About this quote

Tie your sense of worth to outcomes and you hand it to luck, timing, and other people. Anchor it instead to the quality of effort you actually control, and no failed result can bankrupt you. Work done wholeheartedly is already the reward it was reaching for.

When to use it

• Training for a marathon and finding the daily runs worthwhile even when race day goes badly.
• Pouring real care into a project that gets cancelled, yet knowing it was your best work.
• A gardener who enjoys the tending as much as any harvest it produces.