Can't Hurt Me: Master Your Mind and Defy the Odds

Goggins often speaks of the necessity of “going to war with yourself” to become who you truly want to be. In large part, this means overcoming the obstacles of your mind as much as, if not more than, the environmental obstacles that the world and other people set before you. This requires that you turn inward and become self-reflective and self-masterful.

The earliest form of Goggins’s war with himself begins with the Accountability Mirror, a literal mirror through which Goggins talks to himself. He uses this mirror to attack himself, his weakness, and his immaturity. He transforms his appearance. He discusses his goals, large and small. He challenges his adversary. That said, it is not a simple session of self-criticism. The importance of going to war is not to crush the enemy entirely but to win through dominance. In a war with oneself, this dominance is achieved through training and intense self-talk. One must overcome those aspects of oneself that hold one down, that seek comfort and coddling. Going to war in this way requires reprogramming your mind; Goggins speaks of brainwashing himself into enjoying suffering. He forces himself into situations that will require extreme physical and mental exertion because it is only through such situations that he feels he can rise to a new level of his existence. In this sense, successfully winning the war against yourself entails defeating the current self for the sake of the self you could become.

This war with the self also takes the emphasis off competition with others. Goggins does not disparage competition with others, but for him, the most fundamental competition is with oneself and one’s limitations. He notes many examples of Navy SEAL recruits who try to outperform their colleagues in BUD/S instead of focusing on themselves. They generally fail. At a certain level, mental and physical punishment become so tortuous that if one does not have a strong internal dialogue and does not understand one’s lesser self as the true enemy of the higher self, then failure is imminent. This happens, Goggins explains, during an ultramarathon. When running 100 plus miles, there may be other individuals in the race, but the true competition is yourself, the voice inside that is screaming at you to stop. Goggins frequently discusses the feeling of doubt. It is this doubt that one is at war with. This doubt must be kept out of the driver’s seat of the mind.