Military veterans, yes, this is for you. Feeling the urge to quit the service and move on to a life of being a civilian can be very overwhelming. To safely transition, there are two traits that you need - consistency and humility. # The Importance of Consistency Your life in the military comprises of discipline and adhering to a specific set of policies and procedures that are different from the life of a civilian. In the military, certain things are planned for you and are accessible when you are ready. As you transition to civilian life, you must be develop the mindset that in order for you to have what you want, you have to consistently go for it. # Humility is Critical Humility may seem like a small word, but you must be humble when choosing to become a civilian since it is like starting your life anew. Life will be more complicated since the military will no longer pay for your life unless you decide to retire. If you are opting to leave, then you have to be prepared to work for your bread. That is why you must accomplish as many goals as possible during your life in the military. Ensure that all the goals you could not achieve as a civilian, you took the opportunity of being in the military to achieve them. Mental health is also imperative. A complete military mindset is not going to work in a civilian lifestyle. You must learn to adapt and adhere to the changes around you. By being consistent and humble, you will be able to work and manifest your goals.

We are living in a new era. Some refer to it as the technological age. Everything is being done online nowadays. School is online, social life is online, and work is online. The new generation must be taught skills that can help them in this technological era—one of those skills is coding. # Principles of Coding Coding is making a set of instructions for a computer system or device through programming languages. This new generation of children has many problems that they find difficult to solve, which is why this skill is essential for them to learn. It teaches the art of problem solving, discipline and patience. Coding also comprises principles. These principles involve putting small pieces together and creating a complete product. With these principles in place, it will help children to obtain a sense of responsibility. # The Future Is Now We can all agree that technology is the future—children live what they learn. Imagine if children are taught to build programs at an early age. They would be geared towards taking over the world, one step at a time. The apps we use on our phones, computer games and software are all created through coding. Children must be able to solve problems, think for themselves and gain a sense of responsibility; the best way for this to happen is to learn how to code. We need to ensure that this skill is taught in schools or even in households.

I want to shout out to Austin Rutherford and the Millionaire Mindset podcast, he is one of my former classmate from Lincoln High in Ohio. He is an entrepreneur helping people achieve their millionaire dreams and a significant inspiration for me and all veterans hoping to create a successful career. Coming across him has pushed me to continue chasing my dreams as a software developer, where I have already achieved a significant level of success in coding. Embracing your path It’s important to embrace your path in life. To successfully walk our paths in life, we have to get that we are the only ones responsible for how it will go. The decisions that we make or those we don't will severely affect whatever direction we take in life. Tips for success include: \- Ensure you focus on all you want to achieve in life. You have to set your mind on it and go out there and get it. \- Maintain your mental and physical health and positive energy. \- Be humble. You can always try to give back however you can. Whatever we feed our minds with or what we experience will affect how we live. An example is something a teacher said to you in the classroom. That's why we should surround ourselves with positivity to generate positive results. Many opportunities are waiting for you. If you are looking to exit the military and want to get employed or you’re a veteran seeking a career opportunity, visit [employthevets.com](https://www.employthevets.com) for job opportunities.

# Scared of the unknown? In 2020 I separated from the U.S. Navy after 5yrs and I was scared to death with no plan but little did I know what was to come. I set out to find a banking job because of my studies in accounting and business but the cards did not play into my hands with COVID hitting the country out of nowhere. After being jobless for 3 months, I finally landed an ER registration job and finally was getting into a rhythm adjusting to the civilian world. The craziest thing about the military separation process is that when you are going through it, you think that it is all you need to find a job when you get out but that is simply just not true. However, many people do land job as soon as they separate but most people do not and end up enrolling in school with their GI bill. The Post 9/11 GI bill is a god send for us veterans and I would always recommend using it if you have no other option. The key to finding the right job is knowing exactly what career you want to pursue. This is a huge factor in your post separation because it helps you set an exact path to strive for, opposed to going with the flow of society(which is very unstable).

We all have had times where it seemed like we couldn’t stop thinking about all the negative things in our life and the more you think about them the more negative things show up or the current ones get worse. It took me a while to realize that I truly was in control of my destiny and I could do anything I wanted on this earth but I haven’t looked back since. I hate to say it but they military trains you to have one centralized thought process and that is on whatever the mission might be but in the civilian world you have to think about every little thing that the military shields you from, mainly housing and food allowances. For the majority of my career I lived in base housing and had all of my BAH taken without worry that I have to pay my rent or utilities. I wish it were that easy on the civilian side, but they do things a lot different. This may not seem like a huge factor while you are still in but I assure you taking the small things into account will save you from trail and error. Your mind needs to constantly have goals and continue to set new ones so you can have something to work towards in the civilian work because any boss would love to drain every once of energy out of you to make sure their company’s bottom line is good. This is why you have to make it a priority to clear your mind off all distractions and focus on the future you want outside of the military. Never beat yourself up about the things you don’t have or all the things you will miss about the military. You will make better memories that will have a more positive effect on your body than the military. I said all of this to say THE POWER OF LIFE IS IN YOUR MIND, SO GO CREATE YOUR BEST VERSION OF IT!

When you make the transition back to a civilian after any amount of time there are gonna be some adjustments. The biggest adjustment I had to make was to think like a civilian and not a military member. What do I mean by this? EVERYTHING you do in the civilian world is about MONEY, in the military, EVERYTHING is about the MISSION. ## 2 keys to securing a job before separation are: 1. _A Strong Resume_ 2. _A Strong Digital Presence_ ## Resume You have to make sure that your resume is simple yet flawless because it is most times the first thing that a recruiter or potential employer may see. A common misconception about writing a resume is that you have to include all of your past experiences and list everything you did on that job. This is a huge NO when it comes to resume writing because it tends to make your resume very long and cluttered. What you should do instead is narrow or resume down to 1 page with your education, experiences and contact info, also, if you are a developer you will need a list of clickable links to your projects. Also make sure that your job descriptions for each job you have had has no more than 3 Bullet points with a short description of your primary helpful duties. If you want to go over all of this in more detail book a session via the BOOK NOW link on our home page. ## Digital Presence A strong digital presence is way more that just having social media accounts that you barely post to or having an account that you post nonsense to. A huge mistake veterans make is not filtering what a recruiter or potential employer may see on their social media profiles. They may not think your dark military humor is as funny as your military buddies. This will hurt your chances at employment so it is best to have a social profile for work/professional and one for pleasure. I would suggest that you focus on LinkedIn and only LinkedIn as your work/professional social media platform because it is the largest job network out there and can shorten your job search. Recruiters use LinkedIn as a tool to find and connect with potential employees all across the county so building a solid network of connections will definitely expose you to the people you need to talk to for a job. Lastly, you want to make sure your LinkedIn profile is flawless and recruiters are impelled to message you with every available job they have. Checkout my LinkedIn profile for an example: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevinjmosley