Taking Small Actions to Reach Big Goals

Chris Albert 00:00:00 (link to this point)

You know, one of the things I'm always saying is that if this country is gonna get better, if this country is gonna go on the right path, we have to step up as a community. Veterans are the sleeping giant in this country, and it is time for us to step up. That's why I wanna talk to you about The Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina. Now you might have thought about The Citadel in the past as this corps of cadets, this military institution, but they have programs for veterans that don't involve you joining the corps of cadets, don't involve you wearing a uniform every day, and don't involve you living a military lifestyle. If you wanna do that, great.

But if that's not what you're up for right now after your military career, then you don't have to do that, and you can access some of the best programs in the world. The Citadel has some hot degrees in intelligence, tactical strength and conditioning, engineering, and project management. And there's five student type options for veterans. There's graduate college, there's evening undergraduate, there's active duty students, non cadet day program, returning cadet veterans, and online programs. The academic offerings include undergraduate, graduate, college transfer, graduate certificates, and online degrees.

Veterans have access to every single academic degree the college offers, and they have the most flexibility when it comes to their schedule. They can major in anything offered to the cadets and would take those classes during the day with the cadets. But then there's other programs offered in the evening or online and graduate programs to choose from too to make things so flexible for you. The US World and News report has named the Citadel the number one college for veterans in the South. And for veterans who choose to take classes on campus, they get to be a civilian student in a military environment.

They don't have to wear uniforms, like I said before. They don't have to join the military culture of the corps of cadets. The atmosphere is a really good transition environment from military to civilian life. There's an organic mentorship that comes from taking classes with the cadets. The cadets wanna talk to you guys.

They wanna hear your stories. They wanna know what it was actually like to be in the military. A lot of the a lot of these men and women are gonna go on to serve as officers in the military, and they're gonna exact change. And they need to hear from you guys. They you also get access to The Citadel's alumni network.

Like I said, this is one of the most illustrious institutions in the world. And when you join the Citadel and you graduate, you're part of their alumni network. That includes so many leaders. It includes so many business leaders, so many leaders from the military, and so many leaders from the government. The college's core values of honor, duty, and respect align with veteran culture.

They align with who you are, and it's something that you're not gonna get anywhere else in this country. There is tons of special assistance for veterans at The Citadel. And whether you're a veteran or active duty military personnel, you can take advantage of these programs. You also get access to the veteran student success center, the career center, the academic success center, the student veteran association, and all campus clubs. If you wanna play rugby, you could do that.

If you wanna you wanna lift weights, you could do that. You get access to everything that the students get. There's fellowship opportunities. There's tons and tons of financial assistance. So if you're interested in getting a degree from The Citadel and building your life, head over to citadel.edu/veterans.

This is Chris Albert, and I'm here to remind you of one thing. Someday, you're going to die. And that's not some morbid statement or scary idea. It's solid fact. Your time here on this earth is limited.

And we need to be reminded of this as much as possible with one simple reason, to live your best life while you can. This is the Warrior Soul podcast.

What is going on, ladies and gentlemen? Welcome to the Warrior Soul podcast. My name is Chris Albert, and this podcast is where we deliver tools to I can't talk today. Tools, tactics, strategies, and ideas to help The US military veteran community and anybody else willing to listen to live their absolute best lives. A lot of times, I'm here interviewing people, people much smarter than myself, much more accomplished than myself.

Other times, I am here to discuss an issue that is important to our community that will help you along on your way. Today, I'm going to discuss the subject of comfort. Alright? Comfort. Now we've all heard the phrase comfort kills or complacency kills.

Right? What that means is that we tend to settle into patterns that we're comfortable with. Right? And I wanna really strike a difference here. There's a difference between dissatisfaction and discomfort, and there's a a a difference between satisfaction and comfort.

Right? And what I wanna tell you right now is that you could be dissatisfied, but also comfortable at the same time. What do I mean by that? You might be currently dissatisfied with your life. You might be dissatisfied with the wage you're earning. You might be dissatisfied with the way your relationship is going.

You might be dissatisfied with the physical shape that you're in right now. But there might be something that makes you comfortable where you are that's keeping you there despite that dissatisfaction. Right? You know, a great example is somebody who wants to lose weight, but they love chocolate cake. And that piece of chocolate cake that they have before they go to bed every night, well, that keeps them comfortable.

Right? There's there might be some of you out there that that really wanna save money, but you also love gambling. Right? And and that that comfort you get, that thing that's making you comfortable gambling or spending your money on on useless items or or whatever that might be, that might be keeping you right where you are, comfortable right where you are even though you're dissatisfied with your finances. And this is the big thing.

It's the comfort that keeps us where we are. Right? It's that pattern that we're comfortable with. It's that state of mind that says, hey. I I'm gonna do this again and again day after day even though I'm dissatisfied with these circumstances.

And the question is, well, how do you break that pattern? How do you get yourself to a point where you are no longer comfortable being being dissatisfied and you're no longer used to failing yourself to actually take action to change things? And it's a tricky question. You know, for me, it took a lot of things over and over again. And I'm I'm still not there on a lot of things.

Right? I've I've constantly had to work on my relationship. I've constantly had to work on my fitness. Constantly had to work on my health. Constantly had to work on trying to fix my finances and to get myself to a position where I wasn't earning paycheck to paycheck.

Right? It takes a lot of work. And in order to do that work, you have to get comfortable doing the work. Well, how do you do that? Well, you have to start by laying out small things that you're gonna do every day to get you out of it.

Right? You have to have that vision for where you wanna go, and you have to plan backward step by step to know the small things that you have to do every day to get to where you wanna go. And a lot of people out there, they set goals, and goals are great. Don't get me wrong. Right?

But goals are nothing without action. Right? You can set the highest goals in the world. But if you're not actually taking actions to get to those goals and you haven't laid those actions out that you need to take, then you're not gonna get anywhere. Right?

You wanna buy a house. Right? You wanna buy a house? Then what do you have to do? Well, you have to get approved for a loan.

What do you have to do to get approved for a loan? You have to fix your credit. How do you how do you have to fix your credit? You gotta start taking care of those debts. How do you take care of those debts?

You need to start saving your money so that you can start paying down those credit cards. How do you start saving money? Well, you stop buying trash. How do you stop buying trash? Well, day by day, you look at your finances.

You take a bit of money sticking into a savings account. You avoid buying lunch every day. Right? You avoid buying from restaurants. You avoid taking stupid trips or or vacations until your finances are fixed, and then you take all the vacations you want or or at least one.

Right? You you save a bit of money every month. You set a target amount every month, and you do the small things every day to get you there to meet your targets. Right? How do you lose weight?

Well, in order to lose weight, you need to take in less calories. In in order to take in less calories, you need to stop eating shitty food. In order to stop eating shitty food, when you go to the grocery store, you gotta make better decisions about what you put in your cart. And then when you're home, you gotta get rid of all the crap, the chips, the cookies, all that stuff that is just gonna be sabotaging you on your way to your goal. Right?

It's those little things. It's not about setting big, massive, hairy goals. It's about knowing the actions you're gonna take to get there. And then little by little, day by day, week after week, month after month, you do those things until you wake up and you realize you're a lot further along than you would have been if you were just sitting there bitching about your state of life without ever doing anything. And it's a lot simpler than we make it out to be.

Right? There there's no luck here. Right? Of course, luck plays a lot big role in a lot of our lives. I'm a lucky person in the fact that I never actually flew off the rails and I'm still alive.

But in order to get to where I got where I've gotten, it hasn't been about luck at all. It's about taking those actions. It's about not giving up. It's about actually doing things that are gonna move me forward. And that's all I got for you guys today.

Alright? Real simple stuff here. You guys ever have any questions about this stuff, feel free to reach out to me on social media. I am at Warrior Soul Agoge on Instagram. You can also hit me up to a lesser extent at Warrior Soul Gear on Twitter, and I will be back at you later on this week with some more awesome content.

This is Chris Albert with the Warrior Soul Podcast, and I am out.