My Joyful Experience as a Soldier
Summit Prompt: What is your equation for becoming your best version?
I did my National Service in Singapore and served two years in the Singapore Armed Forces. I was in the combat unit where I had to go through two years of rigorous training. I enjoyed every moment of my training because I learned many great lessons in the army.
Today I’ll share three of the success equations I learned as a soldier.
Discipline
During training, we always tell ourselves, “Whether you like it or not, just do it.” That’s the spirit of discipline. Discipline starts with getting up at 5 am and going to bed at 10 pm. Discipline means training on time, attending lessons on time, and taking the right actions on time.
As a soldier, I learned that discipline means treasuring time and making use of time to achieve the best outcomes. Discipline means working consistently, working correctly, and working ‘with’ time.
As Robin Sharma says in his book, The 5 am Club, about the 20/20/20 minutes formula — exercise, reflect and grow. If we’re too busy, we make it 10/10/10 minutes, instead of 20 minutes. At the end of the day, it’s consistency that matters a lot. Discipline teaches us to master time and not allow time to work against us.
