Why do veterans feel lost after leaving the military?

Is it normal to feel lost after leaving the military?

Yes. It's one of the most common things we go through when we get out. Feeling lost doesn't mean you made the wrong call by getting out, and it doesn't mean you're broken.

Here's how I think about it. For years, somebody else carried a huge part of the mental load for you. Where you slept, what you ate, when you went to medical, what you wore, who you reported to and what time you had to be there. You didn't have to think about any of it, and that was the point. The military takes the basics off your plate so you can execute when things get uncertain.

When you get out, all of that lands back on you on the same day. Of course it feels like the ground is moving under your feet.

Why do I miss the military so much?

Do you remember being told how to tie your shoes? Anyone else find that weird? Looking back, it's a pretty good picture of how much certainty we had. We knew how to stand in front of someone. We knew what to say depending on their rank, and how much to say. Our housing, our food, our dental appointments and our health insurance were all handled. The paycheck hit on the 1st and the 15th, every time, no fail. If you were with USAA or Navy Fed, maybe it even showed up a couple of days early.

So when people say they miss the military, I'd bet a lot of what they're missing is that feeling of knowing exactly where they stand. We lose the mission, the structure and the people all at once when we get out. The people and the mission get talked about. The structure is the one nobody warns you about.

Why is life after the military so hard?

I believe certainty is one of our most basic human needs. Some people call it safety or security; whatever word you use, the military gives it to us at a level most civilians never experience, and we take it for granted until it's gone.

Then it's gone overnight, and the anxiety shows up in strange places. Raise your hand if you've ever shown up two hours early to a job interview and sat in the parking lot thinking, "Why am I here?" Hurry up and wait is a very real thing, and it doesn't switch off when the uniform comes off. That's our training reaching for structure that isn't there anymore.

The help is out there, by the way. There are more organizations serving veterans than any of us could ever sort through. The hard part is that out here, certainty isn't issued. Nobody hands you commander's intent and says "go execute." You have to find it, and a lot of us go looking in the wrong place first.

Why do so many veterans jump from job to job?

Because the first thing most of us do is try to replace the certainty we lost, and the fastest way to do that is a paycheck. So we go job, job, job. I get it. Rent is due, and that direct deposit feels like the 1st and the 15th all over again.

To be clear, I don't believe the first job is a mistake. The trouble starts when we ask a job to do something it was never built to do, because a job cannot replace a way of being. So a few months in, a new question shows up: wait a minute, where's my purpose? We leave to go find it somewhere else, the next job fills the same hole for a little while, and the cycle repeats.

If that sounds familiar, I wrote a whole piece on whether you should take the first job offer after the military and how to use it well.

Where does certainty come from after the military?

From within. That's the shift. In uniform, certainty came from the outside: the schedule, the rules, the chain of command. Out here, the most reliable certainty is the kind we build for ourselves, and the way we build it is through our standards.

A standard is something you won't compromise on, no matter what the day throws at you. Some of the best ones you already have, because the military taught them to you:

• Being on time, or early.
• Staying true to your word.
• A routine, like working out every single morning.

If I know I'm going to get up and go to the gym regardless of what happens, I've got certainty in that part of my life, and nobody can take it from me. The same goes for the people I Love. I can be a lot more certain my relationships will be strong if I'm present with them, phone down at dinner, than if I'm not. Standards give us certainty in a way nobody else can give it to us.

They don't have to be big, either. Your standard could be as simple as holding the door for the person behind you, or saying thank you every single time someone does something for you. Small and easy is the point, because small and easy is what you'll still do on your worst day.

How do you stop feeling lost after getting out?

You won't flip a switch, and you don't need to. What helps is giving yourself a few things you can count on, and then a picture of where you're headed.

Here's an exercise I come back to all the time. Imagine yourself way in the future, sitting on your front porch as an old man or an old woman. Sit down and have a conversation with that person. Who are they? What did they refuse to compromise on? What did they do every day that made them who they are? It could be physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, or how they loved the people around them.

Then take all of that back to today and start designing your days around becoming that person. Do it consistently and something else starts to grow out of it, especially if the person you're growing into is one who serves other people. I'd call that purpose, and I wrote about how purpose gets built after the military too.

Is it normal to feel depressed after leaving the military?

A lot of us go through low stretches after getting out, and there's nothing to be ashamed of in that. It's also worth taking seriously. Sometimes lost turns into something heavier, and if it's lasting for weeks or getting worse, talk to someone. If you're in crisis, or you're worried about a buddy, please don't wait on an article. Call 988 and press 1 to reach the Veterans Crisis Line, text 838255, or chat at VeteransCrisisLine.net. It's free, it's confidential, it's there around the clock, and you don't have to be enrolled in VA benefits or health care to use it.

If you'd like someone in your corner for the longer haul, you can look through organizations that focus on mental health and peer support on Prize. You choose who you reach out to, and nothing about you is shared unless you say so.

What can you do this week?

If you only do one thing, do the first one.

1. Pick one standard. Choose one thing the military taught you that you still believe in, like being early, keeping your word or a morning workout, and write it down.
2. Keep it every day for seven days. Make it easy enough that you'll do it even on a bad day.
3. Have the front porch conversation. Fifteen quiet minutes with your future self. Write down three things that person never compromises on.
4. Hear how someone else rebuilt it. I got into exactly this with Troy Beane on the Prize Podcast. He spent 21 years in uniform before he got out.
5. Try the Identity Brief if you'd like a guided version of all this. It's ten minutes, and it's free.

The ground stops moving. It gets clearer, I promise.