Joan Lunden quotes: helpful advice from the TV host.
“A fulfilling life is different to each person. You have to acknowledge your dreams and not just wait for life to happen and opportunities to come knocking at your door.”
“Our life is all about the choices we make.”
“We can all learn to live jubilantly. We can all learn to alter our attitudes so that we can better realize our dreams.”
“A positive attitude is something everyone can work on, and everyone can learn how to employ it.”
“Remove failure as an option and your chances for success become infinitely better.”
“To be able to look at change as an opportunity to grow—that is the secret to being happy.”
“It’s not always as comfortable blazing the trail as it is walking on it.”
“Mistakes are always forgivable, if one has the courage to admit them.”
“Anything you think you ‘must have’ usually comes to own you.”
“Forgiveness gives you back the laughter and the lightness in your life.”
“The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.”
“Holding on to anger, resentment and hurt only gives you tense muscles, a headache and a sore jaw from clenching your teeth. Forgiveness gives you back the laughter and the lightness in your life.”
“Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names.”
“A heart filled with anger has no room for love.”
“Exude happiness and you will feel it back a thousand times.”
“Often, we don’t recognize real moments of happiness in our lives because we’ve been expecting something different—something bigger or perhaps more dramatic.”
“It is reassuring to know that I can control how I feel and what I do on any given day. The way I choose to see the world creates the world I see.”
“Plan for happiness. One way to stay open to the possibilities for future joy: have a bucket list or a happiness plan. Half the fun of anything is anticipating and planning for it.”
“Aspire to inspire.”
“Let it go. Stress can wear you down, not just physically and mentally but spiritually too. To deal with our stresses, we must first identify them. Balancing work and family is a challenge, so it’s important to learn that no is not a dirty word. You simply cannot be everything to everyone.”
“Pick your peak and go for it!”
“Practice gratitude. Revisiting memories and milestones gives us a chance to reflect on our lives, to be grateful for what has come before and help us plan for what’s next. Make today and tomorrow so awesome that you make yesterday jealous!”
“The things that help maintain your optimum level of cognitive thinking are social connections, staying engaged in life, staying physically active, and also having a sense of purpose. Those are the things that are the best predictors of successful aging. It’s really not just how much money you have.”
“We are CEOs of our health but we actually have to expect to be healthy by honoring our bodies more.”
“When we look at aging as a time of growth and development instead of a long, slow journey into decline and diminishment, we begin to view health as a key driver of our quality of life as we get older.”
“Twenty percent of a person’s health is due to genetics, and about 20% is due to the medical care we receive. The other 60% is due to social, behavioral and environmental factors, many of which we can and do influence by the choices we make throughout our lives—what we eat, how much and what kinds of exercise we do, where we live, the quality of our relationships, whether we smoke, and our ability to handle stress.”
“Lifestyle medicine is not just about how long we live but also about how well we live. It reframes the reason for making these changes from fear of dying to the joy of living.”
“Make time just for yourself a priority.”
“We have to take advantage of telling our stories the way we want them to be told. Writing your own eulogy is empowering. It’s an opportunity to evaluate your life and refocus on what you hope to be your eventual life story. It is enlightening to time travel over your life course and pick out the things that made you proud and, especially, what makes you unique.”
“As long as you’re still alive, you have to worry about living. If cancer or anything else comes along, you’ll fight it with everything you have, but until then you have to focus on living. If you focus on the fear, it will lessen your quality of life, and it will add to your stress.”
“By virtue of being on the air, of being public for 30 years, I had a mountain to stand on top of—a ready platform to inform and empower women and give them hope. That role has been incredibly fulfilling; it has shown me I have a purpose on this earth, which is so resoundingly obvious to me now.”
“As a journalist I reported on health stories and certainly knew what I needed to do to be more fit and lower my risk of heart disease, but I wasn’t incorporating it into my life. The more I learned about eating healthy and staying fit, the better my life became.”
“My favorite part of hosting GMA? Honestly, I always loved the interviews that helped people understand their own health and wellness and make better decisions about their family’s health and wellness. I think it all stems from the fact that I’m a doctor’s kid. I just always assumed I’d grow up to be a doctor, but I worked in a hospital for a little while right before I went into college and it became very apparent that I was not going to have a career that involved scalpels!”
“On a very personal note, sharing my cancer experience has also allowed me to follow in the steps of my dad, a cancer surgeon, whom I always wanted to emulate. I had always felt like a tad bit of a failure because I had not lived up to my early dream of becoming a doctor. I had always wondered, in the back of my mind, ‘Why didn’t I work a little harder in college and go through medical school and become a doctor?’ This diagnosis presented an opportunity to remedy that, in a sense. It said: ‘Here you go. You want to help save lives? Step over here.'”
“When I was diagnosed, I kept hearing from people, ‘You go in as one person and come out as another.’ Boy, were they right. The Joan after cancer is much more focused on the meaning of happiness, the meaning of life. I took an inventory of the things I was doing in my life: anything that was not fulfilling, I’m crossing them off the list.”
“The experience brings an intense appreciation for the people in your life, and not just family and friends. I also really appreciate the heightened awareness I have of my ability to have an impact on this earth—that when all is said and done, my life will have had significant meaning.”
“I’m still a news junkie. I mean, I always was, I am now. That’s a magic that few of us get the opportunity to experience. I still miss that part.”
“I’m very proud to have been part of that whole generation that came along and changed the way Americans think about women’s opportunities in the world, to go out and make a difference in the world, and make a difference in people’s lives.”
“I feel fortunate I have this amazing relationship with so many people in America, because I was in their homes at a very private time of day.”
“I’ve always looked at friends as the family we choose.”
“I credit my father with giving me a passion for pursuing knowledge, but my mother helped me develop resiliency, a desire to control your own destiny and certainly a sense of humor through it all.”
“I feel like my advocacy gave me the ability to really make my mark in life, and if that’s what my little dash on my tombstone represents I’ll be totally good with that one. There’s a wonderful quote that I’ll leave you with: ‘There are two great days in our life. The day we’re born and the day we discover why.'”
“Most important, maybe, is the gratitude I have for my life, for my incredible career and family, and for the ability to say, ‘It has been enough. Whatever happens, it has been enough.'”
Related: Ryan Seacrest quotes.
