Jocko Underground: How to Honor Your Commitments When It Gets Hard

Summary

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Jocko Podcast Underground: Episode 183

Title: How to Honor Your Commitments When It Gets Hard
Date: September 22, 2025
Hosts: Jocko Willink and Echo Charles

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Jocko Willink and Echo Charles tackle questions from listeners about discipline, leadership, setting and achieving goals, and sticking to commitments—especially when things get tough. Using personal stories, military insights, and practical examples, they explore how establishing long-term strategies and embracing discomfort can help anyone navigate difficult choices and stay on track, even when motivation fades. The main discussion centers around a listener’s struggle with marathon training and how to reconcile personal well-being with commitments to others.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Course of Action: The Power of Progress

(00:00–03:29)

• Importance of direction:
  Having any course of action—even slow progress—creates gratification and momentum. Jocko explains that plotting a path out of a tough spot (like a prison escape in "Shawshank Redemption") is in itself meaningful.

  “I was very good at suffering tactical pressure because I knew my strategic goal would be achieved.”
  — Jocko Willink [01:11]

• Strategy over quick fixes:
  Many seek immediate solutions to long-term problems. Jocko stresses embracing incremental progress and taking satisfaction from moving, however slowly, in the right direction.

  “You need to plot out the course to escape the scenario that you’re in...you've got to take some level of gratification over the fact that, okay, at least now I’m moving in the right direction.”
  — Jocko Willink [01:36]

2. Thinking for the Future and Long-Term Planning

(02:28–05:39)

• Future focus is essential:
  Echo points out how people often dwell on the past and present, but neglect meaningful planning for the future.

  “It’s weird how we over index so much on the past and the present and...not on the future.”
  — Echo Charles [02:28]

• Life in the military as a model:
  Jocko reflects on how joining the Navy provided him with a built-in 20–30 year plan, reinforcing the value of investing now for long-term payoff.

  “When you join the military it’s like, oh, you already have a 20 year plan…For me it was like, I’m probably going to be in this gig for 30 years. So here, you know, follow this path...”
  — Jocko Willink [03:30]

• Long-term investments pay off:
  Emphasizes making small, smart moves (like buying a house wherever you’re stationed) that don’t always seem significant in the present, but compound over time.

  “The moves that I’m making are long term good moves. Yeah, I kind of always had that.”
  — Jocko Willink [04:33]

3. Listener Question: Is It Worth Finishing a Marathon When Training Sucks?

(05:41–06:47: Question Read | 06:47–12:28: Answers & Discussion)

Summary of Listener’s Dilemma (05:41–06:47)

• Listener is training for a marathon, but hates the process and feels it’s negatively affecting health and happiness.
• Weightlifting has stopped, weight is increasing (not muscle), and long runs are exhausting.
• The only motivation to finish is not disappointing a cousin running with them.
• Asks: Is it worth doing the marathon?

Jocko’s Response: Respect the Commitment but Balance Yourself (06:47–10:28)

• Specialization vs. General Preparedness:
  Specializing creates imbalances. Jocko has always preferred being "generally fit": able to run, lift, move—being a functional physical unit rather than a specialist.

  “Some people make that choice. You know, that’s called professional athletes, right?...I’ve always leaned kind of towards, I guess, the term is general physical preparedness, right? GPP.”
  — Jocko Willink [06:47]

• Compromise Approach:
  Given the investment (time, money, sacrifice), Jocko recommends normalizing your life:

  • Back off from intense marathon-specific training
  • Resume weightlifting
  • Clean up diet
  • Come race day, just “get it done”—walk or jog it, no ego or records.

  “You don’t need to set any records…Go out there and give it a shot. Don’t push hard. You’ve been training, you’ll probably get it done.”
  — Jocko Willink [09:19]

• Cautions:
  Only stop if you’re risking lasting health or serious injury.

Echo’s Take: Solve the Real Problems, Not Just the Commitment (10:28–12:28)

• Address Root Issues:
  Each problem (diet, weight gain, fatigue) is solvable and doesn’t mean the marathon itself is the issue. Solve each individually and proceed.

  “So if you just treat each of these little issues as individual issues and you solve. I think you’re absolutely right.”
  — Echo Charles [11:17]

• Echo’s bottom line:

  • If health is truly at risk, stop. But if it’s a manageable struggle, finish it for the accomplishment—then return to your norms.

Both Hosts Agree:

• If health isn't at risk, finish the marathon with less pressure.
• If health is at risk, quit—no accomplishment is worth lasting harm.

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Memorable Moment: The Cookie Story

(12:35–14:27)

• Diet Anecdotes & How Food Feeds (or Sabotages) Discipline:
  Jocko shares a vivid story about eating an enormous, high-sugar cookie for breakfast after training, only to be wiped out for hours—a light-hearted but real illustration of how diet affects energy and discipline.

  “Bro, I ate a cookie bomb. And apparently these cookies have like a thousand calories…But dude, I was like, it was gnarly and I fell asleep…Just. Insulin bomb.”
  — Jocko Willink [13:08–14:27]

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Notable Quotes

• On progress and adversity:
  “I was very good at suffering tactical pressure because I knew my strategic goal would be achieved.”
  — Jocko Willink [01:11]

• On long-term planning:
  “It’s weird how we over index so much on the past and the present and...not on the future.”
  — Echo Charles [02:28]

• On honoring commitments:
  “You’ve been training, you’ll probably get it done. And then you can celebrate at the end and you never have to do another marathon.”
  — Jocko Willink [09:19]

• On managing setbacks:
  “Treat each of these little issues as individual issues and you solve. I think you’re absolutely right.”
  — Echo Charles [11:17]

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Segment Timestamps

• 00:00–03:29 – Intro: The value of having a plan and making progress
• 02:28–05:39 – Long-term vs. short-term thinking; military’s built-in plan
• 05:41–06:47 – Listener reads marathon dilemma question
• 06:47–12:28 – Jocko and Echo’s full discussion and advice
• 12:35–14:27 – Jocko’s cookie anecdote and nutrition discipline

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Conclusion

The episode focuses on managing discipline and commitments by embracing long-term thinking, addressing real underlying issues, and allowing for a sensible, flexible approach when things get tough. Both Jocko and Echo emphasize that sometimes, simply making progress—even slowly, even imperfectly—is enough. When training or commitment feels overwhelming, strip back the ego, focus on health and integrity, and reframe the challenge as part of your overall life journey, not just a single event.

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For further episodes and direct access to Jocko’s advice, visit jockounderground.com.

Transcript

[A]

This is the Jocko Underground podcast number 183, sitting here with Echo Charles. We've got some questions from you troopers and we are going to provide some courses of action, some recommendations on how you can handle these scenarios. Let's get into it before that.

[B]

This idea of. And this is something to keep in mind. Sounds obvious, but I think a lot of times we forget it. Where if you have a course of action, you can get to a better place.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

Seems. And just knowing that you're already, you're already better off.

[A]

Yes. And just to expand on that point a little bit, one of the, I would say very nice blessings that I've had in my life is that I always got a decent amount of gratification knowing that I was just making steps towards being where I wanted to be. So for instance, when I lived in a 934 square foot house with my wife and three children, but I knew that I was gonna own that house one day and I would be able to build a little bit of an addition on it, I was okay with that.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You know, like, so it was, I was suffering currently, but I knew that I was going in the right direction. And so that seemed to make things very good for me. Cause I never minded. I was very good at suffering tactical pressure because I knew my strategic goal would be achieved. And that's why oftentimes when we answer questions here, I'm, I'll say, oh, if that's what's happening, you need to start to put together a long term strategy. And maybe I need to make this more clear when I answer these questions. You need to plot out the course to escape the scenario that you're in. And for me, if I'm in prison, it's like Shawshank Redemption, right? I'm in prison, I'll get gratification every day that I've whittled away, just a little bit of that wall, you know, it just, that's. And I'm okay with that because I know the end of this, I'm gonna get out of here. And so if you're, if you ask a question, what you want is an immediate answer that now your problem that took you three years, five years, eight years to get into, it's not going to be solved overnight. And you've got to take some level of gratification over the fact that, okay, at least now I'm moving in the right direction. So, yes, courses of action.

[B]

Oh, yeah, yeah. The, the, you know, this idea of past, present and future, it's we, it's weird how we over index so much on the past and the present and some for a lot of people anyway, and not on the future. So like you could probably remember freaking elementary school, junior high, high school if you went to college. I remember those years and blah, blah, blah. I remember this happening. You remember so much about it and you, you know, you can think about it, you whatever. And then we think about how we're feeling right now and oh, I'm like, I'm miserable about this or I hate this that this is going this and then. But we don't, sometimes we don't expand that same energy for the future, for steps into the future track. Like if you were to consider, you know how they say, you know, the old school, what's your five year plan? What's your ten year plan?

[A]

Right.

[B]

Like long term and short term, like goals or whatever, bro, I think, I don't know, I'm thinking about myself, but I never really indexed on those A lot of the time, you know, and then the moment where I realized how important that was, it's like y.

[A]

Well, that's where I always say I got very lucky joining the military. Because when you join the military it's like, oh, you already have a 20 year plan.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Or a 25 or a 30 year plan. But for me I was like, oh, well now I'm doing know what I'm doing for at least the next 20 years. And for me it was like, I'm probably going to be in this gig for 30 years. So here, you know, follow this path and, and then you pick up little things which are kind of the normalized situation which is, oh well, you're going to live in here in San Diego. You need to get a house here. Okay. That's just a normal cool. Get a house. And then for some reason I'd be like, oh, maybe I could get two of them or three of them, you know, I mean so you make these little things you kind of grasp on. And for me it wasn't so much like, hey, here's my five year, ten year plan. I was like, hey, this makes sense to do. I, I didn't think about how it played out in the future, but I knew that right now if I make these moves, these investments in health, in, you know, real estate, in, you know, relationships. I knew that if I did that now, I knew it pay off in the future.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So I had, I didn't have like, hey, I'm going to write this down. But I knew that the, these investments These long. That. The moves that I'm making are long term good moves. Yeah, I kind of always had that.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. And that fundamentally, especially if that drives you, like, makes you take these actual. Because there's a difference between. Oh, yeah, I know that, but I don't do it.

[A]

You know, I did have a commanding officer literally tell me, hey, you should buy a house. And then I had a friend when I came to San Diego, back to San Diego from Virginia Beach. I was looking for a rental property, and I saw him, and he goes, why are you renting? Buy something. And I was like, well, I don't know. You know, he's like, d. Buy something. And then those two guys combined. One guy was telling me, buy a house wherever you get stationed, buy a house immediately. And then my buddy that said, why are you renting a house? Buy a house. And I was like, oh, yeah, long term. That makes more sense.

[B]

Cool.

[A]

So, yeah.

[B]

Yeah, man. Just thinking. Just thinking about the future. Just thinking about, you know, you got to consider these things because it's coming. Where we. Where will you be and what will you have done up until that point?

[A]

The future is coming.

[B]

All right, first question. Good morning. I've been training for my first marathon October since June. I've done several halves, half marathons before and lots of distances below that. I've loved running for many years of my life, and I'm happy I found it and helped me tremendously on my weight loss journey. However, I despise marathon training. I truly do not think running this type of distance is for me. I re. I realized this back in July, but I thought I just needed to push through, and it was because of fatigue. But now it's impacting me more and more. I stopped lifting weights because I no longer have time or energy. I'm eating a lot of carbs and sugar for fuel. I'm gaining not muscle, but I'm gaining weight. My long runs take three to four hours, and then I can't do anything for the rest of the day because I'm so tired. My question is, is it even worth doing this marathon? The only reason I haven't quit is that my cousin runs marathons and is doing the race with me. And I don't want to disappoint him that I don't love the marathon like he does. Any advice would be great. Thanks.

[A]

Yeah. At a certain point, specializing in something makes you good at that one thing and not good at a lot of other things, and that's a trick. Some people make that choice. You Know, that's called professional athletes, right? And that's fine. I've always leaned kind of towards, I guess the term is general physical preparedness, right? Gpp, which means you can run. Not going to win the race, but you can run the race. You can lift, you're not going to lift the most, but you can lift some in calisthenics. You can move like all those things. You can, you're, you're a good functional physical unit, right? Okay, so I hear you and clearly I think that's where you're headed and I think that's good. I think you're headed back in that direction where, you know, maybe you'll run a little bit, but you'll, you know, start work, lifting again and all that stuff. But your, the actual question is, you say, is it even worth doing this marathon? This is kind of where I'm at. And you, you, you may, you may disagree with me on this one. Echo Charles. I'm not 100% sure. I think if you've been training since June, right? And, and now it's whatever, September, June, July, August, September. You've been training three and a half months for this thing. You probably already paid for the freaking thing. You've sacrificed for it. And it's one of those things that many people see as like a bucket list scenario and an achievement, a bucket list achievement. So I think a good compromise would be to back off, back off all the crazy running, normalize your life at some level. Start lifting again, clean up your diet and see how you feel. And come October, go out and run the freaking, you know, go out, walk the marathon, you know, go out and just get it done. You don't need to set any records. You just whatever record, you know, what you were you trying to do. A sub four, a sub three, a sub four, three and a half, a sub five. Whatever your thing was, just forget about it. Don't let your ego get involved. Don't get injured. You know, if like you get 12 miles in or 18 miles in and you are gonna injure yourself, not hurt, you know, not like you're hurt and you got some blisters. Wah, wah. But if you're gonna injure yourself, then don't complete the thing. Don't be stump, don't wreck your life. But go out there and give it a shot. You don't push hard. You've been training, you probably get it done. If you've been, if you're this deep into it, you probably be able to get it done and then you can you know, celebrate at the end and you never have to do another marathon. That's. That, that then you can get back to your normal activities. That's kind of where I'm at now. This is a little bit. I'm, I'm assuming that you're, that your complaints about like, being tired is like, yeah, you're, you're not like, exhausted level and that you're gaining some weight. I'm not like, you're not ridiculous and you're losing some muscle. Like, you're not completely withering. I'm. I'm taking your complaints to be moderate complaints because if you're, obviously, if you're screwing up your health and don't, don't, you know, stop. If you're screwing up your health, stop doing it. But if you're, if your body is, you know, not optimum for what you want, but you're still kind of. You still can keep going, then I'd kind of look at doing it. I don't know. What, do you think I'm wrong?

[B]

I think you're correct.

[A]

Really? I kind of thought you might think that I was wrong on this one.

[B]

What would you think that I would think?

[A]

Like, oh, dude, don't do it. Like, you get, you know, you're losing weight, you're gaining fat, you're losing muscle, gaining fat, you're tired, you're energy's low. Like, I know those are all red flags in the, in the Echo Charles book of rest and recovery.

[B]

That is true. But those are all separate issues, though. So running the marathon. Okay, first off, yeah, I, You're. You're not wrong, because I would never be in a position to run the marathon. I don't see that as any type of bucket list scenario, which, you know, that's, that's. But that's a preference thing, you know. So let's say it was something that I was like, no, hell yeah, I'm down for this. I want to have done it and you know, bucket list scenario. I, I agree with you. I think if the, if training like this is a problem, then solve that problem. If you gaining weight because you shouldn't be gaining weight. Not, you should not be gaining fat from this. So then solve that problem. So that's a diet problem that you just need to solve. It's not that hard. You can actually just look it up, be like, hey, I weigh this much freaking. I run this much, I'm gaining fat. What up? What should I be eating? They'll give you some guidelines. Not hard. So if you just Treat each of these little issues as individual issues and you solve. I, I think you're absolutely right. Are you gonna run it? You'll be absolutely fine. You don't even have to train this much.

[A]

I mean, the only one concern has. He's got a weight loss journey written in there. So I don't know if he's one of these dudes that, you know, used to be 500 pounds and now he's, you know, 380 or something. You know, that, you know, if he, if his weight loss journey was. He was 250 and now he's 190, like, that's, that's a lot. That's no factor.

[B]

Yeah. And if, if, just like you said, if, if he's risking, like, legitimately risking his health or, you know, due to injury or something like this, I, I personally don't think it's worth it. It's not worth it.

[A]

Not worth it.

[B]

So if that's the case. But. But yeah, all things being good to go aside from these things. Yeah. No, do it.

[A]

Yeah. Even if you have to freaking jog and then kind of walk the thing.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah. So I don't see the marathon as being the problem. I see these little individuals eating a.

[A]

Lot of carbs for fuel. Like, at what point you ever had that thing where you got like open mat tomorrow and you're like, well, it's, you know, Saturday night. I got open mat tomorrow. You know, we're going to be getting after it kind of clear. How's that thing looking over. You know what I mean? So now if you're running all. And you're feeling. That's another thing is like, you're feeling tired, but your diet is junk and that ain't good, you know?

[B]

Correct.

[A]

I had a freaking cookie. Like a big chalk. Not a milk cookie.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But a big ass. Freaking for breakfast. Like, for breakfast, bro.

[B]

A lot of times. And pancakes are so.

[A]

Yeah. My. It is one of my kids brought by like the, you know those places that just make like sick cookies.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So one of my kids brought one of those things by and they're like, oh, you gotta have this guy. Since I was like, cool. You know, I was like training, you know, I was like, I know. No factor, bro. I ate a cookie bomb. And apparently these cookies have like a thousand calories.

[B]

Oh, I know what you're talking about.

[A]

Yeah, I didn't know that. And also, you know, like a discipline and freedom. Right.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Here's some freedom. Right. Got broke out the milk.

[B]

That's real.

[A]

Ate this Big ass chocolate chip cookie, bro. I felt like I got hit upside the head with like a baseball bat. I just got tired. And part of it's because I don't, you know, that's not normal for me to just gut bomb a thousand calories worth of sugar. But dude, I was like, it was gnarly and I felt, I fell asleep, you know, like sat down on the couch for a little while. Cuz I got, I got done working out, ran, took a shower, gut bomb, sugar bomb. And like I was sitting there and it was, you know, it was on a weekend and I was like, well, and I just like fell asleep. Just. Insulin bomb.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So if. So that is a little excerpt of what we are doing on the Jocko Underground podcast. So if you want to continue to listen, go to jockounderground.com and subscribe. And we're doing this. We're doing this to mitigate our reliance on external platforms so we are not subject to their control. And we are doing this so that we can support the Jocko podcast, which will remain as is free for all as long as we can keep it that way. But we, but we are doing this so we don't have to be under the control of sponsors. And we're doing it so we can give you more control, more interaction, more direct connections, better communications with us. And to do that, we are, we're building a website right now where we'll be able to utilize to strengthen this legion of troopers that are in the game with us. So thank you. It's Jocko underground.com it costs $8.18 a month. And if you can't afford to support us, we can still support you. Just email assistancecock onerground.com and we'll get you taken care of. Until then, we will see you mobilized Underground.