"Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do."
— John Wooden
Do Not Let What You Cannot
Do not let what you cannot do interfere with what you can do.
About this quote
This line appears in Wooden's memoir They Call Me Coach (1972), the first of his several books on basketball and life philosophy. Wooden's coaching approach at UCLA was built on the belief that excessive attention to limitations — whether physical, situational, or competitive — distracts from the execution of what is actually achievable. He used the principle to encourage his players to focus their energy on their strengths rather than being paralysed by weakness.
Source
They Call Me Coach, 1972
