If you think change is hard, try becoming irrelevant!—Tom Peters

Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof—Mathew 6:34

One of the common concerns my clients—and prospects—have is their ability to stay relevant when they are faced with the fierce velocity of changes that they see happening around them. Technology shifts, new business models, M&As that completely change a company’s future, global trade factors, and on and on. Most of these concerns hit hard on professionals in their mid 40s and up, who worry about their future and about how to make sense of these out-of-control factors that bring new worries to their already challenged lives.

It is virtually impossible to deal with and to internalize all the shifts that are occurring all around us. Although there is nothing new about these changes—they go back to our early history, millennia back—what scares most is their velocity and their ferocity.

So, as a career and a life coach, what is my advice to those who feel paralyzed by these shifts and are concerned about how things will be in the next 15-20 years for these concerned professionals when the velocity of these changes will be even greater and their ferocity even more daunting?

Here is what I tell them how to deal with it:

1. Focus on the present and see how you are engaged in what you do. If you are not passionate about what you are engaged in and are maundering through your life—both personally and professionally—then I suggest that you take a closer look at how you are engaged and how want to be engaged in what you do. If you do not like your job explore and evaluate what job would be in your sweet spot. When you do not love what you are doing it is easy to create mediocre results. It is this mediocrity that gets people into trouble when there are cutbacks and RIFs. Surveys have shown that only about 20% of those employed are truly engaged in what they do; only you can change that for yourself.
2. If you like your job, but dislike your boss, it may be worth your effort to learn how to deal with such bosses. In many cases of my clients when they come to me with this problem they typically have not made any attempts to communicated with their boss their needs and preferences and how their boss can get the best from them. Not all such conversations are successful, but when you learn how to have such conversations you are equipping yourself with a life skill on how to create a better alignment between you and those who drive your everyday life. The idea behind these “difficult conversations” is to learn how to negotiate an arrangement that brings out the best to benefit you both. Unless you are able to find this common ground you’ll continue to suffer from this misaligned arrangement.
3. Once you find your sweet spot make a commitment to be the best you can be in whatever you take on. One way to achieve this state of excellence is to become aware of your own shortcomings and to start working on them every day. Ever heard of the “compounding effect”? Even if you get one percent better today than yesterday in what you do you’ll quickly surpass the crack performers in your own group before you know it!
4. Adopt a Growth Mindset by shedding your Fixed Mindset. There is a great book by Carol S. Dweck (Mindset: The New Psychology of Success). This book will inspire you to multiply your capabilities in areas that you thought were out of reach for you.
5. Learn how to cut through the noise and get to the heart of what is important to know and to understand. In an earlier blog (Some Efficiency Hacks to Beat the 61% Overhead, February 12) I had many “hacks” that I use every day in my own work and routine that allow me to do more with less. See if you can embrace some of those hacks for your own growth and benefits.
6. Take on a new challenge: Learn a language, climb a mountain, understand a difficult topic so that you can explain it to someone, and keep on taking these challenges to conquer new vistas. The confidence you will get from conquering these new challenges will increase your resilience, mitigating worries about your future, and giving you more confidence to deal with the unknown.
7. In addition, take on something that you thought was out of reach for you. Conquer it by diligently applying yourself to the cause and develop an invincible you!
8. Keep a disciplined regime of exercise and mindfulness (mediation is a good tool) and take care of your everyday needs, family, and life.

   Recently, a client, who joined a start-up as employee #2 with the promise of quick riches, jumped in head first without giving any thought to how he was putting his life in jeopardy. The start-up was bootstrapped with very aggressive—self-imposed—milestones. During the 12 months that this client was engaged with this start-up he became totally consumed by it to a point where he was hardly ever home with his family, lost contact with anything outside his start-up, and ended up having a mental breakdown at the end of that year. When he and his wife came to see me on how to handle this situation, concerned about his welfare, I had to suggest to him some drastic options to save his life and his family. Do not let this happen to you!

9. Participate in uplifting and inspiring events, people, and causes. By giving of yourself to rightful causes it lifts your own esteem and gives you reason to do more for others. Help someone in need and see how it changes their life—and yours—as they pull out of doldrums.
10. Be grateful for what you have every day and learn how to become an even better person the next!

Good luck!