Never Finished: Unshackle Your Mind and Win the War Within

Never Finished belongs in the hybrid genre of the self-help memoir. Goggins relates life events, which share the common topic of overcoming hardships, and pairs these stories with improvement exercises for the reader. He also toggles between first-person past tense and the imperative mood as he blends memory and instruction.

However, Never Finished also subverts characteristic features of traditional memoirs and self-help books. Autobiographical works by big achievers appeal to readers seeking a glimpse into an extraordinary, unfamiliar life, and Goggins’s accounts of running ultramarathons offer that. At the same time, by focusing on his biggest setbacks—and comparing them to everyday difficulties—Goggins seeks to make his story relatable in a way many celebrities’ memoirs do not. Likewise, he did not undertake his exceptional feats, such as running 240-mile races, to fill the pages of a book, as when memoirists adopt eccentric projects to publish results—a practice and genre often called “stunt nonfiction.” Never Finished repeatedly asserts that Goggins pursues athletic achievements for internal rewards, not attention, and that he is sharing them to help others find such benefits for themselves.

Survivor memoirs, such as stories of overcoming abuse or health problems—as Goggins did—can serve as catharsis for the author, and Goggins admits that the process of writing about his life helped him process past traumas “one last time” (52).