Navy Seals Motivation Quotes

The only easy day was yesterday.

You don’t have to like it, you just have to do it” – There are situations in life where you will simply need to grit your teeth and hit the ground running.

Leading large groups of people, motivating and inspiring them to accomplish a common goal regardless of adversity or danger—that’s the essence of dynamic leadership.

Self-discipline is always going to be an unreachable target until you tackle the question of ‘why’. Once you nail down your motivation and keep it clear in the front of your mind, you can move to making all of your dreams turn into realities.

In life you will face a lot of Circuses. You will pay for your failures. But, if you persevere, if you let those failures teach you and strengthen you, then you will be prepared to handle life’s toughest moments. July 1983 was one of those tough moments. As I stood before the commanding officer, I thought my career as a Navy SEAL was over. I had just been relieved of my SEAL squadron, fired for trying to change the way my squadron was organized, trained, and conducted missions. There were some magnificent officers and enlisted men in the organization, some of the most professional warriors I had ever been around. However, much of the culture was still rooted in the Vietnam era, and I thought it was time for a change. As I was to find out, change is never easy, particularly for the person in charge. Fortunately, even though I was fired, my commanding officer allowed me to transfer to another SEAL Team, but my reputation as a SEAL officer was severely damaged. Everywhere I went, other officers and enlisted men knew I had failed, and every day there were whispers and subtle reminders that maybe I wasn’t up to the task of being a SEAL. At that point in my career I had two options: quit and move on to civilian life, which seemed like the logical choice in light of my recent Officer Fitness Report, or weather the storm and prove to others and myself that I was a good SEAL officer. I chose the latter. Soon after being fired, I was given a second chance, an opportunity to deploy overseas as the Officer in Charge of a SEAL platoon. Most of the time on that overseas deployment we were in remote locations, isolated and on our own. I took advantage of the opportunity to show that I could still lead. When you live in close quarters with twelve SEALs there isn’t anywhere to hide. They know if you are giving 100 percent on the morning workout. They see when you are first in line to jump out of the airplane and last in line to get the chow. They watch you clean your weapon, check your radio, read the intelligence, and prepare your mission briefs. They know when you have worked all night preparing for tomorrow’s training. As month after month of the overseas deployment wore on, I used my previous failure as motivation to outwork, outhustle, and outperform everyone in the platoon. I sometimes fell short of being the best, but I never fell short of giving it my best. In time, I regained the respect of my men. Several years later I was selected to command a SEAL Team of my own. Eventually I would go on to command all the SEALs on the West Coast.

Moral courage is what you do when no one is watching. It relies heavily on trust and doing what is right no matter who is around. During the SEAL selection process someone is always watching. Problem solving is also paramount to being a SEAL. Survival when the bullets start flying is 100% dependent on your ability to think accurately and create sound judgment. Teamability is defined by how well an individual works in the team environment. It requires that all members put the mission and team before themselves. SEALs are taught to prioritize team issues

Last, you’ve got to do more leading and less managing. Be a visible and motivating presence.

The harder you are on yourself, the easier life is on you. Or, as they say in the Navy Seals, the more you sweat in peacetime, the less you bleed in war.

When John Hagel,22 the cofounder of Deloitte consulting’s Center for the Edge, made a global study of the world’s most innovative, high-performing business teams—meaning the most motivated teams on the planet—he too found that “the individuals and organizations who went the farthest the fastest were always the ones tapping into passion and finding flow.

I have found that the best way to get through tough times is to surround myself with positive people. If you spend time around people who are weak of always feel sorry for themselves, it's bound to rub off on you. Always look forward, never back.

Putting flow-prone kids into high-flow environments means a lot of flow. Arming them with advanced flow-hacking techniques means even more. All this flow makes the activity deeply rewarding, both fulfilling a child’s innate need for autonomy, mastery, and purpose and further increasing their sense of intrinsic motivation. When Tom Schaar says, “I love being with my friends at the skate park — that’s the greatest feeling,” what he’s saying is no one has to force him to practice, the autotelic nature of the activity — the fact that it drives him into flow — is the source code of his motivation.

encountered yesterday, you will crumble in the face of adversity. Nothing in life ever stays the same for long – you are always either headed on an uphill or downhill trajectory. Quite simply, if today is easier than yesterday, you are headed on a downhill trajectory by definition. If you wish to continue climbing until you reach your current goals and set new ones, you need to live by the motto of yesterday being your last easy day.

definition. If you wish to continue climbing until you reach your current goals and set new ones, you need to live by the motto of yesterday being your last easy day.

There is no bigger battle you will fight in all your life than the war against yourself. It is only you that can hold you back from accomplishing great things, so you need to learn how to enable both your mind and body to work together in the same direction. Plenty of people have the capability to reach their goals, but few are able to get out of their own way in order to make it happen.

A man without purpose is just spending time.

I don’t worry about motivation, because motivation comes and goes. It’s just a feeling. You might feel motivated to do something, and you might not. The thing that keeps you on course and keeps you on the warrior path isn’t motivation. It is discipline. Discipline gets you out of bed. Discipline gets you onto the pull-up bar. Discipline gets you to grind it out in jiu-jitsu class. If you do those things only when you are motivated to do them, you might do them only fifty percent of the time. Sure, it’s nice when motivation is there, but you can’t count on motivation. You have to rely on the personal discipline you develop. Like you said: Discipline equals freedom. Got it?

You have to have drive and commitment - as well as an honest sense of what is and isn't possible.

There are times when you have to put yourself at a disadvantage in order to accomplish a larger mission and secure a longer-tern goal.

I listened to the plan. When I understood the overall idea and the complexity it involved, I finally commented, “Lieutenant, I appreciate your motivation to get out there and get after it. But perhaps—at least for these first few patrols—we need to simplify this a little bit.

A leader must be close with subordinates but not too close. The best leaders understand the motivations of their team members and know their people—their lives and their families. But a leader must never grow so close to subordinates that one member of the team becomes more important than another, or more important than the mission itself. Leaders must never get so close that the team forgets who is in charge.