How You Do Anything, Is How You Do Everything

Mastery of Doctrine and Why the Basics Still Matter

There’s a phrase that gets tossed around in elite circles—military, business, sports, you name it: “How you do anything is how you do everything.” At first, it sounds like motivational fluff, something you’d find stamped on a coffee mug or screen-printed across the back of a t-shirt. But if you’ve ever been in a firefight, led a team in a combat zone, or watched someone fumble a “basic” task that later cost lives, you know it’s more than a catchy phrase—it’s a warning.

The Myth of the “Big Moment”

Too many warriors—and let’s be honest, far too many leaders—fall into the trap of waiting for their “big moment.” They drift through prep work, training, and what they perceive as routine operations, believing that excellence is a faucet they can turn on when needed. But combat doesn’t give you time to flip the switch. In the chaos of a mission gone sideways, you fall back on your level of preparation. If that foundation is shaky, the whole operation crumbles.

That’s why how you do anything, is how you do everything. Because if you cut corners on gear layout, blow off doctrine study, or sleepwalk through rehearsals, you’re setting a precedent. You’re programming your brain to accept mediocrity. And mediocrity gets people killed.

Doctrine: Not Just for Desk Jockeys

“Doctrine” has a bad reputation in some corners of the force. It’s seen as the realm of PowerPoint Rangers and TOC dwellers—people far removed from the kinetic realities of a gunfight. But if that’s your attitude, you’ve already lost the intellectual edge.

Doctrine is not dogma; it’s a framework. It’s the collective wisdom of generations of warriors who bled so you wouldn’t have to learn the same hard lessons. Ignoring it is not rebellious. It’s foolish.

Knowing doctrine doesn’t make you soft—it makes you dangerous. It allows you to operate within a structure, to anticipate the enemy, to adapt faster than they can react. It gives you a common language with your team, a base of shared understanding that holds fast when bullets fly and comms go down.

In special operations, we pride ourselves on being thinkers and doers. That balance hinges on mastering the fundamentals—including doctrine.

The Basics Are Never Basic

The basics aren’t the beginning of the journey. They are the journey. High-level performance in high-stakes environments comes down to an unshakable command of the fundamentals: marksmanship, communications, battle drills, planning procedures. The sexiest mission in the world still starts with PCCs and PCIs. Success still relies on someone setting conditions properly. It still hinges on a radio transmission being short, clear, and correct. It still hinges on things like muzzle awareness, and not putting your finger on the trigger until it’s time to fire your weapon. Over time, laziness and bad habits lead to failure in small ways. And in our business, a failure in the “little things” can unravel everything. That’s not drama, that’s math.

You need to get the basics down pat. Don’t train until you get it right; train until you can’t get it wrong. You need to train at everything from reloads to immediate action drills until you can do them in your sleep. One day, you might hit a complex ambush in a faraway country that most Americans couldn’t find on a map. ehicles disabled, comms jammed, chaos. And guess what your team will do then? Execute Battle Drill 1A like a machine. Not because you are special, but because you didn’t treat the basics like they were optional. How you do the routine is how you will respond to the extraordinary.

Final Word

You don’t get to pick which tasks deserve your attention. Excellence is not an à la carte menu. The way you tie your boots, clean your weapon, brief a mission, and learn the playbook—it’s all connected. It all matters.

So the next time you’re tempted to coast through the “easy” stuff, remember this: how you do anything is how you do everything. And everything in this profession is life or death.

Train accordingly.

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Charles Faint served over 27 years in the US Army, which included seven combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan with various Special Operations Forces units and two stints as an instructor at the United States Military Academy at West Point. He also completed operational tours in Egypt, the Philippines, and the Republic of Korea and earned a Doctor of Business Administration from Temple University as well as a Master of Arts in International Relations from Yale University. He is the owner of The Havok Journal, and the views expressed herein are his own and do not reflect those of the US Government or any other person or entity.

As the Voice of the Veteran Community, The Havok Journal seeks to publish a variety of perspectives on a number of sensitive subjects. Unless specifically noted otherwise, nothing we publish is an official point of view of The Havok Journal or any part of the U.S. government.