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Can’t Hurt Me Challenges

Can’t Hurt Me Challenges – Complete Guide To David Goggins 10 Challenges

David Goggins is an ultra-marathon runner, triathlete, ultra-distance cyclist and a world-record holder for pull-ups. He has written a book to inspire and motivate triathletes and fitness enthusiasts with numerous challenges to help realize their potential. These challenges aim at pushing the limits of triathletes to prepare them better for upcoming events.

The core premise of David Goggin’s Can’t Hurt Me is that most people barely scratch the surface of the massive potential the human body holds, and the only way to realize these amazing abilities is to push ourselves to the breaking point.

In this book ‘Can’t Hurt Me – Master Your Mind & Defy The Odds’, the readers get a chance to build a foundation of a tough mind to become better at whatever they do, influencing the world around them in a more powerful way.

In this guide, we discuss the Can’t Hurt Me challenges, the logic behind each of them, with brief explanations for each of them. While we don’t cover the complete depth of knowledge that the author conveys in this book, it can help you better decide if this book is for you!

Can’t Hurt Me Challenges – A Complete Guide

Goggins, in his book, challenges the readers to get hard, push themselves beyond their capabilities and stand out from the crowd. He inspires and pushes enthusiasts through various different challenges. The book is full of achievable challenges with progressive difficulty levels that athletes can take to toughen their mind and body, while realizing their true potential.

The first of the challenges is to make a note of all the bad hands you’ve been dealt with in life. You note down the problems and limitations you encountered in life along with the current factors limiting your growth, while analysing the factors, people and obligations obstructing your path.

Goggins’ asks you to give sufficient time to think about these situations and include the tiniest of details while describing them. You are then asked to store these notes safely, without expending any time or effort in analysing and brainstorming those problems.

Another challenge is about visualization. This challenge is where Goggins visualizes the picture of success for any challenging activity he engages in. Visualizing this picture everyday propels him forward, creating an armoured mind.

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Visualization also involves painting a picture of the challenges you face and the way you will handle them. This way, you can prepare yourself better for the journey.

David Goggins 10 Challenges – Getting Started

The ‘Can’t Hurt Me’ challenges are aimed to help develop a calloused mind. It is a mind that overcomes resistance and is used to discomfort. To take this challenge, you start writing the activities you hate doing or have been putting off. These can be big problems, but it is recommended that you focus on the smaller aspects. They can include things like meditating or washing dishes, making the bed as soon as you get up, etc.

The idea behind the challenge is to complete tasks and activities that you hate, to come out of your comfort zone. The more uncomfortable you get, the stronger you become. This helps you develop a can-do attitude which is the key to a calloused mind.

Another Can’t Hurt Me challenge is a gratifying one – Taking Souls. With this challenge, you select a competition and identify your opponent. It can be your family member, boss or teacher. Whoever it is and however they treat you, the idea is to believe that you can win their respect. Goggins asks you to work harder on the project and go out of your way to exceed the expectations of the other person.

For example, if you want to take the challenge at the gym, you should try and find out who works the hardest and then train harder than that person. If it is your boss, work more than before. Reach before him and leave after him. And when you deliver, do more than what he would have expected. Whoever you deal with, the goal is to show them that you can achieve what they could not have done. It is about taking their soul.

Accountability Mirror Challenge

One of the most effective Can’t Hurt Me Challenges is the Accountability Mirror. David Goggins’ used sticky notes on his mirror, where he documented all his dreams, goals and insecurities. He asks you to do the same. You start by taking a pen and writing all your insecurities, goals and dreams, and then put them on the mirror. This accountability mirror will remind yourself of your goals every morning.

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If you need more inspiration, there are 1,000s of examples on Pinterest, Wix & Reddit that can help you out with these. For an athlete, goals can be anything from time taken to complete a 5K run or number of laps swimming per day, etc.

In order to make this effective, its essential to be genuinely aware of your present state and keeping goals that are achievable. If you’re mirror is filled with fantasies, it can only further demotivate you when see the goals and notes piling up.

For each of the steps, you should write what it takes to improve. So, the challenge involves breaking down the goals into smaller goals. When you have your mirror tagged, you can start acting. Once you achieve a goal, you can remove the note. You can then write the next step and tag. No matter which goal you work on, it is important to remain accountable. You should act with dedication. Accountability Mirror aims to reveal the truth to you every single day. You should use it to your benefit.

Accountability Mirror Examples

The logic behind the accountability mirror is quite simple and straightforward, it is to make you aware of your goals as soon as you wake up or while getting ready in the morning, break down the said goals into smaller subtasks and objectives, while guilt-tripping you for not accomplishing the same.

It’s simple and works great. For example, if your goal is to run a marathon, you cannot run the entire length on day 1, it is a gradual process of improving your overall endurance and performance, that involves setting plenty of micro-goals that you strive to reach every day.

If you’re goal is to improve your aerobic capacity, you set a few exercises to perform each day with certain intensity, and if you fail to complete that by the end of the day, you mark it as incomplete, filling you with guilt for not accomplishing it.

You can also mention the challenges and the obstacles that prevented you from achieving said goal, it could be laziness, procrastination, etc, which again goes on the mirror, allowing you to see what is hindering you’re progress and coming up with measures on effectively countering the same.

David Goggins Challenge 111 Miles

The prime concept put forward by David Goggins is the ’40 Percent Rule’, and according to this rule, when we start working towards a certain objective, and reach the point of exhaustion and decide to call it quits, we’ve only expended 40% of our capacity. Goggins’ considers this a trick played by our brain as a defence mechanism against over-exerting ourselves.

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We only gain the ability to tap into this remaining 60% energy, capacity and motivation at times of adversity, and once we manage to consciously tap into these reserves, the positive feedback sent to the brain, creates an exponential increase in our overall abilities, allowing us to work harder, stronger and longer.

Goggins’ says, we all have a governor in the brain which plays the role of the resident buzzkill, and we have to remove the influence of this governor to truly achieve our dreams.

To be able to get rid of this governor that holds you back from doing what you can, you should force yourself into discomfort, that we’ve been programmed to avoid all our lives.

This challenge says you should run 111 miles if you run 100 miles normally in a session. If you always do 50 pushups per workout, you should aim for 56. Such gradual progression saves you from any risk of injury while allowing your body and mind to adapt to the load. Once you apply this challenge, you reset your baseline. The next time you run, you should increase by 5-10% of 111 miles. This way, you keep pushing your limits and get better.

On To Our Readers

There are numerous scientific papers dealing with each of these concepts, challenges and frameworks, with strong supportive evidence based on anecdotes and systematic research. While more and more tests are conducted on the science of human performance, the core premise of ‘Can’t Hurt Me’ remains as solid as ever.

The real question as usual, is what percent of those who read this book, can actually put these challenges into action, and get the desired results?

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