A Decade Changes You

Have you ever set a countdown on your phone’s calendar for a date seemingly far in the future? It seems like I set one for my final day in the Navy two years into my first contract. There was a point in time where I absolutely loved being in the Navy. All I wanted to do was to get to a ship and go on deployments. “Steaming and dreaming,” my instructors through school called going on deployments and underways. The schooling for my job was just about two years long, including bootcamp, travel, etc. They extracted the main coursework from a nuclear engineering undergraduate degree and shoved it into about a year of classwork and then had a 6 month in person qualification process. 

You’ll see some people tell civilians that we are nuclear engineers after that intensive schooling… I’m not here to argue with people about that, just going to say there is a reason we don’t have degrees after that pipeline. When I started, I didn’t know exactly what I was getting myself into, much like most people that join the military. My recruiter lied his ass off to get me to sign that paperwork. Told me about how I could submit paperwork to get into my brother’s bootcamp division once I got there (he joined two weeks before I did), said I would get a fat bonus once I finished bootcamp, I would be making nuclear bombs as a nuke, and finally if I didn’t like my job, I could change it at any time. Man, was I in for a rude awakening once the fairytale lie he told me faded and reality set in. I don’t like to think of people negatively, so I give the pencilneck geek that had me sign all that paperwork the benefit of the doubt and assume, to his knowledge, he was telling me the truth; he just didn’t know any better. He did have a sweet Chevrolet Xtreme edition Blazer from the 90s, so bonus points on that DC1. 

The excitement about the Navy quickly faded after a series of unfortunate events on my end; I’ll save you the boring details. But my countdown timer finally hit zero. I exited the military with an honorable discharge, and couldn’t be happier that nuke life has come to an end. 

As I was approaching the end of my service contract, I got to thinking about how different I truly was now compared to the bright eyed and bushy tailed person that shipped off to bootcamp ten years prior. I had become someone I was proud of, someone who stayed true to who I was and my morals. I wasn’t perfect, but I tried my best. 

Over those ten years, being an honest Catholic, working out, and being nutrition-minded (for the most part) remained my core values. Staying true to those brought me some of the greatest friends and helped me navigate difficult times when, inevitably, the Navy decided to rob me of some happiness under the law of preservation of happiness. I built discipline when motivation faded. I worked hard when it was easy to find excuses. I picked up books and articles to learn from the great strength and conditioning minds when I could have leaned into the accepted “bro-science” coercing the gym locker rooms. I sought out to ensure those around me were doing well mentally and physically when I could have taken the easy route and been selfish minded. I could have given up, thrown in the towel, and waved the white flag when it would have been easier than continuing, but I, arguably stubbornly, gave the best effort I could every day of those ten years in the military. 

It is easy to look at yourself today compared to yesterday and not see a lot of personal development. You can even look a week in the past and not see much of a difference. This applies to working out and dieting as well. Maybe the weight on the scale isn’t going down much, or the weight on the barbell isn’t going up as fast as you had hoped. My advice? Zoom out. Look at where you were 6 months ago, even a year. Look at how much growth you have had now, a lot more noticeable, right? Maybe you weren’t the most diligent in that timeframe, and you still are feeling bummed out. That is totally normal; comparison is the death of joy. 

We can start to feel really bad about ourselves when we compare where we are now to where we want to be. I challenge you to do this instead: attempt to be 1% better today than you were yesterday. That’s it, a singular percent better, much more manageable. Now, do this for a couple weeks, then a few months, then look back to where you started. Huge difference. Now imagine you staying on this track and reflecting after a decade as I have with my naval career. 

You probably won’t recognize the person you are today. Not because you completely changed who you are, but because all of those small decisions started to compound. The workouts you didn't feel like doing. The meal you chose to prepare instead of ordering out. The book you picked up instead of scrolling. The extra hour you spent learning. The time you chose to help someone else when you could have focused solely on yourself. None of those things feel particularly significant at the moment.

But ten years later, they can completely change the trajectory of your life. I spent a lot of my time in the Navy counting down to the day I could leave. I had that date sitting on my calendar for years, watching the number slowly tick toward zero. What I didn't realize was that while I was counting down, I was also building the person who would eventually walk away from that life.

So if you're frustrated with where you are right now, zoom out. Don't judge your entire journey by what happened this week. Don't let one bad workout convince you that you're not making progress. Don't let a bad meal turn into a bad month. Don't let a setback become your identity.

Give yourself enough time to actually see the compounding effect of your choices. You don't need to become a completely different person tomorrow. You just need to be a little better than you were yesterday. Do that long enough, and one day you'll look back and realize that the person you were trying so hard to become was being built one small decision at a time.