Never Finished: Unshackle Your Mind and Win the War Within

The real work is unseen. Your performance matters most when nobody is watching.

be the motherfucker who sharpens his sword alone.

Nobody ever said sorry for anything I went through. I had to come to the conclusion that while I didn’t deserve any of it, I was my main problem and primary obstacle.

there is no towel in our corner. There is only water and a cut man.

Denial is self-protecting, but it’s also self-limiting. Accepting your full truth, including all your faults, imperfections, and missteps, allows you to evolve, expand your possibilities, seek redemption, and explore your true potential.

I abhor waste. I eat all my leftovers, and when my tube of toothpaste flattens out, I don’t just roll it up to squeeze out the remainder, I cut that bitch open and put it in a Ziploc baggie until I’ve used every last drop. Everything must be utilized. Especially the energy in volatile, potentially damaging emotions like fear and hate.

One day a couple of years ago, not long after ramping up my training from ten miles of running per day to twenty or more, I felt drained and sore, too tired to run, and kept telling myself that I needed a day off. As I relaxed on the couch, I tuned into my self-talk. Then, I grabbed my recorder and whined into the microphone. I wanted to hear how it sounded out loud. I was real with myself. I cataloged my recent runs and nagging injuries and described how I thought a day off might help me. I made a solid case for a much-needed rest day, but when I played it back, the jury of one was unconvinced.

find your fuel in the thoughtless comment of a friend or the doubt of a teacher or coach. I’m sure it stings when you feel slighted, underestimated, criticized, or excluded. Just know that the heat you feel is free energy waiting to be burned. Don’t crawl up in a corner worried about the people who disrespect you. Repackage what you’re hearing and feeling until it works for you!

Some people go to sleep with a meditation app. Others open the windows to the night sounds or stream white noise, whale songs, or the lullaby of the sea lapping some lonely shore. When I bed down at night, I listen to my haters. And it’s obvious those punk-ass bitches don’t have the slightest idea who they are dealing with.

I’m the person who turns their every negative word into my positive progress. I take what they serve me, roll it up in that wrapping paper I saved way back when, and shove it right up their fucking asses in the form of another work-out, another long run, and another year of leveling the fuck up. Honestly, I should thank them. They make me stronger and more determined to achieve my goals. Which only makes them hate me even more.

While others were relaxing or partying after a hard day or week of work, I stayed in to study my dive tables, pack and repack my parachute, or run and grind in the gym deep into the night. Everything I did on my own time was for my own personal fulfillment and growth. I damn sure didn’t do it for attention.

each physical workout became a test of my mental fortitude. I stopped caring about how my body looked. You don’t need six-pack abs when your mind is steel-plated. From that point on, each run, every hour on the pull-up bar, and all my late-night study sessions became experiments conducted to see how long my mind would hold out when I continued to apply more and more pressure.

My daily goal was to wake up before anyone else. Sometimes, that meant 0500, sometimes 0400, and occasionally, I woke up at 0300 because I needed the first footprints in the fucking sand or on the trail to be my own. If for some strange reason they weren’t, I made sure that while that other motherfucker was sleeping at night, I was back out there grinding for two or three more hours.

Weekend Warriors do hard things when they fit into their busy schedules. They do them to check a box and only when they want to. Then, they dial it back after a couple of long, hard days. When you are a full-time savage, it’s a lifestyle.

you are either getting better, or you’re getting worse. You’re not staying the same.

You have to fight to keep that mindset of getting up every day to get after it because it wants to go away.

praise—whether it comes from your supervisors, your family, or anyone else—has a downside. It can soothe the inner savage and keep you from feeling the need to grind.

My ego check had to include a moratorium on all things soft. I needed to break back into the Mental Lab and find the motherfucker I used to be. I stopped taking most calls and texts. I tuned out and turned within.

I needed to train the body to churn out miles even after the fuel tank was drained and send a message to myself that I was capable of finding energy where there was none.

In the eleventh mile, a car crept past me ever so slowly, and I could tell the driver recognized me. Sure enough, he flipped a U-turn and came rolling right up beside me. “David Goggins! Man, I knew that was you!” I glanced over at him. He looked reasonably fit and athletic. He was also baffled, and maybe even a little concerned, as he watched me pound the pavement. “Dude, why are you even out here on a day like this?” I shrugged and shook my head. “Because you’re not.” I didn’t think much of my flippant comment at first. But as I ran ahead, I savored it. I’d picked the worst day of the summer for my longest run of the week. Why? Because nobody else would even consider doing something like that, and that gave me a chance to prove myself to be uncommon amongst the uncommon once again.

What separates a true savage from everybody else is the ability to regain control of their mind in that split second, despite the fact that all is still fucked!

Life, like Hell Week, is built on seconds that you must win, repeatedly. I’m not saying you have to be hyperaware every second of your life, but if you are pursuing something that demands all you’ve got and means the world to you, that is often what it takes.

It happens, but make sure that it is a conscious decision you’re making, not a reaction. Never quit when your pain and insecurity are at their peak. If you must retreat, quit when it’s easy, not when it’s hard.

Respect is earned every day by waking up early, challenging yourself with new dreams or digging up old nightmares, and embracing the suck like you have nothing and have never done a damn thing in your life.

There are 86,400 seconds in a day. Losing just one of those seconds can change the outcome of your day and, potentially, your life.

Whether I came in first, second, third, or last made no difference to me back then. I’d once walked one hundred miles to finish Badwater, and if I had to, I’d do it again in Leadville.

An unprepared mind prefers a proper taper and rested legs. It prays for a clear, sixty-degree race-day morning and a tailwind that flows in both directions. And maybe a little drizzle every third mile, but only for a few seconds, to cool off. Not enough to make the trail muddy or slick. A prepared mind craves the worst conditions because it knows that pressure brings out its best and exposes almost everyone else. It doesn’t care if your legs are working right, if the temperature is perfect, if there is one hellish hill or an entire mountain range waiting to crush you. When there are freezing river crossings, it doesn’t concern itself with your wet feet. It doesn’t pay any attention to distance, and it sure as fuck doesn’t give a damn how long it takes to get there.

I’d learned long ago that no matter what type of event or challenge I engage in, the only competition that ever matters is me against me. A lot of people will take that as yet another invitation to coast. Please don’t.

those who tend to crane their necks looking for the crest of the mountain as they beg for their suffering to end are the ones who get smashed the most by any false summit.

We have to learn to stop looking for a sign that the hard time will end. When the distance is unknown, it is even more critical that you stay locked in so the unknown factor doesn’t steal your focus. The end will come when it comes, and anticipation will only distract you from completing the task in front of you to the best of your ability.

When you complain and your mind starts groping for the eject button, you are not bringing your best self to the task, which means you are actually prolonging the pain.

crossing the finish line with any amount of unburned fuel is a cardinal sin.

if you said something smart to me, I talked shit right back to you and used your disrespect as ammunition to propel me into whatever fucked-up task or race or workout I had lined up next.

There are no days off, and there is no downtime when you are obsessed with being great.

Know that your dedication will be misunderstood. Some relationships may break down. The savage is not a socialized beast, and an imbalanced lifestyle often appears selfish from the outside.

“What you call hell, he calls home.”

when your self-worth goes away and you don’t deal with or accept your demons, they will continue to own you, and you will become a bottom feeder.

When a half-assed job doesn’t bother you, it speaks volumes about the kind of person you are. And until you start feeling a sense of pride and self-respect in the work you do, no matter how small or overlooked those jobs might be, you will continue to half-ass your life.

First, you must recognize that you have fallen off or are perpetually falling short. Next, accept that you are on your own. Nobody will come save you.

I am proof that rebirth is possible through discipline, which is the only thing capable of altering your DNA.

Let your hours become days, then weeks, then years of effort.

Discipline builds mental endurance because when effort is your main priority, you stop looking for everything to be enjoyable.

A drive for self-optimization and daily repetition will build your capacity for work and give you confidence that you can take on more.

The call to remain complacent will only grow louder until you silence it with a pattern of behavior that leaves no doubt about your mission.

That became my new pattern. Wake up earlier than I had to, do my max set of push-ups, and then get cracking.

the more comfort pity brings you, the more external validation you’ll crave and the less independent you will become.

We cannot get time back, so we must be minute hoarders. The earlier I get up, the more I do. The less time I stay in pity-party-feel-sorry-for-myself land, the stronger I become and the more daylight I see between me and everyone else.

When you separate yourself from the pack by cultivating the values and priorities that lead to greatness, mountains of adversity and hardship become speed bumps, and that makes it easier to adapt to the road ahead and build the new life or sense of self you crave.

The higher I climb in my life, the more I realize how much I need to mop that floor. Because that’s where all the knowledge is. There is no grit at the top, no tests of resolve in steak dinners, five-star hotels, or spa treatments. Once you make it in this world, you have to freefall back to the bottom in some way to keep learning and growing.

Too many leaders deflect blame and point fingers instead of calling themselves out, but when they do that, nothing gets fixed in the short or long term.

The rewards I seek are internal, and if you have that

perform without purpose.

As long as I’m on planet Earth, I will not half-ass it. Anywhere I lack, I will improve because I exist and I am willing.

Whether it is a seven-mile run or a 240-mile run, we all know what it’s like to bargain with ourselves to avoid having to do the very thing we said we would. We say we’re overworked, overwhelmed, or just over it entirely. I never give in to that because I know there are a lot of people out there who do not have that choice to make. They cannot run at all and wish like hell they could.

Incremental progress is still progress, I said to myself. One step is all that is required to take the next one.

There are a lot of people who stay down way too long. They may have been sick as hell but are on the mend, yet when asked how they are feeling, they act like they are no better. In fact, they play it up for pity points. I am not one of those motherfuckers. The second I feel I can get after it, I am going to get the fuck after it.

If something surprises you in anything you are trying to accomplish these days, with so much free knowledge at our fingertips, it is because you didn’t prepare well enough, and there is no excuse for that.

Missions may fail for dozens of reasons, which is fine. Make sure it was something beyond your control—an act of God or Mother Nature—that prevented you from achieving your goal.

Small minds and weak people kill big dreams. You might have clear goals and be working on yourself every day, but if you have the wrong folks around you, there’s a good chance they could be sucking the life right out of you and making sure that you go nowhere.

not every person who has been in your life a long time is looking out for your best interests. Some of them are threatened by your growth because of how it impacts them. Some are looking for a friend to keep them company in their half-ass lives.

Any ideas or interests that were impressed upon you by others, whether they be your family, peers, or culture, must be examined consciously so you can see through all of them and discover your own unique individuality.

When you evolve, your inner circle must evolve with you. Otherwise, you may subconsciously halt your own growth to avoid outpacing and losing contact with the people who mean a lot to you but may not be able to hang with you.

doubters must be kept at arm’s length

Don’t ever tell me you want to run a marathon because I will sign you up for a race, monitor your daily training, and run that shit with you. If you tell me you want to be a doctor, I’ll be the motherfucker who enrolls you in med school while you’re sleeping, and you’ll wake up to a class first thing in the morning. Most people can’t handle that level of intensity. But that’s the kind of backing I want. The type that comes with an expectation of effort and demands hours, weeks, and even years of hard work. Because that is exactly what it takes to fulfill lofty ambitions and, more important than that, find out what you are truly capable of.

I am a student of life. I carry around a notebook. I keep logs. I study all the upswings and down currents of my days as if the final exam is tomorrow. Because we all have an exam tomorrow. Whether we realize it or not, every interaction, each task is a reflection of your mindset, values, and future prospects. It’s an opportunity to be the person you’ve always wanted to be.

whenever we crossed under the arches, we were required to perform a set of “five and dimes.” That’s five pull-ups and ten elevated push-ups. We would cross beneath those arches several times a day, and we always had to pay the same toll.

the best way to lead a group is to simply live the example and show your team or classmates, through dedication, effort, performance, and results, what is truly possible.

No matter what you are dealing with, your goal should be to maximize the resources and capabilities you do have.

Most people who are lagging behind in school, work, or athletics aren’t willing to do what it takes to catch up and maximize their potential. They don’t outwork their classmates and competitors and simply meet the standards set by their teachers and coaches. They work enough to get that passing grade and then high step it into mediocrity and convince themselves that they did their best with what they had.

greatness is a state of letting go of all your faults and imperfections, scavenging every last bit of strength and energy, and putting it the fuck to use to excel at whatever you set your mind to. Even if some motherfucker out there told you it was impossible.

The vast majority of parents don’t know what greatness looks like, so they are ill-equipped and afraid to encourage big dreams. They want their children to have security and don’t want them to experience failure. That’s how limited horizons get passed down from generation to generation.

No matter where someone is in life, they never fail to confess why they can’t get where they need to go.

The harder it rained or snowed, the longer I’d run because I knew that nobody would ever do something that fucked up if they didn’t have to.

Showing up is an important first step, but if you plan to show up, you may as well show the fuck out.

Back in SEAL training, I loved when people froze up and quit. I felt it elevated me in some way, but that was ego-driven immaturity and poor leadership. These days, I consider it my business to make everyone better, no matter the job or situation.

When you are working toward a goal that is important to you and things don’t go your way, never let anyone see it bring you down. Don’t give motherfuckers the satisfaction.

When I set an unreasonable goal and fall short, I don’t even look at it as failure anymore. It is simply my first, second, third, or tenth attempt.

to overcome all obstacles and bump up against the outer reaches of your capabilities is the pinnacle.

evolve into the very best versions of ourselves. That’s a moving target, and it isn’t a one-time task. It is a lifelong quest for more knowledge, more courage, more humility, and more belief.

when you summon the strength and discipline to live like that, the only thing limiting your horizons is you.