Career

Episode 223. Meeting Yourself Where You Are: Career Planning After the Military

June 12, 2024

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In todays episode, I encourage you to start where you are NOW to start planning for your 3-5 career goal.

[00:00:00] Wendi: Hello, and welcome to episode 223. Today, we are keeping it short and sweet, but I want to encourage you to take a moment to process this really evaluate where you are. And the reason I am. Bringing this up is because this topic was inspired by a LinkedIn audit, um, LinkedIn profile audit that I had with a woman that’s transitioning out of the military. And what really stood out to me was how much we are overthinking. Um, what careers are available out there and also really identifying which route to go. And so today I want to invite you to just focus on where you are. Where you are with your skills, with your experience with all the value that you bring to the table as of today, not 10 years ago, not 10 years from now. But where you are now. What is it that you are able to [00:01:00] do now and focus on. But at the same time, be able to plan for the career that you’re actually pursuing. And this is what I mean. Where can you meet yourself? Where do you want? So the example is. This young lady she’s been in the service, for over 10 years. She had this significant event in her life that had a huge change on her story on her career.

[00:01:28] Wendi: And because of that, she is now a speaker. She volunteers to speak at different events. To help other people that are going through a similar situation, similar circumstance. And so she loves speaking. She loves to be a facilitator. But at the same time, she’s also getting certifications and she’s getting all of these things in the marketing field.

[00:01:53] Wendi: She has some passion for the marketing. In the military in air traffic controller [00:02:00] where none of them would really, apply, or you would be able to intertwine all three things that she’s passionate about and where she’s at now and what she did. And so what I encouraged her to do was to one start where she is, right.

[00:02:16] Wendi: If she could start in the marketing field, And support maybe a team that, um, deals with career development. Or maybe if you are in a position where you’re like, okay, I love project management. But I also love HR. You can be project management, project manager in the HR field.

[00:02:39] Wendi: And then also continue to , focus on the future career, aspirations that you have. So what I’m saying here is you don’t have to be so focused on where you want to be in the next five years. Or be focused on all the certifications and degrees that you have and you [00:03:00] starting there. Meaning you want to meet yourself where you are today? So, where are you really?

[00:03:08] Wendi: Are you focused on a corporate opportunity? Are you focused on, maybe the government route? Are you focused on a business? Wherever it is. It doesn’t mean that you can’t go. And pursue that big audacious goal or career aspiration that you have. So today I want to invite you to just simply ask yourself.

[00:03:30] Wendi: How can I meet myself where I am today when it comes to my career?

[00:03:34] Wendi: Whatever that answer is. I want you to write it down. And then I also on a separate piece of paper want you to also identify what is it that you are truly pursuing in the next three to five years? So let’s just say this to be a speaKer or a business owner or a certain position in corporate. And then I want you to work backwards and really, where can you start now to help you get to where you want to be. [00:04:00] Because I know most of you think. That you should be doing this one thing that you studied for 10 years ago, but then at the same time you did this in the military.

[00:04:09] Wendi: Maybe you should do that in the civilian sector and oh, by the way, I have this passion about speaking, but oh my gosh, I can’t do that because I don’t have the flexibility to not, or the ability to not have any income at the moment or to take that chance. And so where can you start in meet yourself now? And when you can identify and clarify that, then you can start pursuing. Where you can. Start applying or looking at different companies. And identifying exactly what you could do in the next six months or the next year, depending on how long you have left to transition. So I want you to, I want to invite you to focus on that. Where can you meet? Yourself today. Is it maybe a marketing specialist opportunity.

[00:04:55] Wendi: Is it a, um, workshop facilitator [00:05:00] opportunity? What is it that you can. Do. To help you build. To that future career aspiration that you have that goal for the next few years. And then just take a moment. Be okay with it and know that it’s going to take some time. But that it is possible in that you have so many resources available to help you. And with that, I want to invite you to join me if you haven’t registered yet. To figuring out your ideal career role after the military that I’ll be hosting next week on June 19th on a Wednesday at 12:00 PM.

[00:05:35] Wendi: Eastern standard time. I hope you can make it. If not send me a direct message with the word career on my LinkedIn, and I’ll send it to you directly. All right. Have a beautiful rest of your week. Talk to you soon. Bye.