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Professionals across the career spectrum have moments where they fear they’re already obsolete, or becoming so. Different than the occasional bout of self-doubt, fearing obsolescence means we fundamentally question our professional significance. When we over-indulge the fear, it creates cognitive distortions of ourselves, others, and our environment that can bring us to the worst versions of ourselves. Whether you’re early in your career and facing a lifetime of technological and economic disruption, or later in your career and questioning your future relevance to the world, feelings of obsolescence don’t have to mire you in fear or futility. The question isn’t how to avoid these feelings, but rather how to spot evidence you’re having them and address them in healthy, honest ways.
Walt is a senior executive who reports to a CEO I’ve coached for years at a large automotive parts manufacturer. We were in the company’s café for one of the CEO’s town halls, where he was giving out that year’s achievement awards. As he handed the award for achievement in innovation to a team of young scientists who’d won an important patent for the company, I noticed Walt had a faraway look about him. I asked him what he was thinking about. He said, “I remember the patent I won that award for like it was yesterday.” It had actually been 15 years earlier. I asked him how it felt to watch the award go to young scientists who had grown up in such a different era in the automotive industry than he had. I was astonished at his answer. In a sullen tone, he simply said, “discarded.”
