Why You Suck—And How to Fix It
Be better than yourself yesterday, everyday.
In some sense, when David Goggins tells you through a screen, through the sweat of his 50 some mile run, through his hard voice yelling at 3 am in the morning, that sucking is all mental, he is completely right.
At the same time, David Goggins needs to get a life. Like for real.
If having a bullet-proof mind, one that feeds on pain, is what David has, I don’t want that. I don’t want my only pleasure in life to come from when I am killing my body. Even if that means I can trick myself into believing I am a god among men.
But, just because you can’t run for 100 miles without stopping, or just because you can’t do as many pull-ups as some ‘roided influencer, doesn’t mean you suck. It could; but it doesn’t inherently.
Being a loser is not defined by someone else. Understand that. Being a loser is defined by yourself.
If you were born without the capacity to do complex math equations in your head like your friend, you are normal. If you were born without the capacity to do complex math equations in your head like your friend, and that is your excuse for living on welfare and having a terrible life, you suck.
I am not saying this to be crass and get some quick applause or boo’s, I am saying this because I need to hear it more often than I like.
Everyone was born with something they can do, some people—those we would call *talented*— were born with multiple things they can do. However, the distinction between being someone who would benefit with some personal Goggins time and someone who Goggins would be benefitted spending time with is not where you are.
It is where you are in relation to where you started.
Are you still sitting in your car at the indy 500 at the start line hours after the race commenced, smiling foolishly because you are one of the best racers in the world? Or are you finishing the last grueling lap of a silly highschool track practice, not even near the front, but sweating your guts out?
One person sucks because they mentally know they have made it; one person does not suck because they mentally know there is always someone faster.
There will always be someone better than you. At everything. And that should make you snap your eyes open, throttle your Nascar, and drop the clutch. The screeching of super-heated rubber burning into smoke being your motivational anthem.
Nevertheless, if one day you become the best at what you do, you will still always be beat by one
single
person
every time.
Yourself, who could have just tried a little bit harder.
That is wood for the blaze, nitrous for the hypercar, fuel for the mind. That is a mentality that David Goggins can never match. While he bleeds for the love of the pain; you bleed for the love of excellence.
Pain can be killed—they are called pain-killers and alcohol. It is something with an end, it is a light that you can reach at the end of the tunnel, that black, dark, sick, tunnel. Excellence—being motivated by who you could be—is the light that pushes you onward to the stars. To the farthest galaxy.
Your only job? Be better than yourself—not some botox-lipped, AI-enhanced Instagram model.
If you feel terrible about your life, don’t expect it to change if you don’t change how you live.
Naturally, this is so much easier to write than to actually do. This is why we suck. Ideas of excelling come by easy and are proven true hard. They also come by the thousand, on YouTube, Facebook, Substack… my Substack. And so, this is just white noise on a white piece of paper in a white room. Someday, probably tomorrow, you will have completely forgotten you ever read this and how it made you feel.
You will give into the temptation of sucking. You will turn on the TV and blow your mind on captain crunch and infomercials. Then, someday, you will be scrolling on whatever social media app is popular and click on a picture of some idolized superstar. His biceps will be the size of your thighs, and his wealth, well, that will be much much larger than you or I can even imagine.
Through your screen he will tell you how not to suck and how to be like him instead.
He will show you his alarm clock as it reads 3:30 am in the morning, he will breath heavily as he takes a freezing cold shower, he will flex his muscles as he eats raw eggs, and finally, he will step into his fancy car that is worth more than the last 10 years of your salary.
And you might get a little motivated, or you might just feel terrible about yourself and scroll on.
No matter what people will tell you, you will never stop sucking if you don’t change how you think about it. The power of excellence can never come from a formula, not matter how much you paid for it, or who does it.
I will never be as good looking as Cbum, no matter how early I wake up or how many protein shakes I drink. I will never be as hard as David Goggins, no matter how much weight I lose or if I join the marines. I will never be as famous as Taylor Swift even if I change my gender and my voice. I will never be as talented as Michael Jorden even if I shoot millions of basketball shots. I will never be as rich as Elon Musk even if my whole entire family leaves me all their money in an inheritance.
I will never… but I will still be excellent. Lest I believe I can pursue this on my own, I can’t. And so, I will never… but through God’s grave I will still be excellent.
Hold yourself to the standard of where you are at in your journey. Never hold yourself to where someone else is at their destination.
Be better than yourself yesterday, everyday.
Do you think the feeling of never being enough ever really goes away, or do we just learn to push through it anyway?
I get what you mean about always chasing excellence and knowing there’s always someone better. But honestly, that’s what keeps the fire going, right? It’s crazy how you put it—like fuel for the mind and the love of the pain.
That hit different because a lot of people run from that, but you’re saying to embrace it and keep going. I like how you flipped the whole idea of competition inward. Instead of worrying about everyone else, you just focus on beating yourself every time.
That’s a powerful way to look at it—makes me think about where I’m holding back just because I think I’ll never be the best at something.
This is a great piece Austin. I've struggled between feeling 'smart' and then feeling 'mediocre' when I finally found somebody who could argue me down. It's been hard to realize that I'm never gonna be famous or the best at anything. I have small talents, and that's ok. I'm normal; my deficiencies merely lead me to appreciate when someone else is extraordinary in that area.