Can't Hurt Me: Master Your Mind and Defy the Odds by David Goggins
Last updated: 16 May 2024
“you’re probably living at about 40 percent of your true capability.”
highlight @ loc 49“There will always be the 1 percent of us who are willing to put in the work to defy the odds.””
highlight @ loc 61“It’s time to go to war with yourself. Chapter One 1.”
highlight @ loc 77“It’s almost like, no matter who our parents are and what they do, we’re all born with a moral compass that’s properly tuned.”
highlight @ loc 169“I was suffering from toxic stress.”
highlight @ loc 426“leads to learning disabilities and social anxiety because according to doctors it limits language development and memory,”
highlight @ loc 433“I was a damn good cheat.”
highlight @ loc 451“Challenge #1”
highlight @ loc 460“What are the current factors limiting your growth and success? Is someone standing in your way at work or school? Are you underappreciated and overlooked for opportunities? What are the long odds you’re up against right now? Are you standing in your own way?”
highlight @ loc 463“I’d seen enough to know that the world was filled with human tragedy and that it would just keep piling up in drifts until it swallowed me.”
highlight @ loc 549“Outright racism had always been there.”
highlight @ loc 599“I couldn’t stop seeing the hidden racism scrawled all over the walls in invisible ink, which made it extremely hard to carry the weight of being the only.”
highlight @ loc 660“hadn’t yet learned what to do or where to channel that much emotion.”
highlight @ loc 672“becoming the exact stereotype racist white people loathed and feared.”
highlight @ loc 679“Tell the truth about the real reasons for your limitations and you will turn that negativity, which is real, into jet fuel.”
highlight @ loc 801“I brainwashed myself into craving discomfort.”
highlight @ loc 822“I wasn’t yet hard of bone and mind. Challenge #2”
highlight @ loc 854“I tacked Post-It notes on my Accountability Mirror, and I’ll ask you to do the same.”
highlight @ loc 857“Write all your insecurities, dreams, and goals on Post-Its and tag up your mirror.”
highlight @ loc 858“back then an obstacle had appeared, and I’d folded.”
highlight @ loc 995“buried my shame in the gym and at the kitchen table.”
highlight @ loc 1001“looked like a beast that no one would dare fuck with, but my mind wasn’t right, and my soul was weighed down by too much trauma and failure.”
highlight @ loc 1017“I knew right then that if I didn’t make a stand and start walking the path of most resistance, I would end up in this mental hell forever.”
highlight @ loc 1097“I had to accept the very real possibility that I might die because this time I wouldn’t quit, no matter how fast my heart raced and no matter how much pain I was in.”
highlight @ loc 1131“would be pain and there would be purpose.”
highlight @ loc 1237“And that I was ready. Challenge #3”
highlight @ loc 1238“We all have areas in our lives we either ignore or can improve upon. Find yours.”
highlight @ loc 1247“Use this time to make your weaknesses your strengths.”
highlight @ loc 1248“entire notion of becoming a SEAL seem like masochism. It’s voluntary torture.”
highlight @ loc 1361“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, no matter how harrowing the torture, all bad things end.”
highlight @ loc 1412“Finding moments of laughter in the pain and delirium turned the entire melodramatic experience upside down for us. It gave us some control of our emotions. Again, this was all a mind game, and I damn sure wasn’t going to lose.”
highlight @ loc 1446“Next, take inventory of your mind and body on the eve of battle. List out your insecurities and weakness, as well as your opponent’s.”
highlight @ loc 1511“if you are aware of your competitor’s vulnerabilities you can spin those to your advantage,”
highlight @ loc 1522“rehearsing answers to the simple question that is sure to rise up like a thought bubble: “Why am I here?””
highlight @ loc 1526“And never forget that all emotional and physical anguish is finite!”
highlight @ loc 1528“the ticket to victory often comes down to bringing your very best when you feel your worst.”
highlight @ loc 1534“Challenge #4”
highlight @ loc 1624“I want you to work harder on that project or in that class than you ever have”
highlight @ loc 1627“I’d fought through so many horrible situations by then and remained open and ready for more. My ability to stay open represented a willingness to fight for my own life, which allowed me to withstand hailstorms of pain and use it to callous over my victim’s mentality.”
highlight @ loc 1722“by remembering what you’ve been through to get to that point in your life, you will be in a better position to persevere and choose fight over flight. That will allow you to use the adrenaline that comes with a sympathetic response to go even harder.”
highlight @ loc 1772“Physical challenges strengthen my mind so I’m ready for whatever life throws at me, and it will do the same for you.”
highlight @ loc 1792“failure is a part of life and now we all had to press on.”
highlight @ loc 1801“Only when you identify and accept your weaknesses will you finally stop running from your past. Then those incidents can be used more efficiently as fuel to become better and grow stronger.”
highlight @ loc 1884“Challenge #5”
highlight @ loc 2085“engage in strategic visualization ahead of time, you’ll be as prepared as you possibly can be.”
highlight @ loc 2093“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.”
highlight @ loc 2414“Even if you’re feeling low and beat down by life right now, I guarantee you can think of a time or two when you overcame odds and tasted success.”
highlight @ loc 2451“That the human body can withstand and accomplish a hell of a lot more than most of us think possible, and that it all begins and ends in the mind.”
highlight @ loc 2503“Challenge #6”
highlight @ loc 2509“badass you are so you can use that energy to succeed again in the heat of”
highlight @ loc 2523“We habitually settle for less than our best; at work, in school, in our relationships, and on the playing field or race course.”
highlight @ loc 2611“The reason I embrace my own obsessions and demand and desire more of myself is because I’ve learned that it’s only when I push beyond pain and suffering, past my perceived limitations, that I’m capable of accomplishing more, physically and mentally—in endurance races but also in life as a whole.”
highlight @ loc 2730“Sadly, most of us give up when we’ve only given around 40 percent of our maximum effort.”
highlight @ loc 2741“I knew that staying in the fight is always the hardest, and most rewarding, first step.”
highlight @ loc 2773“those around us remind us of the danger, the downside, our own limitations, and all the people before us that didn’t make”
highlight @ loc 2859“This is an exercise in recognition and visualization. You must recognize what you are about to do, highlight what you do not like about it, and spend time visualizing each and every obstacle you can.”
highlight @ loc 2909“Challenge #7”
highlight @ loc 3008“Your job is to push past your normal stopping point.”
highlight @ loc 3011“If you want to master the mind and remove your governor, you’ll have to become addicted to hard work. Because passion and obsession, even talent, are only useful tools if you have the work ethic to back them up.”
highlight @ loc 3256“Each hour of his week is dedicated to a particular task and when that hour shows up in real time, he focuses 100 percent on that task. That’s”
highlight @ loc 3285“If you audit your life, skip the bullshit, and use backstops, you’ll find time to do everything you need and want to”
highlight @ loc 3306“Challenge #8”
highlight @ loc 3436“During week one, go about your normal schedule, but take notes.”
highlight @ loc 3439“In week two, build an optimal schedule. Lock everything into place in fifteen- to thirty-minute blocks.”
highlight @ loc 3443“By week three, you should have a working schedule that maximizes your effort without sacrificing sleep.”
highlight @ loc 3449“One of those ethics is the drive to turn every negative into a positive, and then when shit starts flying, being prepared to lead from the front.”
highlight @ loc 3634“You can push yourself to a place that is beyond the current capability or temporal mindset of the people you work with, and that’s okay. Just know that your supposed superiority is a figment of your own ego.”
highlight @ loc 3749“Challenge #9”
highlight @ loc 3854“become a true overachiever, and if you are already surrounded by people who are at the top of their game, what are you going to do differently to stand out?”
highlight @ loc 3860“Most wars are won or lost in our own heads, and when we’re in a foxhole we usually aren’t alone, and we need to be confident in the quality of the heart, mind, and dialogue of the person hunkered down with us. Because at some point we will need some empowering words to keep us focused and deadly.”
highlight @ loc 4172“In life, there is no gift as overlooked or inevitable as failure. I’ve had quite a few and have learned to relish them, because if you do the forensics you’ll find clues about where to make adjustments and how to eventually accomplish your”
highlight @ loc 4179“We are all guilty of allowing so-called experts, or just people who have more experience in a given field than we do, to cap our potential.”
highlight @ loc 4216“I’d need to stop listening to doubt,”
highlight @ loc 4218“Challenge #10”
highlight @ loc 4293“write out all the good things, everything that went well, from your failures.”
highlight @ loc 4296“make a list of things you can fix.”
highlight @ loc 4300“The most important conversations you’ll ever have are the ones you’ll have with yourself.”
highlight @ loc 4593“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. If and when you do that, you will be able to use them as fuel to envision the most audacious, outrageous achievement and go get it.”
highlight @ loc 4600