It’s a simple reality of military life. Some things you want to do aren’t possible, at least not exactly the way you envision them. Your career won’t proceed in a straight-line. In fact, many of your career aspirations may seem impossible because of your new residence. Does that mean you have to give your career up? No. It just means the approach you are thinking of — your first right answer — won’t work right here.

That’s where possibility thinking and the second/third and higher “right answers” come into play. This is the most important strategy as you move your career while you move with the military.

Too many of us stop with the first solution to our situation. If that solution isn’t possible, we often just give up and end up frustrated and angry with the military — for moving us in the first place or for sticking us in this “godforsaken place.” (We know from experience since we each did that in early assignments.)

By looking for, and finding, the right answer that does work right where you are, you keep moving forward in your career. The most important questions to learn ask immediately are, “What can I do here?” and “What is available here that might not be available anywhere else that can help me in my career development?” Just asking those questions will open up possibilities, more so than focusing on what isn’t possible.

Kathie’s Story
I started doing seminars when my husband was assigned to Fort Lewis, Wash. I landed an audition with one of the national seminar companies to possibly do programs for them all over the United States. My new business was on its way.

Then we got orders to Germany. The national seminar company unfortunately had no work for me overseas. In order to market my seminars to corporations in Germany I would have to pay German taxes. My business wasn’t large enough or advanced enough to justify that. I thought I’d have to give up seminar work for three years. My first right answer just wasn’t possible in Germany.

At a newcomer welcome luncheon I happened to talk with a spouse who told me about the American Women’s Activities Germany conference held every year. The proposals for workshops were due that week. Talk about serendipity. Another new acquaintance told me about the Office of Personnel Management — how they provide training workshops to offices all through Europe. Their headquarters happened to be a two-hour drive from where we lived.

I spent the next three years doing all kinds of seminars for military spouse groups and for military offices throughout Europe. I was able to build my skills, material and reputation, and continue in this field I almost given up on during that assignment. And I was now able to market myself as an “international speaker,” something it might have taken me years longer to achieve living in the United States. Not to mention the fact that I got to travel to wonderful places like Garmisch, Germany, and Venice, Italy to speak. And it all happened because other spouses opened me up to second and third right answers to what I wanted to do.

We share many such stories in our book and workshops…of spouses who figured out a way to make career moves with each military move. Almost always it meant tapping into possibility thinking and often digging for the second or third right answer. One thing we want to mention. At one of our workshops, as we described the concept of second “right” answers, a military spouse challenged us. “That still sounds like you are making a sacrifice, since you can’t go after what you want the way you want,” she said. Well, that is one way to look at it. And yes, the reality is that we are making sacrifices as military spouses — just as our spouses are making sacrifices by serving in the military. There is no question that life — and your career path — might be much easier and more straightforward if we weren’t married to the military. But the fact remains that we are.

So, from there, choosing to look for the second, third and higher right answer simply makes sense. Your option is to simply give up when the first way doesn’t work and to wallow in frustration and bitterness. Instead, doesn’t it make sense to be creative, and to get the help of other creative people to find an answer that does work? The interesting thing is, often that second, third or higher right answer ends up being a better route in the long run anyway. The most important thing is that it keeps you making forward progress and not giving up on your career.

Excerpted with permission from Help! I’m a Military Spouse — I Get a Life Too! How to Craft a Life for You as You Move with the Military (2d Edition released April 2007 from Potomac Books, Inc.) by Kathie Hightower & Holly Scherer.