5 Ways the Military Can Change Your Life

The military has unique conditions to create real change in people. Here are five ways a period in the military can impact your life.

---

The military brings together people from all across the country and mixes them in a pot, adding predefined values and exposing them to stressful situations. I believe the result of this process is better individuals. Therefore, I argue that a term in the military would benefit nearly everyone. I will explain why.

In high school, I did not have a conscious relationship with my own values. I partied, fought, and messed around. I did not know who I wanted to be. I had a sense that there should be "something more." I lacked a clear direction in life.

When the time came to figure out what I should do after high school, I was uncertain.

I thought, "I guess I’ll become an engineer…" because I had always done well in science subjects at school. The path to becoming an engineer was the one society had laid out for me. It was the "normal" choice.

Fortunately, I wanted something more. I wanted to challenge myself a bit. I discovered the opportunity to get an education in the military and to combine leadership training (officer school) with a bachelor's degree in Telematics at the Cyber Engineer School (now the Norwegian Defence University College).

At 19, I showed up at Kjevik Airport outside Kristiansand straight from a festival with a forgotten 1.5-liter bottle of moonshine. Fortunately, I wasn't kicked out.

Six years later, a different version of myself left Rena, heading back home to Trondheim after completing school and having been involved with the Submarine Service, international assignments, and the Norwegian Special Operations Forces (FSK). (I was, however, a systems engineer and "unfortunately" not a special forces soldier.)

I was a more refined version of myself.

My time in the military made me a better person.

In this article, I will reflect on what I took away from the military, aiming to highlight some of the life-changing lessons the military can provide you.

The article draws upon my experience at the Cyber Engineer School, but most elements are common traits that both basic training and other military educations can provide you in varying degrees.

1. Increased Belief in Yourself

The first thing the military gives you is an increased belief in yourself and what you can achieve. Already as a candidate or recruit, you will push boundaries you thought you had. For me, someone who rarely trained aerobically and lived a hedonistic lifestyle, the thought of marching for several days with a heavy pack without much sleep or food felt relatively distant.

Jesse Itzler writes in his book "Living with a SEAL" about the "40% rule" as the key to mental strength. The "40% rule" is simple:

When your mind tells you that you are done, that you are exhausted, and that you can't go on, you have really only used 40% of your potential.

— Jesse Itzler, "Living with a SEAL"

In the military, you learn the 40% rule physically. You think you have no more to give, but time and again, you end up pushing the limits of what you thought was possible.

The limits of what you can do and endure, both physically and mentally, are challenged.

You get a glimpse of the enormous potential that lies within you.

The potential that lies within all of us.

1. Character Building

The military's core values are respect, responsibility, and courage.

These core values are clearly operationalized as part of the culture. The values influence how people behave. Not all organizations can say the same.

The military also promotes many good values beyond the core values. There’s no one in the military who thinks it’s acceptable to get drunk while in uniform. Everyone understands that one should stand up for elderly people on the bus. It is understood that one does not complain and moan even if they are cold, tired, exhausted, and hungry.

I believe the military is in a unique position to influence soldiers' values through character building. By adopting the identity of a soldier, one automatically inherits a set of good values. Furthermore, when this identity is reinforced around the clock in a community with others, I think we are onto something that explains why the military is such an effective place for positive personal change.

Character strengths are different from personality. They run deeper.

— "What we see of a person on a daily basis is like the tip of an iceberg. It is when things get difficult that you see what is beneath the surface. When it gets painful, exhausting, and challenging."

— Professor Ole Boe, usn.no

I would like to refer once more to this test, where you can become aware of your own character strengths.

By influencing soldiers' value systems and identities, the military builds character through practice, something civilian schools cannot do in the same way.

Professor Janne H. Matlary at the Norwegian Defence University College describes it this way:

"In military training in Norway, but nowhere else, one encounters the term ‘character building,’ translated from character formation. Without knowing oneself and practicing to act correctly in the war zone, one cannot be a soldier. The military profession presupposes ethically correct actions as a reflex. However, all schooling should involve character building. This is achieved through the classical European educational program, often referred to as liberal arts. Education is, however, not something learned, but rather the right ethical practice to such an extent that the virtues become internalized as traits. One cannot simply read oneself into education…"

— Janne H. Matlary, "Not Just Train the Body," Aftenposten

Character building is about learning to make the right choices. The problem usually lies not in not knowing what the right choices are, but in having to train oneself to actually make them. By practicing making the right choices in demanding psychological and mental environments, one can build character.

Is there anything more valuable than building character?

1. A Solid Physical Foundation

The foundation for all we do as humans comes from our bodies. The connection between physical activity and all measures of quality of life is rock solid. To have the energy to meet life's major challenges, you depend on a solid physical platform.

In the military, physical activity is an integral part of all training. It can involve everything from marching in the woods with a pack, hand-to-hand combat training, swimming, and CrossFit, to ski trips on NATO skis, mud trails, and my personal favorite, military obstacle course.

You are exposed to a wide variety of ways to use your body, and the chances are high that you will try something here that you otherwise would not have done. For me, hand-to-hand combat training, obstacle courses, and climbing are activities I grew fond of and later tried in some form.

Most physical activity in the military is organized in groups. This is certainly for practical reasons, but I also believe this has numerous positive effects on both motivation and performance.

A tough crew pushes each other to get better.

I can still taste the blood from some of the toughest long intervals we did in the military.

I started with a jog early in the morning when I was in the military, a habit I have resumed in recent years. I probably wouldn’t have done it if my brain hadn’t remembered all those lovely morning runs I had many years ago and the feeling they gave me afterward.

1. Friends and Experiences for Life

Have you ever seen how people who have been in the military together act when they randomly meet in town? It’s just like seeing two brothers separated in childhood reunite. It doesn’t take many seconds before guys who are otherwise very stingy with their hugs are hanging around each other’s necks, reminiscing about shared experiences from their time in the military.

You get incredibly close to those you are in the military with. You get to know both their strengths and weaknesses in a completely different way than in civilian life. By tackling exhausting challenges together, the bonds formed are extremely strong.

You can’t hide your true self during a year in the military.

Earlier the same day I wrote this article, I actually had a digital coffee with a good friend from my time in the military. It didn’t take long before we found our rhythm again, and laughter flowed freely while we made plans to visit each other as I do with most I keep in touch with.

The military fosters a unique camaraderie and will give you friends from all over the country whom you can enjoy life with later on.

You have a couch to crash on in most cities in the country if you have been in the military.

1. Increased Gratitude for the Small Things

I believe in contrasts in life - that we humans need to feel discomfort. Many people have a flat life. I don’t think these people will end up feeling that life has been a fantastic journey. One must experience a wide range of emotions to say that life has indeed been fantastic.

— Erik Bertrand Larssen

You don’t know how good a chewy candy can taste until it’s the first nourishment you have received in several days. You don’t know how delightful it can be to get a couple of minutes in dreamland fully clothed with a helmet on your head and a clumpy backpack as a pillow.

It’s incredible how fun it can be to go skiing on a pair of worn Landsem skis inherited from your grandfather when the last ski trips you’ve taken have been with a sled, NATO skis, and an AG-3 buttstock that has given you countless bruises on your chin.

In our everyday life, we have grown accustomed to comforts like water, electricity, 4G, WiFi, showers, beds, and all the possible food we can think of just a couple of clicks away.

I’m not saying it’s wrong to take advantage of these "luxuries." I’m saying that by giving up such things, one learns to "reset" what is normal. You can find joy and pleasure in having a bed instead of thinking you would like to have a Hästens Vividus bed costing half a million.

Most people in the military undergo some form of mastery exercise or combat course, popularly known as "Hell Week." Here, comfort sensitivity is truly reset.

Hell Week is magical.

You learn to be grateful for the small things.

And that is an incredibly valuable quality.

Conclusion

In this article, I have highlighted some of the most important gifts the military gave me during my time there. Perhaps I was incredibly lucky with my leaders and fellow soldiers. I have, in any case, heard many similar experiences from others who have been in the military. And then we haven’t even begun to discuss the technical skills one learns, such as first aid, avalanche safety, survival skills, setting up tents and shelters, and how to dress properly.

If you or someone you know wants to explore what educational opportunities are available in the military, there is an overview here: Military Education

If you want to be part of an extraordinary environment that takes what I have written about even further, you can also check out FSK.

Have you been in the military yourself and share some of the views in this article?

Maybe you feel that your comfort zone has shrunk a bit?

Then I have a challenge for you here.

If not now, when...?

Sources of Inspiration

• Eirik Kristoffersen, "The Hunter Spirit"
• Erik Bertrand Larssen, "Hell Week"
• Jesse Itzler, "Living with a SEAL"
• Mark Divine, "The Way of the SEAL"
• David Goggins, "Can't Hurt Me"

---