Major Carr (author of Battle Scars) followed ten principles drawn from his army training when waging war on cancer. You can modify them to your own personal, health or career battles. As Carr puts it, “You just have to be willing to fight.”
1. Selection and maintenance of the aim
“Every strategy needs an aim. This aim needs
to be achievable and realistic and is the lifeline that is gripped on to when you are drowning. I decided that dying is not a result of failing. Giving up hope was my benchmark for failing.
My aim is to never stop fighting.”
2. Cooperation
“When planning military campaigns, it is better to integrate and synchronise tanks with infantry, supported by artillery and supplied by logistics units. This emphasis on cooperation
is called the combined-arms approach and such a force will be stronger and achieve greater results than units working individually.”
3. Security
“Being in a battle is dangerous enough without leaving yourself open to flank or rear attacks. Having good security means keeping your guard up and not leaving yourself vulnerable to attack. Security, I found, was preparing for the best, the worst and everything in between.”
4. Concentration of force
“If there are multiple targets to attack, we are taught to concentrate on one or two at a time and then move on to the next. If we are defending, we are taught that it’s best not to spread our forces too thinly.”
5. Economy of effort
“This relates to doing as much as possible while expending as little energy as possible in the process. Keeping active is good but letting the mind switch off is economy of effort and ensures that when things do get hectic, there is enough fuel in the tank to get the job done.”
6. Offensive action
“Having a testicle removed was not such a big sacrifice, if it meant delivering a counterblow to cancer. Offensive action is about creating forward momentum and taking the initiative. While you are moving forward and doing something, you feel like you are taking control of a situation and creating new options.”
7. Sustainment
“The human body and spirit are both incredibly durable. They can endure more than they would like to let you think, even more if we are able to get the two systems working together. But they need to be paced, allowed recovery and — where possible — trained-up prior to each encounter.”
8. Maintenance of morale
“Morale is the bread and butter of an effective fighting force. Good morale will turn lambs into lions and bad morale will do the opposite.”
9. Surprise
“Surprise keeps your enemy on the back foot. If our aim is to create offensive action and gain forward momentum, that would mean denying the enemy his ability to take offensive action. When we achieve the element of surprise, we are unpredictable to our enemy.”
10. Flexibility
“Flexibility reminds me that something may not work forever and that I should be willing to change if need be. Things will happen outside of my control and it’ll be my ability to adapt to these changes, as opposed to taking them head on, that will define my success.”
