call it) – how do you treat yourself? With compassion and understanding? I honestly doubt it.

When you’re in a lifestyle transition, you’re not going to be perfect. It just won’t happen. I’ve coached hundreds of clients and none have ever been perfect. In fact, I teach them to protect their imperfections. Don’t be perfect, I say. Be yourself. You can succeed by just being you.

What I’m asking you right now is: can you let go of being perfect and still treat yourself with kindness? Can you be “good enough” and still love yourself?

For the perfectionists out there, this is an extremely difficult principle to internalize. But you must if you want to be successful in the long run. “Good enough” is an attitude to quiet the fixed mindset inside each of us. This shift in perspective single-handedly changed my life and is a key indicator of all of my clients who are “successful” in conventional terms. 

Adopting a spirit of “good enough” allows you to improve without feeling like you have to constantly protect your ego. At the beginning phases of growth, this attitude is essential because you need to accept certain shortcomings and push through regardless, rather than try to make up for them. Doing something 80% or 90% well is a very difficult concept for fixed mindset individuals to adopt – especially high achievers – and yet is a precursor to successfully making the rapid change you seek.        

6. “Focus on the moment, not the monsters that may or may not be up ahead.” – Ryan Holiday, The Obstacle Is The Way

I talk a lot about anchors. “Anchors” are my word for habits. They are the healthy practices we choose to commit to on a daily basis that ground us to the present and sustain us over time. Anchors are the pillars of a healthy life. Hitting them is non-negotiable.

Often, our emotions can sabotage our greater goals because change is hard and our emotions don’t respond well to “hard.” That’s fine. Anchoring the day with healthy habits that do and don’t have anything to do with eating healthily will create a domino effect and, over time, compound into wide-sweeping change.

Once you notice yourself doing things that are healthy, that support your health and greater goals, that you once-before only imagined yourself wishing you could accomplish, you’ll begin to see yourself from a new perspective. You’ll feel inspired by seeing yourself change. You’ll notice the change by the way you orient yourself in the world; that is, by the things you do, the actions you take, what you’re eating, how you’re getting it, the language you’re using, the subjects of your fascination, what you speak about at parties, etc. You’ll notice that the way you feel is directly connected to how you’re supporting yourself, how you’re treating yourself.

Rather than trying to outthink or outperform our bodies, we can find the middle ground between body and mind. The two work together. The sweet spot is somewhere in the middle. It is a place of harmony, where no energy is pushing you in either direction.

7. “It’s okay to be discouraged. It’s not okay to quit. To know you want to quit but to plant your feet and keep inching closer until you take the impenetrable fortress you’ve decided to lay siege to in your own life—that’s persistence.” – Ryan Holiday, The Obstacle Is The Way

Eating healthy and training mindfully to follow through with your intentions can be tedious and demanding. It’s much easier to press “snooze” on your goals and wait until next year when “things are less crazy.”      

When you want to do something — something big and important and meaningful like losing a bunch of weight and building a healthy lifestyle — you will be subjected to treatment ranging from indifference to outright sabotage. Count on it. Most of this treatment will come from the inside, from the ego. Those negative and critical thoughts will appear within your own mind as you set course for a new, healthier path in life.

The ego holds an inflated view of your abilities and doesn’t like to make new commitments if it’s not entirely sure it can succeed. The ego will work extra hours to protect you from yourself. That’s basically what fear is. A defense mechanism that ends up sabotaging you from the inside out. 

Your own path, this mission toward mastery and health you aspire to, will in some ways be defined by the amount of nonsense you are willing to deal with. In this phase, you must practice seeing yourself with a little distance, cultivating the ability to get out of your own head. Detachment is a sort of natural ego antidote.

8. “You know what’s better than building things up in your imagination? Building things up in real life.” – Ryan Holiday, The Obstacle Is The Way

I know you’re daydreaming about having a fantastic body, a thinner face, smaller hips, defined abs, and whatever else you want. I know you can picture yourself having conquered your cravings and mastered your diet and feeling better and being more than ever before.

And that can be fun. That’s one of the first steps.

But actually doing it and having it and being it…well, how would that feel?

When you’re a novice at something—for example, healthy living—it’s outrageously tempting to want to be perfect. You want to get it right all at once rather than find your stride, invest in mistakes, and master the major principles.

Trying to do everything “100%” is a deadly gamble and often a major contributor to early-stage fatigue, burnout, and/or giving up.

Think of it this way: if soon after picking up a guitar for the first time you’re already frustrated because you still can’t play a solo like Hendrix, you’ll automatically toss the guitar aside, reject deep practice, and remove yourself from the process before you’ve actually learned how to play the instrument at the most basic level. We must build a foundation and then grow from there.      

9. “Your potential, the absolute best you’re capable of—that’s the metric to measure yourself against. Your standards are. Winning is not enough. People can get lucky and win. People can be assholes and win. Anyone can win. But not everyone is the best possible version of themselves.” ― Ryan Holiday, Ego Is the Enemy

Please never compare yourself to anyone else. “Sheryl doesn’t have to try, she’s just skinny.” For all we know, Sheryl is bulimic and suffers every night from the intensity of her own self-loathing. You experience her as skinny and project her into occupying some blissful state of being.  

The point is that it doesn’t matter what anyone else is doing: their experience of themselves has absolutely nothing to do with your experience of yourself. The moment you learn this is the moment you’ll find your center.

Never fix your identity to fit the ideal of perfection: “I have to be 100% perfect on this diet. Not only do my food choices HAVE to be spotless, but I HAVE to work out for an hour every morning. This is GO TIME.” How many of us do this? We fantasize about how perfect we’ll be, how this time is different. When that initial wave of motivation dies out a few weeks later, what happens then?

10. “Now is the time to get serious about living your ideals. How long can you afford to put off who you really want to be? Your nobler self cannot wait any longer. Put your principles into practice–now. Stop the excuses and the procrastination. This is your life! […] Decide to be extraordinary and do what you need to do–now.” – Epictetus, The Art of Living

We want to build a proactive way of life. We want a life that is fundamentally moved from the inside out as opposed to a reactive way of life, where we’re constantly reacting to inputs and stimuli that we might not necessarily want, and where we’re constantly beleaguered or oppressed by a sense of how we’re going to be perceived by others (“social pressures”).

How you do anything is how you do everything. The little things matter. The little things are a reflection of how you approach life’s more important tasks.

Most people think that they can wait around for the big moments in life “to turn it on,” but if you don’t cultivate turning it on to meet the little moments—and there are thousands more little moments than big—then there’s no chance to master the big ones.   

This is your life, the choice is yours.