Did you know that Goggins survived abuse, overcame asthma, stutter, obesity, a learning disability and low self-esteem?
1. “There is no more time to waste. Hours and days evaporate like creeks in the desert. That’s why it’s okay to be cruel to yourself as long as you realize you’re doing it to become better.” – David Goggins
2. “From then on, I brainwashed myself into craving discomfort. If it was raining, I would go run. Whenever it started snowing, my mind would say, get your fu*king running shoes on. Sometimes I wussed out and had to deal with it at the Accountability Mirror. But facing that mirror, facing myself, motivated me to fight through uncomfortable experiences, and, as a result, I became tougher. And being tough and resilient helped me meet my goals.” – David Goggins
3. “If you want to be one of the few to defy those trends in our ever-softening society, you will have to be willing to go to war with yourself and create a whole new identity, which requires an open mind.” – David Goggins
4. “The most important conversations you’ll ever have are the ones you’ll have with yourself. You wake up with them, you walk around with them, you go to bed with them, and eventually you act on them. Whether they be good or bad. We are all our own worst haters and doubters because self doubt is a natural reaction to any bold attempt to change your life for the better. You can’t stop it from blooming in your brain, but you can neutralize it, and all the other external chatter by asking, What if?” – David Goggins
5. “Denial is the ultimate comfort zone.” – David Goggins
6. “When you think that you are done, you’re only 40% in to what your body’s capable of doing. That’s just the limits that we put on ourselves.” – David Goggins
7. “You are giving up instead of getting hard! Tell the truth about the real reasons for your limitations and you will turn that negativity, which is real, into jet fuel. Those odds stacked against you will become a damn runway!” – David Goggins
8. “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.” – David Goggins
9. “The vast majority of us are slaves to our minds. Most don’t even make the first effort when it comes to mastering their thought process because it’s a never-ending chore and impossible to get right every time.” – David Goggins
10. “The Buddha famously said that life is suffering. I’m not a Buddhist, but I know what he meant and so do you. To exist in this world, we must contend with humiliation, broken dreams, sadness, and loss.” – David Goggins
Did you know that Goggins is a former Guinness World Record holder – in seventeen hours he completed 4,030 pull-ups!
11. “Analyze your schedule, kill your empty habits, burn out the bullsh*t, and see what’s left.” – David Goggins
12. “You know that my refrigerator is never full, and it never will be because I live a mission-driven life, always on the hunt for the next challenge. That mindset is the reason I broke that record, finished Badwater, became a SEAL, rocked Ranger School, and on down the list. In my mind I’m that racehorse always chasing a carrot I’ll never catch, forever trying to prove myself to myself. And when you live that way and attain a goal, success feels anti-climactic.” – David Goggins
13. “We live in a world with a lot of insecure, jealous people. Some of them are our best friends. They are blood relatives. Failure terrifies them. So does our success. Because when we transcend what we once thought possible, push our limits, and become more, our light reflects off all the walls they’ve built up around them. Your light enables them to see the contours of their own prison, their own self-limitations. But if they are truly the great people you always believed them to be, their jealousy will evolve, and soon their imagination might hop its fence, and it will be their turn to change for the better.” – David Goggins
14. “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.” – David Goggins
15. “But what put distance between me and almost everybody else in that platoon is that I didn’t let my desire for comfort rule me.” – David Goggins
16. “A lot of us surround ourselves with people who speak to our desire for comfort. Who would rather treat the pain of our wounds and prevent further injury than help us callous over them and try again. We need to surround ourselves with people who will tell us what we need to hear, not what we want to hear, but at the same time not make us feel we’re up against the impossible.” – David Goggins
17. “But you don’t have to let your doubt into the cockpit! You can tolerate doubt as a backseat driver, but if you put doubt in the pilot’s seat, defeat is guaranteed. Remembering that you’ve been through difficulties before and have always survived to fight again shifts the conversation in your head. It will allow you to control and manage doubt, and keep you focused on taking each and every step necessary to achieve the task at hand.” – David Goggins
18. “Anyone who is of sound mind and body can sit down and think of twenty things in their life that could have gone differently. Where maybe they didn’t get a fair shake and where they took the path of least resistance. If you’re one of the few who acknowledge that, want to callous those wounds, and strengthen your character, it’s up to you to go back through your past and make peace with yourself by facing those incidents and all of your negative influences, and accepting them as weak spots in your own character. 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.” – David Goggins
19. “No matter what you or I achieve, in sports, business, or life, we can’t be satisfied. Life is too dynamic a game. We’re either getting better or we’re getting worse. Yes, we need to celebrate our victories. There’s power in victory that’s transformative, but after our celebration we should dial it down, dream up new training regimens, new goals, and start at zero the very next day.” – David Goggins
20. “I’m haunted by my future goals, not my past failures. I’m haunted by what I may still become. I’m haunted by my own continued thirst for evolution.” – David Goggins
Goggins isn’t only a retired Navy SEAL, but also the only member of the U.S. Armed Forces that completed SEAL training, Air Force Tactical Air Controller training and the U.S. Army Ranger School.
21. “No matter who you are, who your parents are or were, where you live, what you do for a living, or how much money you have, you’re probably living at about 40 percent of your true capability.” – David Goggins
22. “Heraclitus, a philosopher born in the Persian Empire back in the fifth century BC, had it right when he wrote about men on the battlefield. “Out of every one hundred men,” he wrote, “ten shouldn’t even be there, eighty are just targets, nine are the real fighters, and we are lucky to have them, for they make the battle. Ah, but the one, one is a warrior…” – David Goggins
23. “By the time I graduated, I knew that the confidence I’d managed to develop didn’t come from a perfect family or God-given talent. It came from personal accountability which brought me self respect, and self respect will always light a way forward.” – David Goggins
24. “We all need small sparks, small accomplishments in our lives to fuel the big ones. Think of your small accomplishments as kindling. When you want a bonfire, you don’t start by lighting a big log. You collect some witch’s hair — a small pile of hay or some dry, dead grass. You light that, and then add small sticks and bigger sticks before you feed your tree stump into the blaze. Because it’s the small sparks, which start small fires, that eventually build enough heat to burn the whole fuc*ing forest down.” – David Goggins
25. “Pain unlocks a secret doorway in the mind, one that leads to both peak performance, and beautiful silence.” – David Goggins
26. “Every minute you spend feeling sorry for yourself is another minute not getting better, another morning you miss at the gym, another evening wasted without studying. Another day burned when you didn’t make any progress toward your dreams, ambitions, and deepest desires. The ones you’ve had in your head and heart your entire life.” – David Goggins
27. “The reason it’s important to push hardest when you want to quit the most is because it helps you callous your mind. It’s the same reason why you have to do your best work when you are the least motivated. That’s why I loved PT in BUD/S and why I still love it today. Physical challenges strengthen my mind so I’m ready for whatever life throws at me, and it will do the same for you.” – David Goggins
28. “The hard part is getting to that point, because the ticket to victory often comes down to bringing your very best when you feel your worst.” – David Goggins
29. “You cannot be afraid to disappoint people. You have to live the life you want to live. Sometimes, that means being the motherfuc*er who can put a middle finger up to everyone in the room and be totally comfortable with that.” – David Goggins
30. “I thought I’d solved a problem when really I was creating new ones by taking the path of least resistance.” – David Goggins
David Goggins is an incredible endurance athlete who has completed more than 60 ultra-marathons, triathlons, and ultra-triathlons while regularly placing in the top five and setting new course records as well.
31. “From this point forward, accept the following as Goggins’ laws of nature: 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. Get over it!” – David Goggins
32. “A true leader stays exhausted, abhors arrogance, and never looks down on the weakest link. He fights for his men and leads by example. That’s what it meant to be uncommon among uncommon. It meant being one of the best and helping your men find their best too.” – David Goggins
33. “But visualization isn’t simply about daydreaming of some trophy ceremony — real or metaphorical. You must also visualize the challenges that are likely to arise and determine how you will attack those problems when they do. That way you can be as prepared as possible on the journey.” – David Goggins
34. “It’s a lot more than mind over matter. It takes relentless self discipline to schedule suffering into your day, every day.” – David Goggins
35. “No one is going to come help you. No one’s coming to save you.” – David Goggins
36. “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.” – David Goggins
37. “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. Most of us sweep our failures and evil secrets under the rug, but when we run into problems, that rug gets lifted up, and our darkness re-emerges, floods our soul, and influences the decisions which determine our character.” – David Goggins
38. “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 task.” – David Goggins
39. “The only way we can change is to be real with ourselves.” – David Goggins
40. “I understand the temptation to sell short, but I also know that impulse is driven by your mind’s desire for comfort, and it’s not telling you the truth.” – David Goggins
His nickname is ‘Toughest Man in the World’.
41. “It won’t always go your way, so you can’t get trapped in this idea that just because you’ve imagined a possibility for yourself that you somehow deserve it. Your entitled mind is dead weight. Cut it loose. Don’t focus on what you think you deserve. Take aim on what you are willing to earn!” – David Goggins
42. “Our culture has become hooked on the quick-fix, the life hack, efficiency. Everyone is on the hunt for that simple action algorithm that nets maximum profit with the least amount of effort. There’s no denying this attitude may get you some of the trappings of success, if you’re lucky, but it will not lead to a calloused mind or self-mastery. 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.” – David Goggins
43. “We habitually settle for less than our best; at work, in school, in our relationships, and on the playing field or race course.” – David Goggins
See also: Top 90 Never Settle For Less Quotes To Encourage You
44. “From the time you take your first breath, you become eligible to die. You also become eligible to find your greatness and become the One Warrior. But it is up to you to equip yourself for the battle ahead. Only you can master your mind, which is what it takes to live a bold life filled with accomplishments most people consider beyond their capability.” – David Goggins
45. “You are in danger of living a life so comfortable and soft, that you will die without ever realizing your true potential.” – David Goggins
46. “Believe it or not, most people prefer delusion. They blame others or bad luck or chaotic circumstance.” – David Goggins
47. “We all owe it ourselves to stand for something. Principles give us a foundation — solid ground we can trust and build on as we continue to redefine what’s possible in our own lives. Sure, some will be put off by your dedication and level of effort. Others will call you obsessed or think that you’ve gone crazy. When they do, smile and say, “I’m not crazy. I’m just not you.” – David Goggins
48. “That’s one reason I invented the Cookie Jar. We must create a system that constantly reminds us who the fu*k we are when we are at our best, because life is not going to pick us up when we fall. There will be forks in the road, knives in your fucking back, mountains to climb, and we are only capable of living up to the image we create for ourselves. Prepare yourself!” – David Goggins
See also: 90+ Inspiring Pick Yourself Up Quotes To Keep You Going
49. “If you feel wronged by somebody else, you may be waiting on a confession or an apology in order to move forward, but I’m sorry to say the apology — that tearful confession you’ve been dreaming of — will never come. The good news is you don’t need anybody else to free you from your trauma. You can do it on your own.” – David Goggins
50. “No matter how they’re treating you there is one way to not only earn their respect, but turn the tables. Excellence.” – David Goggins
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