Let's start off with the Physical part. If you've seen me recently when I came home from tech school graduation, you noticed that I got a lot bigger. Bigger as in muscle, not fat. Before BMT, I was pretty much stuck at about ehh.. 145-150 pounds. It always fluxuated between that range of weight. Was kinda skinny and my body didn't really mature. Coming outta BMT and nowadays, I am 165 pounds. Yeah "Holy Crap!" was exactly what I was thinking when they weighed me at the end of BMT. Never thought I would gain weight, let alone muscle like that, but I'm actually really happy about it and plan to gain as much muscle as I can before my metabolism ends...which won't happen until I'm way older.
I loved the reaction when I came back home and the first thing everyone noticed was how much bigger I looked. Because of this muscle gain..it definitely did improve my confidence about my body, which is pretty high nowadays.
Second part is the Mental aspect. Not only just being smart but I gotta say that I definitely have matured ever since I left. Definitely learned three things about myself: Ambition, Responsibility/Accountability and Leadership. I know you see four OBVIOUSLY, but I count responsibility and accountability as the same thing.
Ambition:
I've always been the type to be ambitious and have big goals, and do whatever it takes to get to the top. The problem was that I never put myself out there or really put in the effort needed to get to where I wanted to go. That was with everything; sports, music, school..just to name a few. I always assumed it would just fall into my lap, no work required. I learned REALLY QUICKLY that it doesn't work like that, and usually never does, especially when my flight and my MTI called me out about it on SEVERAL occasions. I remember a conversation that I had with my MTI when I got in trouble. He said "Smith E (because there were 3 Smith's in my flight including myself) why do you always try to take the easy way out of things? You have the potential to be great, but it gets tossed out because you try to take shortcuts and you're lazy." I didn't have a good answer for him at the time, but that stuck with me and it still does to this day..which transitions us to the next topic.
Responsibility/Accountability
Now usually I am pretty responsible, don't have to worry too much when it came to staying good and doing the things I was supposed to do. Sometimes though, as mentioned before, I would get called out on the flaws I had. Accountability was huge because sometimes, not gonna lie, I got away with a couple of things. Most of the time, not on purpose, just outta pure luck. I learned that, it's pretty much okay to be wrong or to say you screwed up instead of trying to find the cheap way out and slide under the radar when stuff goes south. It's all part of the process, considering I'm still young (21 years old to be exact) and still have a lot of life to live. Just own up to it and move on.
Leadership
If you haven't noticed by now, these things tie into each other..if you really haven't noticed, then I'm telling you: these things tie into each other..
The big game changer of all had to be leadership. It seems that pretty much my life, I always could be a leader, but didn't quite know what I really do that made me stand out from the rest of the pack and got me being called a "leader". Even at a young age, all I did was do my work and pretty much stayed quiet, and that was considered being a leader. Wasn't anything flashy or even noticeable (at least to me), but was still being considered a leader.
Believe it or not, I hated going in front of people and speaking about something. Mainly because of confidence and I really wasn't sure if people really cared about anything I said, or if my opinion was really worth anything. A couple of other things factor in there as well but we'll just keep it simple. In short, I was pretty timid when it comes to that kind of thing. I didn't like to put myself out there, or take risks and think "F*** it..if it goes well, awesome, if not...oh well"
I remember one night in basic where my flight had everyone get a sheet of paper and write out a list. The list consisted of two things: One side was about what we actually liked about the person, the positive side of things. The other side of the paper was about what the person could improve on individually. This was basically constructive criticism. So after everyone made their way around the dorm, I took a good hard look at my sheet.
The positive side said this:
- Best Marcher
- Good Attitude, always positive
- Always willing to help out
- Willing to learn about things
The criticism said this:
- Hospital Corners &Rolling Shirts (hated doing hospital corners for the life of me!!)
- Really quiet sometimes
- Timid
And on the bottom of the paper we had a comment section, just in case somebody wanted to put something extra, and it said:
"You can be a great leader, you just have to put yourself out there and stop being so timid"
From that on, I put myself more out there in leadership roles, being more outgoing and taking advantages of the opportunities that came my way, and so far it's worked out pretty well in my favor if I say so myself.
The Results
I honestly think joining the Air Force was one of the best decisions that I have made in my life. Even though I've only been in only over a year, the time has been a blast meeting different people, seeing different places I never thought I'd get to see being back at home, and doing something above myself. All in all a good decision.
Phoenix
Responsibility/Accountability
Now usually I am pretty responsible, don't have to worry too much when it came to staying good and doing the things I was supposed to do. Sometimes though, as mentioned before, I would get called out on the flaws I had. Accountability was huge because sometimes, not gonna lie, I got away with a couple of things. Most of the time, not on purpose, just outta pure luck. I learned that, it's pretty much okay to be wrong or to say you screwed up instead of trying to find the cheap way out and slide under the radar when stuff goes south. It's all part of the process, considering I'm still young (21 years old to be exact) and still have a lot of life to live. Just own up to it and move on.
Leadership
If you haven't noticed by now, these things tie into each other..if you really haven't noticed, then I'm telling you: these things tie into each other..
The big game changer of all had to be leadership. It seems that pretty much my life, I always could be a leader, but didn't quite know what I really do that made me stand out from the rest of the pack and got me being called a "leader". Even at a young age, all I did was do my work and pretty much stayed quiet, and that was considered being a leader. Wasn't anything flashy or even noticeable (at least to me), but was still being considered a leader.
Believe it or not, I hated going in front of people and speaking about something. Mainly because of confidence and I really wasn't sure if people really cared about anything I said, or if my opinion was really worth anything. A couple of other things factor in there as well but we'll just keep it simple. In short, I was pretty timid when it comes to that kind of thing. I didn't like to put myself out there, or take risks and think "F*** it..if it goes well, awesome, if not...oh well"
I remember one night in basic where my flight had everyone get a sheet of paper and write out a list. The list consisted of two things: One side was about what we actually liked about the person, the positive side of things. The other side of the paper was about what the person could improve on individually. This was basically constructive criticism. So after everyone made their way around the dorm, I took a good hard look at my sheet.
The positive side said this:
- Best Marcher
- Good Attitude, always positive
- Always willing to help out
- Willing to learn about things
The criticism said this:
- Hospital Corners &Rolling Shirts (hated doing hospital corners for the life of me!!)
- Really quiet sometimes
- Timid
And on the bottom of the paper we had a comment section, just in case somebody wanted to put something extra, and it said:
"You can be a great leader, you just have to put yourself out there and stop being so timid"
From that on, I put myself more out there in leadership roles, being more outgoing and taking advantages of the opportunities that came my way, and so far it's worked out pretty well in my favor if I say so myself.
The Results
I honestly think joining the Air Force was one of the best decisions that I have made in my life. Even though I've only been in only over a year, the time has been a blast meeting different people, seeing different places I never thought I'd get to see being back at home, and doing something above myself. All in all a good decision.
Phoenix
