BELIEVE IN YOURSELF - Overcome Obstacles with David Goggins’ Powerful Words
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A lot of us don't believe that we can achieve the impossible. And along my journey, I started realizing, man, like I discovered something that some people have, but they don't even know all of us have it. But along this way, I wasn't like I said, I wasn't a theorist. I became a practitioner. And I was like, my God, I'm busting down so many barriers of like, I have a learning disability. Okay.

But I'm catching up with everybody. I figured that out. I figured out all these negative things in my life that were keeping me in this hole. I'm like, I got to tell people, man, that hang on a second, man. You can achieve the absolute impossible. You don't need great parents. You don't need like a private school. You don't need to have this humongous GPA and all this other shit. What you need is the one thing I talk about in my book, which is straight up brutal work ethic.

You have to be willing to outwork everybody in the world. And that's the hard part. That's the hard part. This isn't like some five-step process where you can do these fucking steps. You're going to end up with this magical world. No. I'm basically teaching you how to callous over your victim's mentality. I'm teaching you how to, like I did 67,000 pull-ups and training for the pull-up rig.

I was seriously calloused in my hands to protect them. What I'm trying to do with people is teach them how to find more of themselves to where they empower themselves. I'm all about the underdog. So that's what the book's all about, man. It's all about having that step process and I had to share this with people. Almost nothing in life is constant. Conditions and circumstances are perpetually in flux like the winds and the tide, which is why my mind is never fixed.

I tack and adjust forever searching for my new 100%. Age, health, and the responsibilities we carry can be limiting. That doesn't mean we should give in to those limitations or use them as excuses to let ourselves or our dreams go. But we can acknowledge them as long as we are committed to finding out what we can still do given those limits, whether they be temporary or indefinite, and maximizing that

Every day, thousands of people wake up to a life defined by newfound limitations that are difficult to accept. Maybe they've been diagnosed with a terminal disease or suffered a spinal injury. Could be they lost a limb or are suffering from PTS. More often, the shifting circumstances are not nearly so dire. Sometimes it's good news that changes the equation.

Maybe you are a new parent or landed a lucrative gig that demands 10 to 12 hour work days. Could be you recently got married, which means you have to consider more than just your own goals. No matter the variables, your new 100% is out there waiting for you to find it. The thing is, most people don't want to because whenever you're trying to find your new anything, it means you're not who you used to be and that can be depressing enough

to give up the search. Some people use their new circumstances to dial down their effort level instead of adjusting their approach and still giving it their all to achieve their goals. You've got to work with what you have. I couldn't run a ruck, but that didn't mean I was out of the fight.

No matter what you are dealing with, your goal should be to maximize the resources and capabilities you do have. If you've suffered a freak injury or received a diagnosis that changes everything, what does your new maximum effort level look like? A lot of people buy their time and wait to see what happens next, but a year or two later, they find they are still waiting.

With every unfortunate turn in life, no matter how heavy the weight, you have to be committed to pushing back against that pressure with effort. No matter your age, abilities, disabilities, or responsibilities, we must all stay committed to finding our new benchmarks. Because not only does that keep your mind engaged and your demons at bay, you actually might achieve things the old you never could have conceived.

No, don't take it like go out there and run through a brick wall as many times as you can. No, I'm not saying be me. Don't run 205 miles at one time. I'm not saying do that. I'm saying start to learn the mind is powerful.

It's powerful, man. It's unbelievable. But people need, they need a thing to get them going. Right? They need a thing. Right. They need a goal. They need, they need a, like it's, sometimes the first step is the hardest. Like it's hard to take that one million step too, but sometimes the first step is the most, there's something about the, what do I do? They start going over their phone. They start calling people. They don't get out of the house. It's, and,

And there's something about procrastination. It's like, you know, it's painful. You know, you should be doing things, but you just keep doing it. You keep itching that scab. I procrastinate like every day. That's what's so funny, man. People looking like I'm some damn superhero that came down from the gods, from the heavens of earth. No, man, I don't want to do it.

i'm looking at my shoes for 30 minutes sometimes thinking man man people people look up to your goggles damn i'm like i want to do this man but guess what you do it i'm going to do it as long as you do it and that's what i know about it man that's why i stopped doing i'm thinking man you sit here you look at your shoes for 30 40 minutes

You're gonna go, you're gonna think about it all day long, you're gonna do it anyway. And sometimes you don't have the time to look at your shoes for 30 minutes. No. Those are the beautiful days. Yes. Because you know you just have to go. That's right. And so, like, there's no room for procrastination. And that's when I was in the military, I loved my schedule. Because I knew I had to be at work at 7 o'clock. So, you better get your ass up at 4 o'clock, man. You gotta get your ass up, brother. Because I had to get my ass up before I got to work.

So that was my mentality back then, man. I had to get the miles and get everything in, man, and get to work, man. I'm competing with the alpha males. The road to success is rarely a straight line. For me, it's always been more like a maze. Many times when I thought I'd finally cracked the code, had it all figured out and found the straight path to certain victories,

I hit a wall or got spun into a turnaround. When that happens, we have two choices. We can stay stuck or regroup, back up and try again. That's where evolution begins. Hitting those walls time and again will harden and streamline you. Having to back up and formulate a new plan without any assurances it will ever pan out will tune your say up and develop your problem. Solving skills and your endurance, it will force you to adapt. When that happens, hundreds of times,

Over the course of many years, it is physically exhausting and mentally draining, and it becomes damn near impossible to believe in yourself or your future. A lot of people abandon belief at that point. They swirl in the eddies of comfort or regret, perhaps claim their victimhood and stop looking for their way out of the maze. Others keep believing and find a way out, but hope to never slip into a trap like that ever again.

and those skills they'd honed and developed with her. They lose their edge. I am always on the hunt for another twisted pretzel of a maze to get lost in because that's where I find myself. The smooth road to success is of no use to savages like me. That may sound ideal, but it won't test us. It doesn't demand belief, so it will never make us great. We all build belief in different ways.

I clock countless hours in the gym where I log thousands of reps and run and ride my bike obscene distances to cultivate belief. Despite what you may think, I don't consider myself an ultra athlete because those races are not who I am.

There are tools. Each one provides me a stockpile of faith. So when I get stuck in the maze of life like a broke down savage, I still believe I'm capable of achieving my unreasonable goals, such as becoming a smokejumper at 47 years old, no matter what society or the good doctor says. I don't mean to suggest that you must run 100 or 200 miles to believe you have what it takes to get where you want to go.

That's what I had to do based on the depth of the darkness I came from and the scale of my ambitions. But if you've lost it, you do need to find your way back to belief. Whatever it takes for you to believe that you're better than good enough to achieve your dreams is what you must do. And remember, your greatness is not tied to any outcome. It is found in the valiance of the attempt. It's hard to imagine, but you have to learn how to fail because failure

I'm gonna explain this to you. I had big dreams. A lot of us have big dreams, big goals. And when you have goals that are maybe outside your reach, you have to know that getting to that goal, you're gonna have a lot of bad days, a lot of setbacks. Like when I was losing 106 pounds in three months, the first two weeks, it's like I was gaining weight. You know, I would lose a pound, gain two. So I was just failing. I kept failing and kept failing and kept failing. So I had to teach myself how to fail right.

and what that means is when i fail i can't spend much time in that fail zone i have to be able to get up and get after the next day just as fast because my goals were you know to be a navy seal i don't have time to stay here and feel bad for myself for weeks and months and years because i'll lose that time so the big thing is know that if you have big goals and big dreams along the way failure is going to happen so how fast do you get up from that you got to teach yourself that

But the biggest key to success in anything you do is you got to have an unlimited supply of you. This drive and passion. And it may come from nothing. Like for me, there was no passion, no drive, no nothing. But I had this fire that I'm going to be somebody. And it has to be there because on all those bad days and all those days you don't want to do shit.

You have to be your own motivator, your own coach, your own trainer, your own everything. So to do that, you have to come into work and work is whatever your work may be ready to go. And what that means is you may have failed miserably yesterday, but you come to work like, be like, man, you just lost everything. How the hell are you just fucking damn motivated? Because this is what it takes. This is what the fuck it takes. And you got to get it from wherever you can.

whether you make up this illusion of your life or this false reality that gets you motivated whatever gets you motivated it's got to be here at the tip of your brain at all times because in those dark moments you gotta you gotta pull it out so that's the big thing for me man i was always fired up

at all times. When you observe highly successful individuals, it may seem tempting to conclude that they were inherently born with their capabilities, that they possess innate talent, and that's the end of the story. However, talent, while undoubtedly making life more straightforward, is just one piece of the puzzle. Reflecting back, I was once a shy and fearful person,

Ironically, this apparent misfortune turned into a source of strength, igniting significant changes in my life. By consistently stepping out of my comfort zone, I not only conquered social shyness and improved my communication skills, but also nurtured robust self-confidence and overcame other fears in my life. I might not have been naturally inclined to excel in social settings. I still prefer solitude over crowds. However, with self-discipline and persistent effort,

I attained remarkable results. So the next time you think you lack talent in a particular area or believe you weren't born with inherent abilities, remind yourself that in many situations, self-discipline can compensate for the absence of inborn traits.

Living life seems easy when you take the hard path and challenging when opting for the easy way out. Self-discipline demands traversing the difficult route, resisting temptations and immediate gratification in exchange for more substantial and superior rewards in the future. It might seem simpler to avoid discomfort and indulge in immediate pleasures.

But eventually, this approach only offers fleeting pleasure at the cost of a potentially much improved future. Imagine a person lacking determination who, when faced with a challenge, chooses to withdraw immediately. How likely is such an individual to achieve something significant in life when their primary value lies in seeking comfort?

Contrast this with someone who voluntarily embraces difficulties. They actively seek and welcome challenges as opportunities for personal growth. Each self-imposed trial toughens them, making them less susceptible to being overwhelmed by life's adversities. They become more resilient as they face difficulties head on.

When life throws unexpected challenges at them, they are prepared to handle them because due to living their lives through perseverance, they've developed readiness for hardships. Our decisions are made in a moment, but their repercussions can extend throughout a lifetime. Humans possess the ability to resist impulses in exchange for a brighter future. Unfortunately, many people live by the principle of if it feels good, do it. And if it doesn't, don't do it.

Yielding to temptations whenever they arise is akin to surrendering your humanity in certain ways. As intelligent beings, we have the capacity, and I would venture to say the obligation, to base our decisions on rational thinking, not just on instinct alone. Strive to be a better human by embracing your humanity. Exercise your willpower muscle instead of surrendering to the most primal and least

beneficial part of your brain for long-term goals. While primal instincts may provide immediate comfort, they rarely serve well in the long run.