Arne Duncan Quotes

Being critical of yourself is important sometimes: not during the season, because you need to be confident, but during the winter, it's always a good time to look at yourself in the mirror and say, 'This, this, and this I need to improve.' That's how it is.

educators best serve students by helping them be more self-reflective. The only way any of us can improve—as Coach Graham taught me—is if we develop a real ability to assess ourselves. If we can’t accurately do that, how can we tell if we’re getting better or worse?

If you don't second-guess yourself, then you are not trying to get better.

I think my game measures up pretty well to myself.

True confidence is firmly planted in reality. To grow your confidence, it's important to do an honest and accurate self-assessment of your abilities. If there are weaknesses in your skill set, make plans for strengthening these skills and find ways to minimize their negative impact.

Improving, for me, is quite natural as I'm always critical of myself.

I am very self-critical and always will be. I think this makes me want to improve, always. But just because I'm self-critical and say what I thought of my performance in a game, it doesn't mean I will bring myself down, ever.

I feel like interviews are the only time I actually analyze my own work.

You have to look back on everything that you've done and critique yourself and find the holes in your game that you can continue to get better.

Of course I am doing a good job, but you can always improve, and I just leave it up to people outside, around me or whatever, to judge on that.

I watch all our games again at home and I know when I have made a mistake and when I haven't.

Check up each week on the progress you are making. Ask yourself what mistakes you have made, what improvement, what lessons you have learned for the future.

I think that's the single best piece of advice: constantly think about how you could be doing things better and questioning yourself.

It's more important to know your weaknesses than your strengths.

Spending too much time focused on others' strengths leaves us feeling weak. Focusing on our own strengths is what, in fact, makes us strong.

I have never gauged myself against anyone else.

And I like asking questions, to keep learning; people with big egos might not want to look unsure.

'What am I missing?' is a much more important question than 'How cool am I?'

You have to attempt to be objective about yourself.

I think it's very important to have a feedback loop, where you're constantly thinking about what you've done and how you could be doing it better.

I started second-guessing myself and was always questioning myself. I have really learned a lot.

The day people around me stop questioning my character is the day my character begins to grow vulnerable.

No manager in the world gets good results all the time and you know there's people always ready to have a snipe. In fact I'm my own biggest critic, I really am. Because my own standards are so high, I criticise myself behind the scenes more than perhaps I should, according to people who know me well.

The key thing is you can be the only person, your own critic.

I'm hard on myself, so I'm working on shifting perspective toward self-acceptance, with all my flaws and weaknesses.