Thursday, February 8, 2018

Master of the mundane- Where to start



So, the title “Master of the mundane” sounds fancy right?  It’s a phrase a past mentor told me.  She told me you must become a master of the mundane, the small tasks, done consistently day to day which will add up to success.  This was simply all I did.  I started working in small bits, consistently on a backup plan.  I usually only spent 10 minutes a day doing this.  Doesn’t sound like much right?  Well, I started this in 2014 and I wasn’t set to ETS until 2017.  Around 10 minutes a day doing personal development that would lead to being successful and prepared, should I ever leave the Military (which I did in 2017).

Most of you think planning is this big huge scary thing so you shy away from it.  Sometimes even being alone with the thoughts of what will happen when you get out of the Military is too scary you block it out completely which leads to you taking no action and just hoping for the best.  You keep that “it’ll all work out attitude” then complain when things don’t work out and say others were “lucky” because it worked out for them.  Those people aren’t lucky, they made their own luck.  Planning doesn’t have to be a sprint.  Most of you if you never read this were going to eventually get all fired up…go spend a whole day writing a resume or reading up on job postings, then quit.  You need to become a “Master of the mundane” in preparing a back up plan.  This can be everything from working on a resume, actively looking for a job, thinking about what you want to do as a career after the Military, mapping out your finances to ensure you get out debt free, even just reading.  Just do something, anything for 10 minutes a day.  You have the 10 minutes.  Those 10 minutes daily will add up too much more time than the regular people who only decide to focus on this the last few months of their contract, or even more realistically the five days they are in the Soldier for life program or whatever similar program your branch may have.

Now, my goal it so to reach readers early.  If you’re getting close to that ETS date, 10 minutes may not work.  Starting for today with it though will still help.  You must get started today.  You could be somewhere completely different in a year.  You could have a letter of employment guaranteed to a great company making the same or hopefully more than you do now, you could be debt free, you could know what you want your degree in, you could be happy.  It must start now though.  My last comment on this first piece of advice is to keep a log.  Write down day 1 and write down what you spent those ten minutes doing.  As time passes, each time you do this you’ll feel a little more secure about what’s going to happen.  When I was about 5 months from getting out of the Military, I had a letter of employment with USAA, no debt, over 2 years of college completed and was happy.  After so many friends asking how I got a lucky break I showed them the log that spanned almost 3 years where everyday I wrote down what I did and how accomplishing that small bit of work each day made me feel secure about my future.  This will work, you get back what you put in.  You just must start.

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