3 Reasons Why Crossing The Plateau of Latent Potential is Essential for Transitioning Out of the Military

“It takes a decade to become an overnight success”. These were the words Gary Vaynerchuk once told me during the week of Super Bowl 51 in Houston.

For obvious reasons, not seeing immediate results, is very frustrating for transitioning military veterans. So much so that we might feel like quitting on our post-military dreams and settle for less meaningful lifestyles.

James Clear points out in his book, “Atomic Habits”, that the stage of development where we are excited to see progression, but are met with stagnation and lack of progress and want to give up is called the Plateau of Latent Potential.

From researching and understanding the Plateau of Latent Potential, here are 3 key reasons veterans can become discouraged during military transition:

The Reasons:

1. Expectations, expectations, expectations.

When we leave the military, we expect our success and progress in the real world to be linear, but in my experience, it’s anything but that.

In terms of progress and performance, it is natural to experience a delay between what we think should happen and what actually happens, or when.

It can be very frustrating. In the military we were accustomed with our results being aligned with our expected outcomes because so many details along the line of promotion and recognition were chiseled out in paths others had taken time and time again before us. It’s just the nature of progress and performance in the military.

Life outside the military is not linear and desired results are often delayed.

“You should be far more concerned with your current trajectory than with your current results.” - James Clear

2. Not Strengthening Our Networks.

“Your network is your net-worth.” - Robert Kiyosaki. Think of your circle of influence and the people you associate with mostly on a day to day basis. While serving, chances are, 90% of your professional connections will all me military or government affiliated.

If you are looking to land meaningful opportunities in the “real world” this poses a major problem. 80% of job opportunities never get posted. They are all filled by internal referrals from employees who work at the company with the opportunity that submit the resume and provide a recommendation for one of their network connections.

Additionally, your network provides a major source of information, knowledge, and further connections. Imagine how much growth you could achieve if you were connected to people already doing what you want to do, where you want to do it.

3. Focused on Goals, but Not Focused on Systems

“Goals are good for setting a direction, but systems are best for making progress” - James Clear.

Systems are the daily routines and processes you follow to improve and move forward in your civilian life with success during and after transitioning from the military.

Conclusion:

In conclusion, the Plateau of Latent Potential is an inevitable stage all veterans will experience during their transition to civilian life. Nobody explains this during the TAPs, ACAPs, and other mandatory transition programs.

Understanding that it is normal and being able to recognize the signs that indicate we’ve reached this plateau is half the battle. The second half is tuning into your inner strength and discipline to stay in the fight and pursue your post-military dreams.

Overnight success is a myth. Success in your civilian life will come from your consistent perseverance through the great times and the rough ones. Setting expectations based on fact and research, strengthening your civilian network with people where you want to be in life, and employing systems to help you define, determine, and track your progress will bring you closer to your post-military goals.

Managing yourself and your mindset will help you push past the Plateau of Latent Potential, and lead to the results you know you deserve.

7 Great Lessons For Military Veterans Transitioning to Civilian Life From the Book Atomic Habits

1. The Habit Loop

At the core of the Atomic Habits book, James Clear breaks down how all our habits needs to have these 4 elements to stick:

1. Cue

2. Craving

3. Response

4. Reward

Create Good Habits

1. Cue: make it obvious

2. Craving: make it attractive

3. Response: make it easy

4. Reward: make it satisfying

Get Rid of Bad Habits

1. Cue: make it invisible

2. Craving: make it unattractive

3. Response: make it difficult

4. Reward: make it unsatisfying

2. Get 1% Better Every Day

While preparing for and during transition, veterans often attempt to take bigger steps than is actually realistic for them to accomplish. In most cases, this leads to failure and frustration from not hitting their specified target.

For example, if you realize you need more civilian LinkedIn connections in a certain field, don’t attempt to connect with 100 people in one go.

Send 10 personalized and meaningful connection requests everyday. This is more manageable and will not only produce better results, but you won’t get frustrated and give up.

3. Don’t Do This Alone

Having a battle buddy or a spouse to work with you on your transition goals, tasks, and habits will help you stick to them longer.

By motivating each other to get after it, you build a sense of accountability and camaraderie towards common habits.

Military transition can feel very lonely and it is very easy to get lost in your head. Avoid this by no doing it alone.

4. Your Habits Are a Mirror of Your Identity

Your habits are so much more than a goal with a finish line.

Don’t make a habit to complete 3 business courses before you transition out of the military.

Your habit should be to “become a business owner”.

5. Small Steps Lead to Big Changes

A journey of 1000 miles begins with one step.

Picture yourself walking for 20 minutes each day. You won’t increase your fitness immediately, but your body and overall health will be much more improved after some time.

Start with small steps and be patient.

6. Track Your Progress

Let’s be honest.

Most veterans give up on the dream gig, the dream opportunity, or the dream business because they think they aren’t making any progress.

Having a way to track your progress over time is beneficial in both the short and long term.

7. Don’t Judge Your Progress Too Soon

Change takes time. The transition from military life to civilian life itself is one of the biggest changes we ever have to face as veterans. Your new habits you set out to stick before, during, or after leaving the military will be no small challenge.

As you can see in the image below, you need to pass a threshold before you start seeing results.

Atomic Habits is the definitive guide to breaking bad habits and adopting good ones in four steps. As veterans transitioning from the military understanding how small, incremental, everyday routines can compound into massive gains towards our post-military success in the real world is a game changer.

We’ll no longer have the military telling us where, how, and when day in and day out. Leaning how to build and stick to our own habits is a necessity.

3 Ways to Grow Your Civilian Network Before Your Military Transition

How big is your civilian network? Chances are, if you are transitioning out of the military your civilian network is not only small, it’s not very efficient in helping you land to opportunities.

1. Create a Linkedin profile worth connecting with. LinkedIn is an essential personal branding tool in the civilian job market. Not having one, or having a poorly set-up profile will make your search search efforts a waste of time. 

If your cover letter and resume make it past the no pile, the next place a hiring manager will head to learn about you is Linkedin. If you don;t have one, don’t be expected to be taken seriously as a career-minded individual. 

With over 700 million members, LinkedIn is currently the largest professional network on the plant. When preparing to transition out of the military, your goal should be to build meaningful connections in your desired industry on LinkedIn.

Building meaningful connections starts with people seeing all you have to offer. LinkedIn members with complete profiles are 40 times more likely to receive opportunities via LinkedIn. Make sure your headline, summary, and photo tell a compelling story of who you are and what you bring to the table.

2. Join a Facebook Group related to your next mission in life. Don’t have a Facebook account because you “don’t do Facebook/social media”? I get it. But understand that you are likely going to have to make some compromises and work-arounds to the way you currently do things if you want to advance in the real world.

If you need to, set up a profile and only use your middle and last name, or the first letter of your first name and your last name. Then utilize it to only connect with people and groups in your desired profession.

If you are looking for product marketing opportunities, for example, search “product marketing” in the Facebook search bar to find groups in that career field. Some groups may be private or “secret” so also try the same search in Google by typing the career field and Facebook groups (“product marketing Facebook groups).

Once inside a Facebook group of your desired field, search the group’s history to find answers to your questions. If the group is large and active it is very likely someone has asked the same question you’d like answered. If it hasn’t been answered, go ahead and ask your question. One great question you can ask is for help with your job search. You’d be surprised how generous people inside these groups are with giving advice and making connections for you.

Not all groups are created equal. If you find yourself in a Facebook group that isn’t helpful or active, simply leave. Your goal is to join and spend time in Facebook groups that provide actionable information and have members you’d like to connect with.

3. Transition in public. “If you want to go fast, go alone; but if you want to go far, go together?” - African Proverb. How will you get support, advice, and make connections that help you reach your military transition goals if nobody knows about them?

Transitioning in public helps you tap into the hidden job market. 80% of civilian jobs are filled without being advertised.

Transitioning in public is about rallying a community around your job search and overall transition efforts. This is accomplished by sharing stories (wins/lessons), while being authentic and vulnerable about your transition to civilian life.

Transitioning in public takes time, intention, and consistency. You can transition in public both off-line and on-line (you should do both). People love stories, especially when they unfold in front of their own eyes, and they get to be a part of your journey.

It takes a ton of courage to reach out to someone and ask for help. We are often taught to fix everything ourselves and don’t show weakness in the military. You might think being vulnerable during your job search makes you look weak. When in all actuality, networking helps people help you. 

4 Crippling Career Assumptions Military Veterans Make During Transition

A common reason many transitioning military veterans end up in careers they dislike is that we make and share crippling assumptions about careers in the real world. Career assumptions are the combination of our experience in the military and our exposure to the stories and advice of others. 

“The assumptions of our environment in the military end up creating the operating system we utilize to navigate our civilian careers.” - Bernard Edwards

There are 4 crippling assumptions numerous veterans make that hold them back from being more fulfilled in their civilian careers. But these assumptions are not reality:

1. Assuming your military transition will be a linear journey. In the military we have everything from pay, promotion, duty title, subordinates, superiors, locations, healthcare, clothing and more all picked out for us.

Military life is extremely linear, life on the outside is not. Your transition will not be a straight line either. It will seem about as linear as line drawn in crayon by a three year old. There will be Chaos.

Let’s use jobs as an example. The civilian job market is vastly different. The Bureau of Labor Statistics stated that, “workers on average, have changed jobs and companies 12 times in their working lifetime”.

2. Overestimating the value of your Military Transition Program. You cannot rely on your TAPs, ACAPs, or whatever new acronym defines the piece of paper you sign before getting out that says, “member attended all mandatory transition briefs”. You cannot rely on your TAPs, ACAPs, or whatever new acronym defines the piece of paper you sign before getting out that says, “member attended all mandatory transition briefs”. Yes, we typed that twice. It’s that crucial you get the memo.

Crushers research the sh!t out of the careers we want. We network in the online and offline communities we aspire to be part of. We make meaningful connections with decision makers in the civilian spaces we want to be in. Crushers do these things long before any “mandatory” transition brief.

3. Underestimating the amount of time required to fully research your desired career. It is imperative you invest time into becoming as educated as possible about your potential new profession. 

What are the entry level requirements? 

What companies are hiring in this field? 

Where are these companies hiring these professionals?

Where can I connect with these professionals online and in person?

What required training do I need to complete before being considered?

Are there low cost courses I can take to learn new skills for this career?

Can I take a day or two of leave to shadow someone working in this field?

Investing the time to really research what you want to do next is vital to successfully entering the civilian job market. If done enthusiastically it can often lead to opportunities only reserved for the hidden job market. The more knowledge you have of the career, the better prepared you’ll be should you land an interview.

4. Overestimating your sources of knowledge for your desired civilian life. When almost everyone you know works in or for the military, there aren’t many real life examples to point in regard to what you want to do next. Sure you’ve got civilian family members, and a few civilian friends. But are they doing the actual thing you want to do? Are they doing it where you want to live?

Chances are your civilian friends and family are not doing your dream job and are not spending their time and money in the way you want to. It is up to you to design the life you want to live after taking the uniform off for the last time.

Design is used in each and every aspect of our lives. The car we drive. The house we live in. The style of clothing we wear. So many of these aspects are designed for us while on active duty. Now you have the opportunity to do the designing of your life.

Everyone has different definitions of happiness and success. Your overall mission when transitioning is to be able to come up with your own definition. To consciously do this, you need to design your life around smart, measurable, attainable, realistic, timely (S.M.A.R.T) goals.

So many transitioning military veterans enter the civilian world in survival mode because of the preconceived notions we’ve adopted while serving. Crushers don’t subscribe to these assumptions.

“Your assumptions are your windows to the world.  Scrub them off every once in a while, or the light won’t come in.” - Isaac Asimov

See you inside the Crusherverse.

The Mission Comes First

One thing that negatively affects our transitions out of the military is that we naively believe the military cares about what we do next.

There was no time in military lives, where the military cared more about what we did next, than the day signed the dotted line.

That dotted line was a contract. And that contract was step one of “the mission comes first”.

See the military is in the recruiting business. Not the transition business. Sure they have transition programs; TAPs/ACAPs, etc. But how long do those last? 2 weeks?

Think back to Basic Military Training. Prior to day one as a recruit the military was already investing in you. From the medicals at the MEPs station, to the plane and bus trip, to your first meal in the dinning facility.

Think of you career training. From your specific field training, to your leadership development, and deployment readiness — the military heavily invested your assurance that “the mission comes first”.

How much of an investment of time, money, and resources is spent each active duty member towards the “mission”?

How much of an investment of time, money, and resources was spent on your power-point slides, briefings from a company who won the lowest bid, who hired a contractor for minimum wage, to regurgitate the same exact boring text book Smitty, Johnson, and Jones stationed in Minot, Bragg, and Pendleton last month?

What happens at your unit the day you take the uniform off for the last time? Someone else shows up and “the mission comes first”. Rinse repeat. Rinse repeat.

So what’s my point?

Nobody is coming to save your ass. They are busy with the “mission”. And let’s face it WTF to they know about life on the outside? They’re still suiting up in the uniform tomorrow.

There’s no playbook and no guru system to achieving a world-class transition, but we Crushers are here building what we wish existed when we got out.

Why?

First off, it’s obvious the cavalry ain’t coming. They are all busy with the “mission”.

And you think it is, in the form of a GS job, think again — those are slots already have a good ole boy picked for them. Everyone else has the same “idea”. Even if you do land one, is that really the height of you’ve life’s aspiration? (side-note: someone from last unit, who ETS’d in 2014 is still waiting for a GS position)

Second, having our brother’s and sister’s backs shouldn’t end when the uniform comes off. If just one of our shared lessons and experiences help you live a more fulfilling post-military life, this community is worth the time we put into it.

Lastly, it’s rough out there. We don’t want to see you jobless, holding a sign on the street homeless, or even worse. We have lots of mental shifts to make as we return to civilian life.

The sooner you accept that the responsibility of your military transition rests on you and you alone, you can begin to adopt more life changing mental models — and crush your transition. Are you putting YOUR post-military mission first?