I was listening to a podcast the other day and David Goggins was the guest. If you’re not familiar with Goggins, he is, among many other things, a retired U.S. Navy SEAL and the author of Cant Hurt Me. He was explaining that the Navy SEAL program (BUDS) has historically had an incredibly high failure rate (about 75%). As a result of this high failure rate, they started to offer preliminary training in advance of the real training in hopes that it would increase the number of candidates who successfully completed the program.

Unfortunately, even with the comprehensive preliminary training, of which Goggins was a trainer, the failure rate remained the same. In Goggins’ own words, he said, “We were creating bigger, stronger, faster quitters.” “Quitters” is rather harsh, but the point Goggins was trying to make was that the candidates going into the Navy SEALs program didn’t need to be bigger, stronger, and faster physically, they needed to be stronger mentally. It was the mental component that needed to be strengthened.

So let’s look at anything we really want in life. We don’t need more (fill in the blank)—like more education, training, money, time, etc.; that’s the equivalent of going to preliminary SEAL training. That’s our mind scaring us out of moving forward. That’s our mind putting more distance between us and success. We can blame all of these things or we can finally admit that our very own mind is what is keeping us from what we truly want. It’s a really big day when we can accept that what is preventing us from moving forward, toward success, is almost always an inside job. Hmm. Let’s give that some thought today. We already have EVERYTHING we need to be a success. Now let’s tell our mind that!

With Gratitude,

Beth