The Comeback Quotient Quotes

“The less we choose to need, and the less we rely on comfortable, favorable circumstances for peace of mind, the more control we have over our thoughts, emotions, and behavior. “Pain is the purifier,” he taught. “Walk towards suffering. Love suffering. Embrace it.”
― Matt Fitzgerald, The Comeback Quotient: A Get-Real Guide to Building Mental Fitness in Sport and Life

“That it’s possible. You just have to fight. It will not be easy. But you can manage. Because life is giving you as much pain as you are capable [of living] with. And on the end of that path, the goal will be reachable. You will have suffered to do [it], but it doesn’t matter.” I can think of no better words to encapsulate what it means to accept the reality of a difficult situation. It will not be easy. You will suffer. But it doesn’t matter.”
― Matt Fitzgerald, The Comeback Quotient: A Get-Real Guide to Building Mental Fitness in Sport and Life

“I’m scared shitless.” Knowing and accepting that a few things were bound to go wrong.”
― Matt Fitzgerald, The Comeback Quotient: A Get-Real Guide to Building Mental Fitness in Sport and Life

“This sense of control is the essence of what it feels like to be an ultrarealist. When you've cultivated the ability to fully accept, embrace, and address any situation, you are no longer dependent on external circumstances. While you still want things to go your way, it no longer really matters if they do or don't. In either case, you know you'll be able to make the best of the situation. You're in control of the only thing you truly can control, which is your mind, and it feels like freedom.”
― Matt Fitzgerald, The Comeback Quotient: A Get-Real Guide to Building Mental Fitness in Sport and Life

“The new Rob saw the restoration of his ability to run as a gift, a precious and fragile blessing that he wished to honor by racing not for respect or attention as before but for the inner journey, and by listening to his body and respecting rest, and also by investing himself in the trail running community.”
― Matt Fitzgerald, The Comeback Quotient: A Get-Real Guide to Building Mental Fitness in Sport and Life

“Molly almost goes out of her way to describe how loving and supportive her parents have always been, emphasizing in particular the fact that, while she was growing up, her mom couldn’t have cared less whether Molly ran or didn’t run, and if she ran, whether she ran well or poorly, as long as she was happy.”
― Matt Fitzgerald, The Comeback Quotient: A Get-Real Guide to Building Mental Fitness in Sport and Life

“I beat cancer, I had kids, and I did this with a disability. You couldn’t knock me off that mountaintop.”
― Matt Fitzgerald, The Comeback Quotient: A Get-Real Guide to Building Mental Fitness in Sport and Life

“A girl need not necessarily have the perfect start in life to fulfill such a dream.”
― Matt Fitzgerald, The Comeback Quotient: A Get-Real Guide to Building Mental Fitness in Sport and Life

“For the ultrarealist, goals exist not to be achieved but to stimulate striving and to drive progress toward the fulfillment of potential. This is why champions set goals that are hard to achieve, and why they welcome opportunities to raise their game.”
― Matt Fitzgerald, The Comeback Quotient: A Get-Real Guide to Building Mental Fitness in Sport and Life

“This isn’t how I would have chosen my life to turn out at all, but maybe this is my way of fulfilling my life’s purpose and trying to raise awareness for these rare diseases that really do actually need it.”
― Matt Fitzgerald, The Comeback Quotient: A Get-Real Guide to Building Mental Fitness in Sport and Life

“Ultrarealists have something many of us don’t—an extraordinary readiness to face reality—and if you want to fulfill your own potential, you want that too.”
― Matt Fitzgerald, The Comeback Quotient: A Get-Real Guide to Building Mental Fitness in Sport and Life

“Our inability to fulfill our (true) needs can sometimes give rise to self-deceptions intended to disguise this painful reality. Most psychotherapeutic methods involve helping patients liberate themselves from self-deception. What makes reality therapy different is the centrality of this project to the method. Reality therapy is all about getting people to stop bullshitting themselves so they can get on with the business of solving the real problem. At no point does the reality therapist ever allow a patient to get away with denying reality, no matter how painful accepting it may be initially.”
― Matt Fitzgerald, The Comeback Quotient: A Get-Real Guide to Building Mental Fitness in Sport and Life

“It was a decision she would not regret, performing well enough right out of the gate that no further persuasion was required to convince Jamie to drop other sports and focus exclusively on running for the next three years.”
― Matt Fitzgerald, The Comeback Quotient: A Get-Real Guide to Building Mental Fitness in Sport and Life

“Even the most talented artists have flaws and limitations that no amount of training can overcome, just as even the most exceptional individuals have hang-ups and quirks that no amount of personal growth can erase. The artists we consider great are those who make their flaws and limitations somehow complement their strengths and contribute to their signature style.”
― Matt Fitzgerald, The Comeback Quotient: A Get-Real Guide to Building Mental Fitness in Sport and Life

“Self-awareness plays a key role in stopping fear and laziness from standing in the way of accepting a reality that must be accepted in order to make the best of a bad situation.”
― Matt Fitzgerald, The Comeback Quotient: A Get-Real Guide to Building Mental Fitness in Sport and Life

“Only the disciplined ones are free in life,” he said in a 2018 speech at England’s Oxford Union. “If you aren’t disciplined, you are a slave to your moods. You are a slave to your passions. That’s a fact.”
― Fitzgerald Matt, The Comeback Quotient: A Get-Real Guide to Building Mental Fitness in Sport and Life

“As with post-traumatic growth, it’s not the scare itself but the subsequent perspective shift that enhances gratitude.”
― Matt Fitzgerald, The Comeback Quotient: A Get-Real Guide to Building Mental Fitness in Sport and Life

“How interesting it is that the attitude that ultrarealists choose to adopt in situations where their attitude is the only thing they can control is one of finding meaning in their suffering.”
― Matt Fitzgerald, The Comeback Quotient: A Get-Real Guide to Building Mental Fitness in Sport and Life

“Frankl focused his psychologist’s eye on ultrarealists he encountered in these awful places, writing that “the way they bore their suffering was a genuine inner achievement,” which proved that “any man can, even under such circumstances, decide what shall become of him—mentally and spiritually.”
― Matt Fitzgerald, The Comeback Quotient: A Get-Real Guide to Building Mental Fitness in Sport and Life

“This pain and suffering. This was my trophy ceremony.”
― Matt Fitzgerald, The Comeback Quotient: A Get-Real Guide to Building Mental Fitness in Sport and Life

“Achieve complete mastery of his mind by pushing back the limits of his capacity to suffer until those limits disappeared.”
― Matt Fitzgerald, The Comeback Quotient: A Get-Real Guide to Building Mental Fitness in Sport and Life

“That desperate tug-of-war between the desire to persevere and the overwhelming temptation to quit. And he loved it.”
― Matt Fitzgerald, The Comeback Quotient: A Get-Real Guide to Building Mental Fitness in Sport and Life

“That it’s possible. You just have to fight. It will not be easy. But you can manage. Because life is giving you as much pain as you are capable [of living] with. And on the end of that path, the goal will be reachable. You will have suffered to do [it], but it doesn’t matter.”
― Matt Fitzgerald, The Comeback Quotient: A Get-Real Guide to Building Mental Fitness in Sport and Life

“His key insight was that yearning, or wishing things were different than they are, is the root of all suffering, and that letting go of this desire is the secret to happiness.”
― Matt Fitzgerald, The Comeback Quotient: A Get-Real Guide to Building Mental Fitness in Sport and Life

“The same willingness to face reality that allows certain athletes to accept a negative turn of events also helps them bear what must be borne to address the bad situation.”
― Matt Fitzgerald, The Comeback Quotient: A Get-Real Guide to Building Mental Fitness in Sport and Life

“Science has demonstrated that some athletes have a higher tolerance for pain and suffering than others do, and that those who have a higher tolerance are more accepting of these sensations.”
― Matt Fitzgerald, The Comeback Quotient: A Get-Real Guide to Building Mental Fitness in Sport and Life