#35: How You See Yourself is Everything

David Goggins, was busy evicting cockroaches and other unwelcome guests in yet another restaurant kitchen. He worked the graveyard shift in pest control and was thoroughly unhappy. “I was numb - numb to my life, miserable in my marriage and I’d accepted that reality.”

“Just another zombie selling his time on earth, going through the motions.”

It had all been so different just 5 years earlier, whilst eagerly training for his dream job as an Air Force Pararescue. At 19, he was excelling, near the top of his unit - at least that is until the ten-week ‘water confidence’ course began. 

David struggled in the water and after 6 weeks was given an option to leave for medical reasons – he took it. “On paper I didn’t quit, but I knew the truth.”

This decision haunted him, and over the years he had ballooned from an athletic 175 pounds to his current 300.

“I buried my shame at the gym and at the kitchen table… I wanted to be big as being big hid David Goggins.”

This dead-end shift ended as usual with a mammoth meal of bacon, eggs and 8 cinnamon swirls, when a Navy Seals documentary randomly came on TV. “The Seals were everything I wasn’t – they were about pride, dignity and excellence.”

David looked in the mirror and stared himself down.

“I was everything all the haters back home had said I would be. Uneducated with no real-world skills, zero discipline and a dead-end future.”

“I had every excuse in the world to be a loser and I used them all.”

David decided right then to become a Seal – though he needed to lose 106 pounds in 3 months and pass a tricky written exam just to qualify. So began a brutal daily training regime involving many hours of cardio and exam study. Doubts and fears remained a constant, as he battled with his self-worth, but he didn’t quit.

Against the odds, he made the weight, endured several infamous 'hell weeks', overcame injuries and eventually became a Navy Seal! He also became a world record breaking endurance athlete. Through his actions and story, he has inspired millions, including many who are battling depression. 

David Goggins has achieved so much – perhaps his greatest achievement though, is in changing how he sees himself,

“We all have the ability to come from nothing to something.”

“I don’t stop when I’m tired, I stop when I’m done.”

“I became a success when I was nobody and I know what that took… I’m damn successful and that makes me very proud of myself.”David's Autobiography - 'Can't Hurt Me'

WISDOM 💎

“The most important conversation is the one you have with yourself.”

David Goggins

Tip 1 - A SMART PLAY ✅

“First, it is an intention. Then a behaviour. Then a habit, Then a practice. Then a second nature. Then it is simply who you are”’

Brendon Burchard

The biggest change is identity change. There is nothing more powerful than changing how you see and value yourself. For David this came by doing tough things and not quitting.

Tip 2 - AVOID 🚩

Being comfortable.

“You are in danger of living a life so comfortable and soft, that you will die without ever reaching your full potential.”        

Instead,

“You want to get to a point in your life, where everything that you should have done, and you didn’t do... it bothers you.”

David Goggins

Tip 3 - ACTION 💪

Just start.

“You gotta start your journey. It may suck, but eventually you will come out the other side on top.”

David Goggins