Can’t Hurt Me by David Goggins

Start date: December 18, 2024

End date: February 24, 2025

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Look, everybody learns in a different way and we’re gonna figure out how you learn. She deduced that I needed repetition. That I needed to solve the same problems over and over again in a different way to learn, and she knew that took time.

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Everything I did was to get a reaction out of the people who hated me most because everyone’s opinion of me mattered to me, and that’s a shallow way to live.

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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. At first my goals involved shaping up my appearance and accomplishing all my chores without having to be asked.

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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.

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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

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there is a difference between being competent and comfortable in the water, another big gap from comfortable to confident

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I had to flip it and convince myself that all that self-doubt and anxiety was confirmation that I was no longer living an aimless life.

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forgetting happens the second we give control over our emotions and actions to other people, which can easily happen when pain is peaking.

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I went into Hell Week knowing I put myself there, that I wanted to be there, and that I had all the tools I needed to win this fucked-up game, which gave me the passion to persevere and claim ownership of the experience. It allowed me to play hard, bend rules, and look for an edge wherever and whenever I could until the horn sounded on Friday afternoon.

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On the other hand, people who are secure with themselves don’t bully other people. They look out for other people, so if you’re getting bullied you know that you’re dealing with someone who has problem areas you can exploit or soothe. Sometimes the best way to defeat a bully is to actually help them.

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the ticket to victory often comes down to bringing your very best when you feel your worst.

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didn’t realize that he saw something special in me and like any strong leader wanted to see how far I could take it,

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I stopped seeing myself as the victim of bad circumstance, and saw my life as the ultimate training ground instead. My disadvantages had been callousing my mind all along and had prepared me for that moment in that pool with Psycho Pete.

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Until you experience hardships like abuse and bullying, failures and disappointments, your mind will remain soft and exposed.

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If you choose to see yourself as a victim of circumstance into adulthood, that callous will become resentment that protects you from the unfamiliar. It will make you too cautious and untrusting, and possibly too angry at the world. It will make you fearful of change and hard to reach, but not hard of mind.

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Remembering that you’ve been through difficulties before and have always survived to fight again shifts the conversation in your head.

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To develop an armored mind—a mindset so calloused and hard that it becomes bulletproof—you need to go to the source of all your fears and insecurities……was rejecting my past and therefore rejecting myself. My foundation, my character was defined by self-rejection……Even after I’d reached a point where I no longer cared about what others thought of me, I still had trouble accepting me……Only when you identify and accept your weaknesses will you finally stop running from your past.

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during Hell Week you need a solid boat crew to survive, which means depending upon your classmates, not defeating them.

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When we’re comfortable we can’t answer those simple questions that are bound to arise in the heat of battle because we don’t even realize they’re coming.

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was hard on myself when I looked in the Accountability Mirror, but I also praised myself whenever I could claim a small victory, because we all need that, and very few of us take the time to celebrate our successes.

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Most of us give up when we’ve only give around 40 percent of our maximum effort. Event when we feel like we’ve reached our absolute limit, we still have 60 percent more to give……The 40% Rule.

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You will be made fun of. You will feel insecure. You may not be the best all the time. You may be the only black, white, Asian, Latino, female, male, gay, lesbian or [fill in your identity here] in a given situation. There will be times when you feel alone.

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if you are on the hunt for your 100 percent you should catalog your weaknesses and vulnerabilities.

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If you get injured or other complications arise that prevent you from working on your primary passion, refocus your energy elsewhere.

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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.

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Always be willing to embrace ignorance and become the dumb fuck in the classroom again, because that is the only way to expand your body of knowledge and body of work. It’s the only way to expand your mind.

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My job as head of PT wasn’t to demand that my guys live up to the Navy SEAL legend I loved, it was to help them become the best version of themselves.

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We can’t control all the variables in our lives. It’s about what we do with opportunities revoked or presented to us that determine how a story ends.

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I was so confrontational I created needless enemies along the way, and I believe that’s what limited my access to the top SEAL Teams.

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The kid I always judged so harshly didn’t lie and cheat to hurt anyone’s feelings. He did it for acceptance. He broke the rules because he didn’t have the tools to compete and was ashamed for being dumb. He did it because he needed friends. I was afraid to tell the teachers I couldn’t read. I was terrified of the stigma associated with special education, and instead of coming down on that kid for one more second, instead of chastising my younger self, I understood him for the first time.

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I’d judged myself constantly and I’d judged everyone else around me, too.

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What if is the power and permission to face down your darkest demons, your very worst memories, and accept them as part of your history.