15 Quotes to Help Project Managers Stay Motivated

The holidays are just around the corner! If you are a project manager, this means finalizing projects and meeting critical deadlines, monitoring team assignments, renewing contracts, onboarding new projects, and so much more for next quarter -- sounds a bit stressful, right?

Well, truthfully, it is quite stressful around this time of the year for project managers.

So, how do you stay motivated?

Often, a few kind words can inspire, motivate, and offer a real perspective. Kyle Bento, our Digital Marketing and Business Growth Strategist at IMPACT recently shared 10 great quotes that offered sales motivation.

Inspired by his blog, I spent some time surfing the web for quotes relatable to project managers and project management.

Here are 15 inspirational quotes to help project managers stay focused and driven to make it past the finish line. Even if you are not a project manager, you can still learn from these quotes:

1. “Operations keep the lights on, strategy provides the light at the end of the tunnel, but project management is the train engine that moves the organization forward” - Joy Gumz, Senior Director at Project Auditors (Tweet This)

2. “If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got” – Anthony ’Tony’ Robbins, Motivational Speaker  (Tweet This)

3. “If you can’t describe what you are doing as a process, you don’t know what you are doing” – W. Edwards Deming, American Engineer, Statistician, Professor, Author, Lecturer, and Management Consultant (Tweet This)

4. “Have a good plan, Execute it violently, Do it today” – General Douglas McArthur, American five-star General and Field Marshal of the Philippine Army (Tweet This)

5. “Quality means doing it right when no one is looking” – Henry Ford,  Founder of Ford Motor Company (Tweet This)

6. “Momentum is a fragile force. Its worst enemy: procrastination. Its best friend: a deadline (think Election Day). Implication no. 1 (and there is no no. 2): Get to work! NOW!” – Tom Peters, American Writer and Author (Tweet This)

7. “Know when to cut your losses if necessary. Don’t let your desire to succeed be the enemy of good judgment. If Napoleon had left Moscow immediately, he may have returned with a salvageable army.” – Jerry Manas, Thought Leader in Organizational Project and Resource management (Tweet This)

8. “A project is complete when it starts working for you, rather than you working for it.” - Scott Allen, American Figure Skater (Tweet This)

9. “The only way to do great work is to love what you do” - Steve Jobs, Co-founder of Apple (Tweet This)

10. “Concentrate all of your thoughts upon the work in had. The sun rays do not burn until brought to a focus” - Alexander Graham Bell, Scottish-born Scientist, Inventor, Engineer & Innovator (Tweet This)

11. “You don’t have to see the entire staircase, just take the first step” - Martin Luther King Jr, American Baptist Minister, Activist & Humanitarian (Tweet This)

12. “Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm” - Winston Churchill,  Prime Minister of United Kingdom 1940-1945 and 1951-1955 (Tweet This)

13. “Even if you’re on the right track you will get run over if you just sit there” - Will Rogers, American humorist, Newspaper Columnist, Social Commentator, and Stage & Motion Picture Actor (Tweet This)

14. “Time is the scarcest resource and unless it is managed nothing else can be managed” - Peter Drucker, Austrian-born American Management Consultant, Educator, and Author (Tweet This)

15. “When it is obvious that the goals cannot be reached, don't adjust the goals, adjust the action steps” - Confucius, Chinese Teacher, Editor, Politician, and Philosopher (Tweet This)   

Are there specific quotes that inspire or motivate you? Feel free to share under the comment section.