What actually changed my life was learning to do things I hated every single day. Some people read the early chapters of Troubled and say, “I can’t recognize this person. How does the teenage kid I’m reading about become the person I’m speaking to now?” The answer is simple:... if you spend eight years in the military, you’re going to change. And it took all eight of those years for me to reshape my personality, my outlook, and my priorities to the point where I could function as a self-sufficient adult. I initially enlisted for four years. One of the most important lessons I learned during that time was that motivation is overrated. It took me a long time to understand this, but motivation is just a feeling. Do I want to do this? Do I not want to do this? Do I feel inspired today? Self-discipline matters more than motivation. Self-discipline means doing what needs to be done regardless of how you feel. It means sticking to healthy routines and making good decisions even when you don’t feel motivated. If you can string together enough productive days over a long enough period of time, your life will begin to improve. What’s happening internally, in terms of motivation or lack of motivation, matters less than people think. The real question is: can you do it anyway? At first, that discipline was imposed from the outside. In basic training, the instructors enforce structure and routine. But over time, that external discipline gradually becomes internal self-discipline. Even after my first four years in the Air Force, from ages seventeen to twenty-one, I knew I still wasn’t ready to leave that rigid structure behind. I understood that I needed more time inside an environment that demanded responsibility and consistency from me. So I reenlisted for another four years. By the time I was twenty-four or twenty-five, I was finally prepared.show more

Rob Henderson

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