"There are no escalators, only stairs." As much as we'd all like to believe that there's a magic bullet that will take us straight to the top with very little effort, there just isn't. Getting to the top means taking the stairs one at a time. A lot of us spend time looking for shortcuts when, really, we should be focusing on getting to the next step, and then the one after that, and then the one after that.

"There are many things in life you have no control over and it is inefficient to become frustrated by that reality." With the subjective nature of writing, it's so incredibly difficult to discern what works and what doesn't. Sometimes good books never take off and bad books do. Sometimes a great author has one big success and then never has another one even though his subsequent works are technically just as good. Sometimes your book never makes it out of a publisher's slush pile while someone else's inferior story does. The thing about all these kinds of situations is that you have no control over their outcome other than giving it your best shot and moving on if it doesn't work out. The less time you spend fretting over what you can't control, the more time you can spend on the next thing.

“Whatever you’re doing in life, whether you’re a doctor, painter, student, or lemonade stand owner, it’s important to know the game so that you can excel at playing it.” Writers have to understand the rules of the game. Those include accounting for the subjective opinions of others, accepting that criticism of the work is not necessarily criticism of the writer him or herself, and that there is no one true path to success as a writer. The better we understand how to be a writer (and how readers respond to a writer's work), the better we can excel at our endeavors.

"Humans have a tendency to overcomplicate simple things because we overthink them. But if you take a step back and remember your priorities, it becomes easier to make a decision." Analysis paralysis can be a very real and very intimidating obstacle to success. In today's information age, it's so easy to become bogged down in details and overanalyze everything. How many of us spend days comparing and contrasting and agonizing over electronics, appliances, or automobile purchases? How many of us spend hours at a bookstore fretting over which book to buy? In acknowledging our tendency to overcomplicate things, we can better recognize how much analysis is enough and how much is too much.