Never Finished: Unshackle Your Mind and Win the War Within

Never Finished: Unshackle Your Mind and Win the War Within is a self-help memoir by David Goggins. Goggins is a retired Navy SEAL and an accomplished ultra-distance runner, cyclist, and triathlete. Never Finished is a follow-up to Goggins’s bestselling first book, Can’t Hurt Me: How to Master Your Mind and Defy the Odds, which he self-published in 2018. Both books blend Goggins’s autobiographical stories with lessons for building mental strength. Whereas Can’t Hurt Me recounts his life from childhood through his military career, Never Finished focuses on Goggins’s post-retirement endeavors, while often referencing earlier events through flashbacks.

Never Finished takes a no-nonsense approach to self-improvement. Goggins’s setbacks and successes provide examples of overcoming hardships, but the book alternates between inspiration and instruction. Narrative chapters precede exercises challenging the reader to develop resilience.

This guide refers to the 2022 paperback edition published by Lioncrest.

Content Warning: This guide quotes the author’s use of profanity.

Summary

Never Finished opens in 2018, when the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) is honoring Goggins with the prestigious Americanism Award for patriotism and service. As the announcer lists Goggins’s achievements, Goggins contemplates the life transformation that enabled him to succeed.

The narrative flashes back to when Goggins dropped out of training for his dream job as an Air Force Pararescueman and became an overweight, depressed exterminator at age 24. Blaming his failures on his traumatic childhood, he went to visit his abusive father, Trunnis, for the first time in 12 years. Seeing Trunnis through adult eyes changed Goggins’s perspective on his past, and he decided to take responsibility for his own future. Facing his trauma head-on was so empowering that Goggins began to seek new challenges to continually build resilience, and he developed an alter-ego of a “savage” who never stops pushing himself. That is why he is being honored by the VFW.

The day after Christmas 2018, Goggins learns that his recently published memoir is a bestseller. Hours later, he develops symptoms of atrial fibrillation and goes to the emergency room to have his heart shocked. In the following months, he uses the heart scare and busy book tour to justify a lighter workout load, and he hesitates to commit when he is asked to run a 100-mile ultramarathon, Leadville, for charity. He fears he has lost his savage mentality but enters the event. During the race, he regains his drive, and he afterwards searches for his next big challenge.

That challenge is a 240-mile race in Moab, Utah, where a series of problems occur. He gets lost, is late taking medicine, and needs 12 hours of recovery time mid-race. Still, he stays in the event until pulmonary edema threatens his life. By leaving the trail for the hospital, he takes a DNF (did not finish) for the course. After his release from the hospital, he returns to the trail, completes the mileage, and—unofficially—finishes Moab 240.

Goggins’s plans for 2020 include working as a wildland firefighter and earning redemption in Moab. In the spring, however, he dislocates his patella and faces an uncertain recovery. Moab becomes his motivation, and despite having his knee drained five days prior to the race, he completes the course in second place. The following month, he runs a 50-mile course in Maryland and a 200-miler in Florida. He is at an unexpected physical peak and believes a simple arthroscopic surgery should enhance that feeling.

The surgery, however, is a disaster, leaving Goggins immobilized and in pain. When 90 days of rest yield no improvements, he visits a top-notch orthopedic doctor in New York, who suggests an uncommon procedure to repair Goggins’s knee. The surgery is successful, and the doctor believes Goggins is on track for almost anything, with the possible exception of jumping out of airplanes. His physical therapy begins on a stationary bike, which he leverages into a second-place finish in a 444-mile bicycle race 13 weeks after surgery. Two months later, his return to running is tested through 48 miles stretched over two days for a charity event.

Next, he tests his doctor’s theory on parachuting. In 2022, Goggins trains to be a smokejumper, an airborne firefighter who drops into wildlands. He is roughly twice as old as the other rookies, and old medical issues plague him. Still, he excels in the conditioning protocol and works relentlessly to compensate for his malfunctioning limbs. Moreover, on the jumps, his knee holds. Goggins graduates smokejumper school, and the narrative closes as he parachutes into his first fire at age 47.

Goggins’s narration alternates with flashbacks that explain how his ideology developed. Likewise, interspersed anecdotes, often from his military career, support his arguments. The corresponding exercises and lessons, termed “Evolutions,” allow the reader to practice Goggins’s methods. Topics include using past pain for forward momentum, controlling emotions under pressure, and learning from every experience. Threaded throughout the book are the themes of Personal Accountability and Fault, Mental Versus Physical Strength, and Using Everything.