David Goggins is a former Navy SEAL, ultra-endurance athlete, and world record holder who has become an inspiration to millions worldwide.
His life story is the very definition of turning obstacles into opportunities and refusing to accept information that says there are things we can’t do.
Through his quotes and books, David encourages others to push beyond any perceived limitations in order to achieve their goals. Here are some of his most inspiring quotes.
- Full name: David Goggins
- Born: February 17, 1975
- Born in: Buffalo, New York, United States
- Occupation: American ultramarathon runner, ultra-distance cyclist, triathlete, motivational speaker, and author
- Height: 6ft 0in
- Weight: 86kg
- Net worth: $500.000
It’s like a muscle – if you stop going to the gym or stop running, you get weak. The military teaches you these great values, but we don’t keep up the discipline on our own, and we lose it. So wherever you go, keep that discipline up.
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.
Embrace the suck. Callus the mind.
There’s a bunch of guys that don’t like me and I don’t give a (expletive). I’m a warrior.
Pain unlocks a secret doorway in the mind, one that leads to both peak performance, and beautiful silence.
When you’re in hell, you forget how great you really are because you’re suffering and you forget the great things you’ve done.
Always be willing to embrace ignorance, because that is the only way to expand your body of knowledge and body of work. It’s the only way to expand your mind.
Before you start a goal – let’s take care of our insecurities because they are going to surface when you put yourself in the crucible and you’re suffering.
Most people who doubt you doubt you because they can never see themselves doing what you are trying to do.
I thought I’d solved a problem when really I was creating new ones by taking the path of least resistance.
I’m different than most people. When I cross the finish line of a big race, I see that people are ecstatic, but I’m thinking about what I’m going to do tomorrow. It’s as if my journey is everlasting, and there is no finish line.
For me to fix this, I gotta read my book. Okay, I’m afraid of my shadow. How can I overcome that? – Go in the military. Get your ass kicked. Do things you hate to do. Be uncomfortable every f***ing day of your life.
Be true to whoever or whatever you are and wear it like a badge of honour. Fit in with one person and one person only: yourself.
Before you open your mouth and criticize someone, think about how you would feel if you were the person you were criticizing.
In the military we always say we don’t rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training.
Motivation is crap. Motivation comes and goes. When you’re driven, whatever is in front of you will get destroyed.
The mind is the most powerful thing in the world. The mind has capabilities that are so unknown, and being able to tap into that is on the other side of suffering.
I swam underwater for 50 meters at a time and walked the length of the pool underwater, with a brick in each hand, all on a single breath.
Self-talk, for me, has been the biggest thing in my life. A lot of us have a dialogue that is crap. It’s a crappy dialogue. We live in a world right now that is very external. Everything is very on the surface. Superficial. Everything. And what we’re telling ourselves is what we see on TV.
Life isn’t always about doing the things we like to do. It’s about doing things we have to do.
We’re either getting better or we’re getting worse.
Suffering is a test. That’s all it is. Suffering is the true test of life.
If you can get through doing things that you hate to do, on the other side is greatness.
People take classes on self-help, mental toughness, breathing control – the only way to get tougher is to put yourself in hellacious situations.
You have to build calluses on your brain just like how you build calluses on your hands. Callus your mind through pain and suffering.
It’s okay, you might be called a nigger one day. It’s okay…Let them call you that. What are you going to do now? They don’t own your life. How you’re going to control that now?…Thicken your skin.
When you tell a recruiter that you’re almost 300 pounds and you want to be a SEAL, it doesn’t go too well. I got hung up on a lot.
On bad days it’s important to get your nose out of the problem! What does that mean? It means you can’t get a clear view of the problem if you are living in it. Pull yourself away from the problem and you will see how different the problem looks.
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!
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.
Fear is my ultimate guide.
A warrior is not a person that carries a gun. The biggest war you ever go through is right between your own ears. It’s in your mind. We’re all going through a war in our mind, and we have to callus our mind to fight that war and to win that war.
Life is one big tug of war between mediocrity and trying to find your best self.
Most of this generation quits the second they get talked to. It’s so easy to be great nowadays because most people are just weak, If you have any mental toughness, any fraction of self-discipline – the ability to not want to do it, but still do it – you’ll be successful.
Our whole life is set up in the path of least resistance. We don’t want to suffer. We don’t want to feel discomfort. So the whole time, we’re living our lives in a very comfortable area. There’s no growth in that.
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.
I lived a sloppy life. So I took very small increments in my life. I started making my bed. I started cleaning my room. There were dishes in the sink. It started off with doing small house chores. I saw that the yard needed to be mowed. So instead of being told it needed to be mowed, I would mow it.
You want to be uncommon amongst uncommon people. Period.
My whole thing now is I know how to think properly to be successful in all aspects of my life. It’s not about ultra running or being a SEAL or pull-up records: it’s about if you want to be better you, have to change your perceived limitations and take the barriers down.
The only person who was going to turn my life around was me. The only way I could get turned around was to put myself through the worst things possible that a human being could ever endure.
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.
If you choose to do something, attack it. You can hate me, but there’s one thing you can’t say about me – that I didn’t attack it.
I’m a big believer in doing things that make you uncomfortable. So, we live in a world where we want to be as comfortable as we can. And we wonder why we have no growth. We wonder why – when the smallest thing in our life gets difficult – we wonder why we cower and we run away.
A warrior is a guy that goes ‘I’m here again today. I’ll be here again tomorrow and the next day.’ It’s a person who puts no limit on what’s possible.
You are stopping you, you are giving up instead of getting hard.
Don’t be the person that looks at the weather report the night before to decide what you are going to do the next day.
If you can see yourself doing something, you can do it. If you can’t see yourself doing something, usually you can’t achieve it.
Don’t let your body or mind do exactly what it wants to do! Take control!
Don’t limit expectations of yourself and settle for anything less than what you are truly capable of achieving.
We have the ability to go in such a space, if you’re willing to suffer, and I mean suffer, your brain and body once connected together, can do anything.
Motivation is crap. It comes and goes. Find what you’re passionate about. Then you can be driven. When you’re driven you don’t give a damn.
As humans, we’re reading books everyday to try to figure out how to be someone else. What we don’t do is go inside, turn ourselves inside out, and read our own story. You have to look inside to find out what you really want.
You went three hell weeks and finished two. One of the hells weeks, a guy died, it was so bad. Oh, you ARE a motherf***king badass.
Everybody wants a quick fix like 6-minute abs – you may get some results from it, but those results won’t be permanent. The permanent results come from you having to suffer. You have to make that a tattoo on your brain so that when the hard time comes again, you don’t forget it.
It’s easier to accept the fact that you’re just not good enough. We all have a lot more than we think we have.
We have the ability to make very easy things seem impossible. Stop losing the mind game against yourself.
We live in a world where a lot of people need goals, motivation, and a lot of other words to get started. It’s just a big excuse to not get started.
Life is a battle between trying to find more of yourself knowing that the real you is afraid, likes comfort, likes to be patted on the back, and doing what you need to do to get better.
When you’re exhausted, weak, and tired and everyone around you looks just as bad as you or even worse – that’s the perfect time for you to make a statement. You let everyone around you know that when their life ends, that’s when yours begins.
You’re gonna fail, you’re gonna be in your head, and you’re gonna be saying I’m not good enough. It’s about how you overcome that.
Most people who are criticizing and judging haven’t even tried what you failed at.
Whoever says you can’t develop mental toughness or anything else doesn’t truly understand the human mind or the human spirit.
You are in danger of living a life so comfortable and soft, that you will die without ever realising your true potential.
When you fall down, focus on the solution, not the problem. You might quit or fail 100 times. Keep that clear picture of where you want to be.
Be true to whoever or whatever you are and wear it like a badge of honor. Fit in with one person and one person only: yourself.
You may lose the battle of the morning but don’t lose the war of the day.
People take classes on self-help, mental toughness, breathing control – the only way to get tougher is to put yourself in hellacious situations.
Mental toughness is a lifestyle. It’s something that you live every single day of your life. When I was growing up, I was a lazy kid. I was a lazy kid, and everybody goes, ‘How did you get to where you’re at today? How did you get to where you’re running 200 miles at one time in 39 hours? Being so disciplined?’
Life is a battle between trying to find more of yourself knowing that the real you is afraid, likes comfort, likes to be patted on the back, and doing what you need to do to get better.
Don’t worry about the elements around you and what’s going on. You gotta get out there and get it.
The biggest thing is to stop thinking you deserve anything. You, me, or anyone else doesn’t deserve shit! So whenever you think you deserve a day off “just because”…rethink that shit! It’s that kind of attitude that makes you like most people.
Comfort zones: If you like in one too long…that becomes your norm. Get comfortable being uncomfortable.
You will never learn from people if you always tap dance around the truth.
The only reason why I became successful was because I went towards the truth. As painful and as brutal as it is, it changed me. It allowed me, in my own right, to become the person who I am today.
Get over whatever is stopping you from being your best self! Rather than use the obstacles and setbacks in your life as excuses, use them as the catalyst to get better and go further in life.
If you can get through doing things that you hate to do, on the other side is greatness.
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 f*cking forest down.
You gotta start your journey. It may suck, but eventually you will come out the other side on top.
If you’re not physically and mentally prepared for what life is going to throw at you, then you’re just going to crumble, And then, you’re no good to nobody.
You will never learn from people if you always tap dance around the truth.
We are all great. No matter if you think you’re dumb, fat, been bullied, we all have greatness. You gotta find the courage. It’s going to be hard work, discipline, and the non-cognitive skills – hard work, dedication, sacrifice – that will set you apart.
The only way you gain mental toughness is to do things you’re not happy doing. If you continue doing things that you’re satisfied and make you happy, you’re not getting stronger. You’re staying where you’re at. Either you’re getting better, or you’re getting worse. You’re not staying the same.
You can will yourself to do almost anything you want.
Stop thinking and do something.
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.
Everyday you’re trying to find more of what you’re capable of – and that’s the big question. What are you capable of? Stop doing the things that you do every day. If you run everyday, go swim.
Life is one big tug of war between mediocrity and trying to find your best self.
Even if you are hurting, never let your competition see the look of defeat or even vulnerability on your face.
You’re not going to find greatness by looking in a book or by listening to me. I may give you the spark, but you’ve got to go inside yourself to find it.
Read a record number of books in a given month. If you’re focused on intellectual growth, train yourself to study harder and longer than ever before.
Sometimes you must go to war with yourself to fix yourself.
Remembering what you’ve been through and how that has strengthened your mindset can lift you out of a negative brain loop and help you bypass those weak, one-second impulses to give in. 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.
My happiness is my reflection on the suffering during my journey and knowing that I never quit nor was I guided by anybody on this earth.
We all want to take this four-lane highway, but we always step over the shovel. All I did was pick up that shovel and made my own path.
The only way that you’re ever going to get to the other side of this journey is by suffering. You have to suffer in order to grow. Some people get it, some people don’t.
We like to live our lives on social media with lies about ourselves about how great we are. Get to the source! Fix the problem.
Most people who doubt you doubt you because they can never see themselves doing what you are trying to do
Every morning in our lives, we have a choice to make. You have the choice to stay in bed and say ‘Forget it, I’m not going to work out today.’ or ‘Forget it, I’m not going to work hard today.’ That’s your choice that you make every single day of your life. Make the right decision.
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.
It’s so easy to be great nowadays, because everyone else is weak. If you have ANY mental toughness, if you have any fraction of self-discipline; The ability to not want to do it, but still do it; If you can get through to doing things that you hate to do: on the other side is greatness.
We live in a world where a lot of people need goals, motivation, and a lot of other words to get started. It’s just a big excuse to not get started.
You can will yourself to do almost anything you want.
At the end of the day, hard work may not be enough. You still may fail. But you keep going out there and go after it.
Success is based off of your willingness to work your ass off no matter what obstacles are in your way.
Boot camp sucks – SEAL training sucks – but you know what? That’s what makes you good.
The more things you can do to get outside of that zone that makes you feel good, the stronger your mind is going to get. It starts getting used to doing things like this. It’s not fun, but now my mind is used to it.
A lot of people put motivational quotes up on the wall and all they do is collect dust. Become what that quote says. Live it every day.
Suffering is a test. That’s all it is. Suffering is the true test of life.
The most important conversation is the one you have with yourself.
I like to see what I’m made of. I want to see if there is a limit to the human soul.
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.
If you want to get better, do the things that no-one else wants to do. Do the things that no-one is even thinking about doing.
Don’t limit expectations of yourself and settle for anything less than what you are truly capable of achieving.
Don’t get mad at others because life is kicking your ass.
No one is going to come help you. No one’s coming to save you.
Most of the amazing things in this world come from people who know how to turn their failure into a success.
The things that we decide to run from are the truth. When you make excuses, you’re running from the truth.
There is no better way to grow as a person than to do something you hate every day.
In order for me to be the person that I wanted to become, I saw myself as the weakest person (that God) ever created. I wanted to change that into being the hardest man ever created.
When you think you’re done, you’re only at 40% of your body’s capability.
I had a rough childhood coming up, and I just took all that negative energy and made it very positive for myself to drive me. I’m a very driven person. I have passion that almost scares people, just to be successful and make it no matter what.
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.
The things that we decide to run from are the truth. When you make excuses, you’re running from the truth.
Never let people who choose the path of least resistance steer you away from your chosen path of most resistance.
If you sit there and have that mentality of ‘triple down on what you’re good at,’ you’re never going to grow. You’re always going to stay the same.
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.
I don’t stop when I’m tired. I stop when I’m done.
The path to success will leave you callused, bruised, and very tired. It will also leave you empowered.
You gotta start your journey. It may suck, but eventually you will come out the other side on top.
The only reason why I became successful was because I went towards the truth. As painful and as brutal as it is, it changed me. It allowed me, in my own right, to become the person who I am today.
Teach yourself that it isn’t ok to take the easy way out. Make sure you are bothered by the things you set out to do but did not complete or make time for in the day.
Back in the day, what motivated me was overcoming myself. Now I believe in being a leader. I’ve done it all – I’m good. Now, it’s about setting an example for others to follow. I can’t just talk it – I have to live it.
A lot of us don’t know about another world that exists for us because it’s on the other side of suffering. That’s the real growth in life.
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 realise you’re doing it to become better.
Denial is the ultimate comfort zone.
Show people, don’t tell people!
Sel-talk and visualization are two keys to my success.
If you’re not physically and mentally prepared for what life is going to throw at you, then you’re just going to crumble, And then, you’re no good to nobody.
Take time to take inventory of your life. Look in the mirror and hold yourself accountable.
It’s a lot more than mind over matter. It takes relentless self discipline to schedule suffering into your day, every day.
We live in an external world. Everything, you have to see it, touch it. If you can for the rest of your life, live inside yourself – to find greatness, you have to go inside.
High achievement doesn’t require inborn talent. It requires working your ass off. Period.
The mind is the most powerful thing in the world. The mind has capabilities that are so unknown, and being able to tap into that is on the other side of suffering.
The only thing more contagious than a good attitude is a bad one.
You have to be willing to go to war with yourself and create a whole new identity.
I hated jumping out of airplanes, I hated shooting guns, I hated the job as a Navy SEAL – but I did it because I wanted to change myself. Everything you do, I’m not really comfortable doing, but if you choose to go that route, to be a navy seal, you might as well go be the hardest motherf***er in the world.
The reason I became 297 pounds is because that was comfortable. What was very uncomfortable was running. What was very uncomfortable was being on a diet. What was very uncomfortable was trying to face things that I didn’t want to face. And I also realized, when I was really big, I had no growth. Why? Because I was living comfortable.
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!
Like the Taoists say, those that know don’t speak, and those who speak, well, they don’t know jack s*it.
Stop making excuses. Stop being a victim. Take personal responsibility. Hold yourself accountable. Get comfortable with the uncomfortable. And finally, make your dreams come true.
Don’t get mad at others because life is kicking your ass.
Life isn’t always about doing the things we like to do. It’s about doing things we have to do.
Success is based off of your willingness to work your ass off no matter what obstacles are in your way.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oIrT1eHs1b0
David Goggins’s words are a stark reminder that nothing is impossible if we truly believe in ourselves and put in the hard work. His life story can serve as a source of hope, motivation, and inspiration for everyone who needs it.
Through his words, he encourages us to never give up and keep striving towards our dreams no matter what obstacles may arise. So don’t stop pushing – let David Goggins’s quotes be your guide.
