Hero on a Mission
In Hero on a Mission, Donald Miller reminds us that a meaningful life is not something we stumble into—it’s something we create. By identifying our purpose and embracing the role of the hero, we shape a story that moves us forward. The excerpts below reflect his central message: your life gains clarity and momentum when you choose to live with direction, responsibility, and hope.
Quotes to Consider from Hero on a Mission
“I don’t think any of us should trust fate to write the story of our lives. Fate is a terrible writer.”
“If we are tired of life, what we’re really tired of is the story we are living inside of. And the great thing about being tired of our story is that stories can be edited. Stories can be fixed. Stories can go from dull to exciting, from rambling to focused, and from drudgery to read to exhilarating to live.”
“Even before we ask ourselves what our story is about, we have to ask ourselves what character we are playing within that story. If we are playing the victim or the villain, no amount of editing can help us.”
“Transformation didn’t happen immediately. I continued to vacillate between victim, villain, and hero energy depending on the day and sometimes even the hour. But slowly, over time, I began to play the hero more and the victim and villain less, and that made all the difference.”
“The heroic transformation begins when the hero takes responsibility for their life and for their story. The hero becomes the hero only when they decide to accept the facts of their life and respond with courage.”
“We can’t control every aspect of life. But we get lucky a great deal more when we stay in motion.”
“When something difficult happens, victims accept defeat but heroes ask, ‘What does this make possible?’”
“It does not take money to experience a deep sense of meaning. It takes vision. All we have to do is make one vision happen and then dream up another. What you’ll find is the compound interest on living terrific stories adds up fast.”
“None of us have to work all that hard to make our dreams come true. We just have to work on the right things and not work on the wrong things. And we have to do a little work every day. Again, heroes get up and put a little something on the plot every day while victims wait for fate to send a rescuer.”
“If we don’t have a morning exercise in which we stop, pull back from our limited perspective, and meditate on our own agency, we will move into autopilot and fate will once again blow our stories around in the wind… but if we make better decisions every day, the compound interest on those decisions will add up to a better life. Fast.”