David Goggins: Can’t Hurt Me

 Break out a journal and write out the ways you’ve been hurt or are still in harm’s way. 

Give your pain shape and absorb its power. 

Use that story, the list of excuses, to fuel your ultimate success. 

Most white men have no idea how hard it can be to be the only. 

It makes you want to stay home some days because to go out in public is to be completely exposed, vulnerable to a world that tracks and judges you. 

Accountability mirror

Write your goals down on post-it notes and tack them on the mirror so you see them every day. 

You have to be raw. 

The only way to change is to be real with yourself. 

Don’t value an opinion without considering the mind that generated that opinion.

Write all your insecurities, dreams, and goals on post-its and tag up your mirror. 

If you need more education, remind yourself that you need to start working your ass off because you aren’t smart enough!

The first step on the journey to a calloused mind is stepping outside your comfort zone on a regular basis. 

Dig out your journal and write down all the things you don’t like to do or that make you uncomfortable. Especially those things that you know are good for you. 

Now go do one of them, and do it again. 

Everything in life is a mind game. 

Whenever we get swept under by life’s dramas, large and small, we are forgetting that no matter how bad the pain gets, all bad things end. 

Choose any competitive situation that you’re in right now. 

Who is your opponent?

There is one way to not only earn respect, but turn the tables: excellence. 

Work harder on that project than you ever have before. Then surpass the standard. 

Take negativity and use it to dominate the task with everything you’ve got. 

“Take their motherfucking soul!”

Goggins stopped seeing himself as the victim of bad circumstances and started to see his life as the ultimate training ground instead. 

Take inventory of your cookie jar. 

Write it all out. 

Not just achievements, include obstacles you’ve overcome as well. Feel what it was like to overcome those struggles. Then get to work. 

Those cookies will be there to remind you what a badass you are so you can use that energy to succeed in the heat if battle. 

We are leaving a lot of money on the table without realizing it. 

We habitually settle for less than our best; at work, in school, in our relationships, and all of that ripples out and multiplies within our communities and society as a whole. 

“I loved waking up at 5 a.m. and starting work with three hours if cardio already in the bank while most of my teammates hadn’t even finished their coffee. It gave me a mental edge, a better sense if self-awareness, and a ton of self-confidence, which made me a better SEAL instructor. 

That’s what getting up at the crack ass of dawn and putting out will do for you. 

It makes you better at all facets of your life. 

A car has a governor which limits the flow of fuel and air so it doesn’t burn too hot, limiting the car from going its maximum velocity. 

We have a governor too. Deep in our minds, and it reads our life story and forms the way we see ourselves. 

It delivers pain and exhaustion, and fear and insecurity, trying to stop us before we risk it all. 

The governor stops us at 40%. 

Stretching your pain tolerance, using your discipline, letting go of your identity and all your self-limiting stories allows you to blow past that 40% to closer to your full potential. 

If you accept pain, your tolerance for mental and physical suffering will have expanded because your software will have learned that you can take a hell of a lot more than one punch, and if you stay with any task that is trying to beat you down, you will reap rewards. 

You have to remember that that initial blast if pain and fatigue or extreme discomfort is just your governor talking. 

Once you do that, you control the dialogue of your mind. 

Remember that your governor will say that it’s ok, it massages your ego even as it stops you from achieving your goals. 

When you find yourself becoming ensnared in activities that don’t better you in any way, move the fuck on!

Analyze your schedule, kill your empty habits, burn out the bullshit, and see what’s left. 

Is it one hour per day? Three?

Now maximize that shit. 

If you audit your life, skip the BS, and use backstops, you’ll find time to do everything you need and want to do. 

Take one full rest day per week. 

Backstops—alarms, habits of transitioning to the next task as soon as you catch yourself in overtime or on your phone. 

There is no finish line. There is always more to learn and you will always have weaknesses to strengthen. 

You have to keep a championship pace for your whole life, not just a season or a year,  so you need rest and healthy nutrition. 

Use inevitable setbacks to work on your weaknesses. 

If you’re a terrific runner with a knee injury that will prevent you from running for twelve weeks, use that injury as a great time to get into yoga, increasing your flexibility and your overall strength, which will make you a better and less injury-prone athlete. 

All of us can be the person who flies all day and night only to arrive home to a filthy house, and instead of blaming family or roommates, cleans it up right then because they refuse to ignore duties undone. 

You’re either getting better or your getting worse.