Can't Hurt Me: Master Your Mind and Defy the Odds

by David Goggins

Denial is the ultimate comfort zone.

we all make habitual, self-limiting choices.

Even the best pep talk or self-help hack is nothing but a temporary fix. It won’t rewire your brain. It won’t amplify your voice or uplift your life. Motivation changes exactly nobody.

we each have genetic limitations. Hard ceilings. That there are some things we just can’t do no matter how mentally tough we are. When we hit our genetic ceiling, he said, mental toughness doesn’t enter into the equation.

That anybody can become a totally different person and achieve what so-called experts like him claim is impossible, but it takes a lot of heart, will, and an armored mind.

Only you can master your mind, which is what it takes to live a bold life filled with accomplishments most people consider beyond their capability.

face reality, hold yourself accountable, push past pain, learn to love what you fear, relish failure, live to your fullest potential, and find out who you really are.

when you’re driven, whatever is in front of you, whether it’s racism, sexism, injuries, divorce, depression, obesity, tragedy, or poverty, becomes fuel for your metamorphosis.

It’s time to go to war with yourself.

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Children that young are infinite sponges. They soak up language and ideas at warp speed to establish a fundamental foundation upon which most people build life-long skills

He didn’t hit her again that morning. He didn’t have to. The psychological damage was done.

Have you ever heard the phrase, “Faith Over Fear”? For me it was Hate Over Fear.

His evil was too real and my hate gave me courage. I refused to give that motherfucker the satisfaction.

When you’re getting beat consistently, hope evaporates. You stifle your emotions, but your trauma off-gasses in unconscious ways.

from our first night in Indiana I hadn’t wet the bed once. It seemed that I was healing,

toxic stress does more damage to kids than polio or meningitis.

it limits language development and memory,

everybody learns in a different way and we’re gonna figure out how you learn.

in order to change you have to work through shit.

You didn’t have to pay attention, but you did have to make it seem like you were,

I was desperate for a change. I wanted to become someone new.

The ritual was simple. I’d shave my face and scalp every night, get loud, and get real. I set goals, wrote them on Post-It notes, and tagged them to what I now call the Accountability Mirror, because each day I’d hold myself accountable to the goals I’d set.

Make your bed like you’re in the military every day! Pull up your pants! Shave your head every morning! Cut the grass! Wash all dishes!

You could be on the cusp of retirement, looking to reinvent yourself. Maybe you’re going through a bad break-up or have gained weight. Perhaps you’re permanently disabled, overcoming some other injury, or are just coming to grips with how much of your life you’ve wasted, living without purpose.

In each case, that negativity you’re feeling is your internal desire for change, but change doesn’t come easy, and the reason this ritual worked so well for me was because of my tone.

the only way we can change is to be real with ourselves.

The dirty mirror that you see every day is going to tell you the truth every time, so why are you still lying to yourself?

If you have worked for thirty years doing the same shit you’ve hated day in and day out because you were afraid to quit and take a risk, you’ve been living like a pussy.

Nobody likes to hear the hard truth. Individually and as a culture, we avoid what we need to hear most.

That’s why it’s okay to be cruel to yourself as long as you realize you’re doing it to become better.

From then on, I brainwashed myself into craving discomfort. If it was raining, I would go run. Whenever it started snowing, my mind would say, Get your fucking running shoes on.

I couldn’t learn just by scratching a few notes and memorizing those. I had to read a text book and write each page down in my notebook. Then do it again a second and third time. That’s how knowledge stuck to the mirror of my mind. Not through learning, but through transcription, memorization, and recall.

My personal study hall schedule and goals became Post-It notes on my Accountability Mirror, and guess what happened? I developed an obsession for learning.

Living with purpose changed everything for me—at least in the short term.

To make fun of or try to intimidate someone they didn’t even know based on race alone was a clear indication that something was very wrong with them, not me.

But when you have no confidence it becomes easy to value other people’s opinions, and I was valuing everyone’s opinion without considering the minds that generated them.

I knew that the confidence I’d managed to develop didn’t come from a perfect family or God-given talent. It came from personal accountability which brought me self respect, and self respect will always light a way forward.

When you transcend a place in time that has challenged you to the core, it can feel like you’ve won a war. Don’t fall for that mirage. Your past, your deepest fears, have a way of going dormant before springing back to life at double strength. You must remain vigilant. For me, the Air Force revealed that I was still soft inside. I was still insecure.

I tacked Post-It notes on my Accountability Mirror, and I’ll ask you to do the same. Digital devices won’t work. 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! Period, point blank. If you look in the mirror and see someone who is obviously overweight, that means you’re fucking fat! Own it! It’s okay to be unkind with yourself in these moments because we need thicker skin to improve in life.

Whether it’s a career goal (quit my job, start a business), a lifestyle goal (lose weight, get more active), or an athletic one (run my first 5K, 10K, or marathon), you need to be truthful with yourself about where you are and the necessary steps it will take to achieve those goals, day by day. Each step, each necessary point of self-improvement, shou...

Whatever your goal, you’ll need to hold yourself accountable for the small steps it will take to get there. Self-improvement takes dedication and self-discipline.

Four years later, the guy who was so energized by opportunity that he was excited to clean latrines was gone and I didn’t feel anything at all.

They say there’s always light at the end of the tunnel, but not once your eyes adjust to the darkness, and that’s what happened to me.

So I took my stunted ass down to Barnes & Noble, bought Swimming for Dummies, studied the diagrams, and practiced in the pool every day.

Physically I was strong, but I was not even close to mastering my mind.

Darkness was a friend indeed.

my mind wasn’t right, and my soul was weighed down by too much trauma and failure.

Food was my drug of choice and I always sucked up every last crumb.

“In a society where mediocrity is too often the standard and too often rewarded,” he said, “there is intense fascination with men who detest mediocrity, who refuse to define themselves in conventional terms, and who seek to transcend traditionally recognized human capabilities.