28 Best Motivational Quotes and Lessons from Can’t Hurt me by David Goggins

About The Book 

David Goggins is a man obsessed. Obsessed with excellence, perfection, and getting the most out of his life and his body and mind. And he has achieved success beyond our imagination. With no “special privileges” in his kitty, he has carved out a niche for himself through hard work, dedication to his passion, and a no-shit attitude. At times he has punished himself but every time he has discovered that he performed only what he was already capable of.

Goggins believes that we are always capable of more than we think we can achieve. We need to push ourselves out of our comfort zone and face discomfort and pain only to come out stronger and more resilient on the other side.

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This powerful autobiography reminds us that if we take the easy way out, the grander, better things don’t come to us. But if we move beyond our comfort zones and endure pain and commit to getting things done no matter how impossible they feel, we achieve our true potential and true greatness.

The following lines from Can’t Hurt Me: Master your mind and Defy the Odds are my favorite quotes and lessons from the book.

Can’t Hurt Me Best Lines

“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!”

“You are in danger of living a life so comfortable and soft, that you will die without ever realizing your true potential.”

“It's a lot more than mind over matter. It takes relentless self-discipline to schedule suffering into your day, every day.”

“I thought I’d solved a problem when really I was creating new ones by taking the path of least resistance.”

“No one is going to come help you. No one's coming to save you.”

“The most important conversations you’ll ever have are the ones you’ll have with yourself.”

“Denial is the ultimate comfort zone.”

“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.”

“In the military we always say we don’t rise to the level of our expectations, we fall to the level of our training.”

“We’re either getting better or we’re getting worse.”

What we learnt from David Goggins

“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.”

“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!”

“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.”

“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 fucking forest down.”

“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 fucking 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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

Can’t Hurt Me David Goggins Book Quotes

“Tell yourself the truth! That you’ve wasted enough time, and that you have other dreams that will take courage to realize, so you don’t die a fucking pussy.”

“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.”

“Be more than motivated, be more than driven, become literally obsessed to the point where people think you're fucking nuts.”

“Pain unlocks a secret doorway in the mind, one that leads to both peak performance, and beautiful silence.”

“I don't stop when I'm tired. I stop when I'm done”

“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.”

“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.”

“Analyze your schedule, kill your empty habits, burn out the bullshit, and see what’s left.”

“Everyone fails sometimes and life isn’t supposed to be fair, much less bend to your every whim.”

“You can be born in a fucking sewer and still be the baddest motherfucker on earth.”