What a deliberately disrupted routine at Kapooka taught recruits about resilience and adaptation.

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At Kapooka, the Australian Army’s recruit training centre, every evening we were told the dress of the day for the following morning. At 6 am we would be prepared, correctly dressed and formed up—only to be told by the instructors that the dress had changed.

Australian Army recruits marching at Kapooka
Kapooka — where change became part of the training, not an exception to it.

Back we went to change, quickly. It happened again and again. At first it was frustrating. We had followed the plan exactly, yet the plan no longer matched the situation.

The lesson was the change

Eventually we learned to anticipate that conditions could change and to accept that change as normal. The exercise was not really about clothing. It was building resilience, persistence and the ability to adapt without wasting energy arguing with the new reality.

A plan is still useful. Preparation is still useful. But neither removes the need to read what is happening now and respond deliberately.

Do not waste energy fighting change. Master the response, embrace the new information and move.
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