Top 40 Darrin Donnelly Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Passion and optimism, these are things you have to give yourself. Nobody can give them to you.”

— Darrin Donnelly

2. “At any given time, you’re either moving forward or you’re moving backward. There is no in-between. There’s no such thing as maintaining the status quo. It.”

— Darrin Donnelly

3. “Fear creates indecisiveness and indecisiveness makes you weak.”

— Darrin Donnelly

4. “There’s no such thing as staying the same. At any given moment, you’re either moving forward or moving backward. Keep moving forward!”

— Darrin Donnelly

5. “Champions choose faith. Champions choose to be fearless. Why? Because victory favors the fearless. Everything is a choice. I choose to be fearless.”

— Darrin Donnelly

6. “If you want to achieve greatness, you have to be willing to make changes, no matter how uncomfortable those changes might be in the short-term.”

— Darrin Donnelly

7. “Things have a way of working themselves out if we just remain positive.” – LOU HOLTZ, College Football National Champion Coach and Member of the College Football Hall.”

— Darrin Donnelly

8. “Anyone can be motivated to work hard and go after something for a day, a week, or a few months. But champions are motivated to work towards something each and every day for years and years.”

— Darrin Donnelly

9. “The people who achieve the most success in life are not those who somehow find a way to avoid making mistakes or encountering obstacles. No, mistakes and obstacles are an unavoidable part of life. The most successful people are those who are willing to keep moving forward after making mistakes. They find a way not to avoid life’s inevitable obstacles, but to overcome them!”

— Darrin Donnelly

10. “You have to push yourself. You have to change. It’s a hard thing to do. Nobody likes change. People get comfortable where they are and they don’t want to risk losing what they’ve got. But to become the best you’re capable of becoming, you have to be willing to do uncomfortable things. You have to be willing to change.”

— Darrin Donnelly

11. “Complacency is one of the worst things that can happen to a person. If you don’t have that drive and enthusiasm to always get better, you’re gonna get beat by somebody who does.”

— Darrin Donnelly

12. “The fact is, confidence can and must be generated from within if you want to be successful.”

— Darrin Donnelly

13. “It’s what you do after the decision is made that matters more than the decision itself.”

— Darrin Donnelly

14. “Optimism won’t prevent negative events from happening; optimism will ensure that you respond to those negative events in the most beneficial way possible – a way that leads to positive outcomes. Your mindset determines how you respond to the negative events that will inevitably happen to us all.”

— Darrin Donnelly

15. “Here’s the most important thing to understand: your life will move in the direction of your thoughts and you’ll never achieve more than you believe you can.”

— Darrin Donnelly

16. “The successful person is the person who is willing to make mistakes, over and over, and keep getting back up to try again. The successful person is the one who gets knocked down nine times, but gets up ten times.”

— Darrin Donnelly

17. “You are the culmination of all your choices up to this point.”

— Darrin Donnelly

18. “Most people try to be good at lots of different things, but they never become great at any one thing. You’ll see extraordinary results when you stop trying to be good at lots of things and start trying to be great at one thing. You’ll achieve greatness when you sharpen your focus down to one, single, overriding goal.”

— Darrin Donnelly

19. “You don’t just owe it to yourself to be an optimist; you owe it to everyone around you.”

— Darrin Donnelly

20. “If there’s one single lesson I think people today are more in need of learning than anything else it’s this: YOU control your own destiny; nobody else does. YOU are responsible for where you go from here; nobody else is.”

— Darrin Donnelly

21. “The man who refuses to change will never reach his full potential.”

— Darrin Donnelly

22. “The difference between champions and everyone else isn’t that champions always make the right decision, the difference is what they do after the decision is made. Wrong or right, they move forward and adapt along the way.”

— Darrin Donnelly

23. “You can choose to look backward or look forward. The choice is yours. The backward thinker will fall into insecurity and self-pity. The forward thinker will respond with confidence and a sense of empowerment.”

— Darrin Donnelly

24. “Don’t put off the pursuit of your dreams.”

— Darrin Donnelly

25. “The world will always be changing, but the rules for success will always remain the same.”

— Darrin Donnelly

26. “My point is, no single play or single moment accomplishes anything of significance. It’s the little things done right and done repeatedly over a long period of time that add up to big results.”

— Darrin Donnelly

27. “My friend Satchel Paige once said, ‘Never let your head hang down. Never give up and sit down and grieve. Find another way. And don’t pray when it rains if you don’t pray when the sun shines.’ That’s a pretty good way to live your life, if you ask me.”

— Darrin Donnelly

28. “Don’t let the fear of change keep you from taking the risks necessary to achieve greatness.”

— Darrin Donnelly

29. “The single most important choice you can make is what type of attitude you’re going to have,” Bud said. “Everything begins with the attitude you choose. Everything you do and every thought you think follows your attitude. Losing follows a losing attitude. Winning follows a winning attitude. It’s that simple. “If you want to turn things around and start winning, you have to first develop a winning attitude.”

— Darrin Donnelly

30. “Don’t worry about losing. Think about winning.” – Mike Krzyzewski, 5-Time National Champion Basketball Coach.”

— Darrin Donnelly

31. “As soon as you stop trying to move forward and you set your sights on maintaining, you start slipping backwards.”

— Darrin Donnelly

32. “Confidence doesn’t prevent life from throwing adversity at you. Nothing will prevent that. But confidence will help you overcome whatever adversity comes your way.”

— Darrin Donnelly

33. “Every night when you go to bed, do an honest evaluation of what you did during the day. Did you give your best effort? Did you keep a positive attitude or allow yourself to get cynical or apathetic? Did you learn something important? Did you follow through on your commitments? Did you do something to push yourself closer to your goals? If the answer is no, acknowledge it and promise to not waste tomorrow. If the answer is yes, be proud of yourself and promise to not waste tomorrow.”

— Darrin Donnelly

34. “If you choose to believe that an obstacle is actually an opportunity for something better, an amazing thing happens.”

— Darrin Donnelly

35. “If you ever find yourself feeling down or lacking energy, it’s because you don’t have any goals that excite you. Find a goal you’re excited about and you will become an energetic person.”

— Darrin Donnelly

36. “Don’t procrastinate and avoid difficult challenges. Attack and adapt.” “But what if I lose.”

— Darrin Donnelly

37. “Think about it. If you’re convinced that whether you succeed or fail at something isn’t really determined by you, then you’ll be much more likely to throw in the towel and give up when things get tough – and let me tell you, things will always get tough at times. Why continue to work at something if you’re convinced that your effort won’t ultimately make much of a difference?”

— Darrin Donnelly

38. “If you surround yourself with good and positive people, good and positive things will happen.”

— Darrin Donnelly

39. “How you respond to the events you encounter determines your outcome. This is the secret to a successful life.”

— Darrin Donnelly

40. “It’s not about what happened in the past, it’s about how you respond to what happened in the past. It’s about the lessons you learned and how you’re going to apply those lessons going forward.”

— Darrin Donnelly

41. “How freeing it is to stop stressing over things you can’t control. It frees you up to give your full attention to the things you can control. And how you handle the things you can control determines whether you’re successful or not.”

— Darrin Donnelly

42. “People who are insecure and loaded with self-doubt live in the past. They keep looking backwards. People who are confident are focused on the present and the future. They’re always looking forward.”

— Darrin Donnelly

43. “It’s amazing what you can achieve when you start focusing on the reasons why you can do something instead of the reasons why you can’t.”

— Darrin Donnelly

44. “What’s more important than the decision you make is your attitude and your effort after it’s made. That’s what determines your results. The person with the most aggressive attitude and the most relentless effort usually wins.”

— Darrin Donnelly

45. “You show me a weak leader and I’ll show you someone who’s afraid to make decisions. Great achievers will sometimes make poor decisions, but they’ll never make weak decisions.”

— Darrin Donnelly