In the back of my mind, I knew I could achieve this, no matter what. I knew this, but I was afraid of work. Because I wasn't blessed with intelligence.
I was not blessed with God-given talent in terms of athletics. So I knew that in order to get where I needed to be, work would be something I didn't even want to face. I believe your mind lives forever.
I believe in a higher power. I will be haunted by the simple fact that I literally just was who I was. But I knew I would pay for it, both while I was alive and after I died.
I visualize a lot. And then when I weighed 135 pounds, I thought, oh my God, man, this could be my life. And I thought, okay, what does paradise look like?
I don't know. No one knows, I imagine. So, I thought, okay, I imagine there's a huge line, and you have the judgment, and you are God.
Let's assume you're God and I'm just David Goggins. A huge line and you're talking to Jane, Jane Doe. Jane Doe walks by and behind you there's a big white board and on the white board there's like a sheet of paper and you pull it down.
The next person in line is David Goggins. And on this board, there's. .
. All of this is on the list, but I can't see it, I'm too far in the queue. So I walk over, sit down.
Now you're talking to me. David, congratulations. You have arrived in paradise.
How do you feel? And right now I'm a 300-pound man. Average lab guy.
I am 71 years old. That's what I'm thinking at 24 years old. Okay, I'm dead.
I'm in heaven. You are God. You pull out the paper that says David Goggins.
I'm reading. And I'm looking at this and it has my name on it, but on this paper, it says everything about you, everything. Because God knows everything, and I'm looking at it and I'm seeing it.
84 kilos, Navy Seal, changed people's lives, all these amazing things, speaker, blah blah blah blah. . .
Motivational, all the best selling book. And I look at God and I say, God, the name is right, but what's here is not me. He says, it should have been you, this was the life you should have lived.
So this is the life you have. So I think to myself, are you in heaven? Am I talking to God or am I talking to the devil?
Because I'm in hell right now, seeing that this should have been my life, but because I didn't try hard enough. Because I didn't put every ounce of pressure on my body to be better. I ended up being a 300-pound guy who made $1,000 a month, and I was fine with that.
That was ok. This is how my mind works. Does it work like this to see where it will take me?
What is the possibility? So after I watched that show on the Discovery Channel, for a brief moment, I was there, so there were 22 guys that graduated. I watched this segment on TV about these guys going through Navy SEAL training.
And I couldn't even do it, I wasn't a great swimmer, I was scared of the water, all that crap, man. I saw these guys giving up, but in the end I said 22 guys, the commanding officer was there and gave a big speech. Then I started imagining myself being the 23rd guy in the white uniform, sitting there with these guys.
So, I put myself in that situation. I thought, man, what an incredible feeling. I put myself there with 135 kilos, not being able to do any of what these big men were doing.
I wanted to win, not in the sense of defeating someone. It wasn't about that. I just wanted to go to the end.
All my life, when something got difficult, I gave up. I want to finish. I want to feel the victory.
And victory for me was not winning. It was just finishing. So I said, you know what, if I could feel what these guys feel, it would change my life.
But what I realized was the best feeling I had was when I was alone trying to lose that weight. I had to lose it literally in less than three months. 48 kilos in less than three months.
And literally, I started to feel victory just by putting myself into battle. It wasn't about going to Navy SEAL training. It wasn't about being the 23rd guy in that chair.
I started to realize, man, just waging war with myself every day, and setting these challenges, these goals, and these obstacles, these insurmountable obstacles. So it wasn't about losing 100 pounds. Losing 2 kilos was already an achievement.
Lose 5 kilos, and then 23 kilos. The more I did this, the more I gained confidence. And the more I gained confidence, the more I realized, screw those Navy SEALs, man.
These guys can't do what I'm doing right now. I didn't have a coach, I didn't have staff, I didn't have money. I didn't know how to lose weight.
I had no knowledge of what I was doing. I was just working. I was just sacrificing myself.
And then through that, all these different tools started to emerge. But I would never have found these tools. If only I didn't put myself in a very uncomfortable position.
We all look for resistance. We all want that. But we look for a comfortable environment.
You won't encounter resistance in a comfortable environment. Those who are listening to this, whoever listens to this, you will not find it. I was trying to find it everywhere.
The only way to find it is to drown. I'll figure out how to swim backstroke or something. When you give up, your mind says: we're done.
So, it doesn't expand. There is no expansion when you give up. When you say: screw it, no.
This sucks. I'm drowning. I'm miserable.
I'm suffering. I'm broke, but I'm not going anywhere. What happens to your mind is that it does this.
Say, damn, he's not leaving. So we have to expand. We have to grow.
We have to resolve this thing. I realize that if I keep going back and forth until the whole thing becomes, your mind is going to say, damn, OK, let's figure it out. She will find a way.
Because he won't stop. Like a lot of people say, like when I talk about trying hard. They, your mind knows, man, you know this guy is stringing me along, man, this guy is lying, there's no truth to it.
When I was in Navy SEAL training, people would ask, how did you stay there for eighteen months? The program only lasts six months, you went through three weeks of hell in a year, no one has ever done that, how did you do it? I talk about the new norm.
When I lived in a $7 a month place when I was growing up for a short period of time, I loved it, I didn't know any different. That was my normal. When we left that place, we moved to a $236 a month place.
I thought, "Damn, I never want to go back to that shitty little place. " But if you go back to that seven-dollar-a-month place, and you realize this is where I live, this is all I have, your mind says, got it, this is home. So when I was going through Navy SEAL training for 18 months, and going through all the hard parts again and again, I told myself after the first time, I knew it was going to be a long journey.
My body was breaking down, that's how it was happening. I said, you know what, this is my new norm. Then my mind said, it's like going to work, like when you wear a suit and tie, I go into suffering every day.
Every day, suffering, being broken, wrapping my feet with duct tape, stress fractures, shin splints, being broken. This is my new normal. And your mind says, if we're not broken.
. . That's not normal.
We have to be broken. Then your mind starts to become increasingly strong and calloused. People ask how did you run with broken feet?
Broken shins? My mind knew this is how we operate. We're in Navy SEAL training.
It's what we are. I have become hell. And that became my new norm.
I didn't give myself any way out. There was nothing outside these walls of hell. Nothing.
I became, I love God, but for a short period of time, I became the devil because that was hell. I became the boss, the owner, the CEO of Navy SEAL Training. That was my mindset.
And that's how you get through things. You place yourself, immerse yourself in whatever it is, and become that. You become that and there is no way out.
I found peace on the other side, of finding myself, and no one really finds themselves without going through trials, tribulations, suffering, responsibility, and responsibility is suffering. Being responsible every day for doing the right thing, for yourself, for the people around you, is miserable. It is difficult.
Never forget, conquering yourself is a permanent process. It's never time to stop!
