Be Your Own Hero

You don’t need to look up to anyone.

The interviewer asked David Goggins who did he look up to growing up. His answer? Himself.

“Be your own hero”, he added. “Because your heroes will let you down.”

He made it fundamentally clear that in this life, you are essentially alone.

Sure. You have a family.

Sure. You have your loved ones.

Sure. You have your friends.

Sure. You have your mentors.

You probably have a lot of people around you.

But at the end of the day when it’s just you laying in bed, or in the thicket of doing something really hard, or when no one is around, you are alone.

Hell, even when someone is around, you are still alone.

No one occupies your head with you. At the end of the day, everything is on you.

If other people could truly be your hero, surely they would’ve single-handedly pulled you out of your struggle with yourself and brought you to a refuge of success, right? Surely they would’ve come and saved you by now?

But they can’t.

Even if they do, you will still fail. You will fail hard. You will kick yourself on how much you don’t deserve to be there, and then you will crash and burn anyway once you realize that it’s just you and the work you need to do.

Why is self-help/improvement hard? Why is it hard to improve oneself? Why is it hard to reach the success you want?

Because only you can go through that door. The support system only gets you so far, but it will do nothing for someone who never fully commits and gets after it.

Most of your goals are highly ambitious (as are mine). These goals require extreme discipline over your mind. They require you and only you to do the work. It doesn’t matter the people you look up to or the support you build around you.

Life isn’t magic. Your success is a direct result of how hard and smart you are willing to work.

No one can truly help or support you. They have their own things to worry about than to care about you.

You. Are. Alone.

And that’s okay.

I think most of us are scared to be alone, but we don’t realize that even with people around us we still are.

The game of life is you and your head. Get comfortable with yourself. You only hate being alone because you hate being alone with yourself. Having others around helped to distract you from yourself, but now there’s no one around.

No one is coming to save you. You can have your idols, but they won’t do anything for you. In fact, they may surely let you down.

Respect those people who have inspired you, and then vow to surpass them.

Vow to be a better human than them.

Vow to be a better hero. Then be that hero for others.

Your “heroes” are regular humans who sleep and shit just like you. They aren’t gods and don’t deserve to be put on such a high pedestal.

I no longer have “heroes”. I only have people I highly respect and can learn from. That’s it.

The higher you place someone else the more you convince yourself that you can never reach that point.

Own your own story and be your own hero. This is some of the most profound advice out there.

Get real with the lazy, procrastinating, undisciplined, unmotivated, actionless, scarcity-minded self you may be now and save yourself.

Be your own hero and pull yourself out of that situation. Know that Life isn’t fair and some people were dealt a better hand than you.

If you know others have it better, why wouldn’t you try with all your might to make the odds fair?

Why wouldn’t you show those people that it doesn’t matter the hand you were dealt, but the way you play it.

The hand you were dealt with doesn’t have to stay that way. Draw some more cards if you need to.

I’m not saying any of this is easy. Not at all. That’s why you struggle in the first place.

I’m not saying don’t look up to anyone. I have many people that I look up to.

I’m not saying don’t look for help or accountability or support.

All of those things are important.

What I’m saying is that you have to realize that you are alone in this life.

No one is coming to save you.

We are not coming back.

It doesn’t matter who you build around yourself. Don’t build around a weak foundation.

Own your own story. Look up to yourself more than anyone else.

Bet on yourself. Bet everything on yourself even when that seems like such a crazy idea.

Wouldn’t you rather look up to the hero you’ve become and the journey you’ve taken to inspire others rather than waste away in the shadow of those you admire?

They can’t do anything for you. Don’t be satisfied being anyone’s sidekick.

Be your own hero.