I recently partnered with some great guys, Phil and Jake, over at Get Out Get Ahead to record a podcast series on getting out of the military.  If you have received any value from my sporadic blog posts on retiring from the military…check it out!

You can also download my entire step-by-step checklist for how to retire or separate from military service.

Okay, it’s settled.  You’re leaving the service.  In order to accomplish a successful stress-free transition, you’ll want to clear some space on your calendar.  Decide now how much time you will invest in the process of creating your future.  This will be time spent primarily accomplishing the activities in this book as well as anything else you must do before you leave the service.  Can you commit a couple of hours a day or a week to your transition?  Maybe you have 30 minutes at lunch, or an hour before dinner.  It could be a couple of hours early on Saturday mornings.

No time?  You can make some by letting go of other activities temporarily.  Put aside the bowling league for a season or step down from your leadership role in the sailing club.  Now please don’t sacrifice your sanity!  If bowling gives you an outlet for stress and you enjoy spending this time with friends, keep doing it.

Ask yourself what is the most important thing in your life right now.  Which activities will move you quickly through this transition and which will slow it down?  (Your answer will depend largely on how much time you have remaining in uniform.)

This is part of a complete step-by-step military retirement checklist. I’ll be posting weekly action steps here, so please subscribe over in the right-hand column so you’re sure to get each update.

When I decided to retire after 26 years in the Navy, I found myself overwhelmed by two things:

1.  Too much information on how to make a military transition, and
2.  Not enough information on how to make the transition into military retirement.

One, there is an abundance of information and resources available for folks retiring from the military and entering civilian life.  You can find advice on how to clarify your skills and talents, write a resume, survive an interview, and network like a pro.  The Transition Assistance Program (TAP) coordinators make every effort to provide valuable information on what you need to do and what your timeline should be to do it in.  There are self-help and career transition books, career and personality assessments, headhunters, and hundreds of websites loaded with information.

While this is all very valuable, I discovered I didn’t know where to start and couldn’t find anyone to tell me.  Some would say “Start with your resume”.  Okay, but I don’t know what I want to do.  Others would suggest I take some personality assessments.  I did.  And discovered that I was perfectly suited to do what I was doing in the military.  So why wasn’t I happy doing it anymore?  Did I really want to pursue my second career in the same field?  (By the way, you can take these assessments at different times in your life and get different answers.)

Which brings me to number two, not enough information on how to make a military transition. I felt like I was sitting in the middle of a large pile of jigsaw puzzle pieces.  I had numerous skills, tons of experience and an abundance of enthusiasm.  I needed help putting it all together and making sense of it.  All I needed was the first few edge pieces of my puzzle to fit together and the rest of the picture would fall into place.

I realized that the first piece missing from the puzzle of information was a checklist. My military training had taught me to always read the book, look at the manual, use the step-by-step checklist.  Don’t rely on your memory or try to reinvent the wheel.  People got hurt and equipment was damaged when we did that!

I’m not trying to reinvent the transition process here.  There’s really no new information.  Rather, I offer you the missing piece.

I’m offering you the step-by-step checklist so you don’t miss anything.

(I’ll be posting weekly action steps here, so please subscribe over in the right-hand column so you’re sure to get each update.)

Panic, doubt and fear all stem from a lack of knowledge, the unknown.  Not knowing what to do, what will happen next or even how to begin.  I have combined everything you have to do for the Navy before you retire with the personal things you want to think about and explore before you actually leave.

My desire is to help you find the edge pieces to start putting together your own puzzle. What I wish for you is to have an effortless transition, to enjoy the process, and to create a civilian lifestyle that brings you constant joy and deep satisfaction.  God bless you on your journey.