Dear veterans, how many of you got out of the military hearing the following?
“Everyone is hiring veterans right now. You’ll have no problem finding a job.”
“Go through this program. It’ll give you everything you need to transition.”
“Just get your resume out there….the rest will take care of itself.”
or, my personal favorite:
“It doesn’t matter what job—just find one.”
There’s a famous quote going around the internet again—it’s been around for quite a while—and it’s one of my absolute favorites:
What screws us up most in life is the picture in our head of how it’s supposed to be.
Think about that. Many of us are given the same formula for life (college/military+ wife+kids+house+good job = happiness), and we’re told that it’s a proven formula for happiness. And because it looks easy enough to achieve, we fall into that. “Well, if it works for everyone else, then it should work for me.”
But what happens when it doesn’t work for you? What happens when you need a different solution? Can you solve a different problem with the same formula?
In the business world, we have long learned that conflict arises—almost always—out of mismanaged expectations. When your expectations aren’t the same as mine are—and especially if we aren’t talking them out—there is conflict. And guess what? When your expectations are different from reality—there will be conflict. Not may be. WILL be.
This conflict can look like a million different things: anger, depression, feeling “out of place”, job (or relationship) hopping, or a general, desperate search for meaning. When you are constantly trying to fit someone else’s mold (or someone else’s formula), you aren’t focusing on what is most important, which is:
WHO YOU ARE IS WHO THE WORLD NEEDS.
If you only do one thing today, please do this: stop trying to fit into anyone else’s mold, and stop expecting someone else’s formula for success to match yours. You are the only you on this planet, and alone hold a unique set of skills, talents, experiences and thoughts—your own unique formula for success. Sure, it’s up to you to find it, and that’s a hell of a lot harder than someone handing you a simplified formula for life, but I promise you that it’s far more fulfilling in the end. Someone out there needs what you have to offer, and God help us if you’re too busy trying to squeeze all that potential into an antiquated, hand-me-down formula for life.
And, dear veteran, if you’re still out there trying to find your own life’s formula, maybe the RECON: Global program can help. It’s focused on helping you, the individual, determine your own individual purpose in this crazy, mixed up world. It’s free, and it’s ready when you are.
