How do I stay relevant?

When my clients, including coachees, asked me that question 10, 15, and even 20 years ago, we’d talk about how they could gain new skills, knowledge, and experiences to apply to their work.

Now when individuals ask me about staying relevant, my response is totally different. Rather than share ideas, I ask them questions, usually these three:

1. How are you taking care of yourself, especially in terms of sleep, diet, and exercise?
2. How are you using or at least experimenting with AI to ensure you’re keeping up with trends?
3. What new experiences are you undergoing to expose you to new people, ideas and perspectives as well as help you feel a sense of awe?

Why these questions? The answers reveal one’s values, priorities, and even practices to help you deal with high levels of uncertainty. The answers also send important signals about the level of commitment to continue learning, growing, and developing. As a brain-based coach and Neuroplastician®, I find this info helps me help my clients faster and more extensively.

We cut to the chase and get to the point: What are you promising to do? Your commitment to yourself and others is critical because we—all of us humans—need to rely more on our inner compass, capabilities, and capacity to do the “right” things than follow external playbooks. Established guidelines can be obsolete, considering the degree of change we’re experiencing. It’s critical that we can adapt quickly to the changing environment.

Let’s dig deeper into each of these questions and the potential answers.

1.Practice self-care. To ensure your brain and body can perform at their optimal level, you’ve got to practice self-care. Your brain’s most important job is to control your body’s overall energy needs through allostasis. To do this well, the brain requires energy, which it receives from you getting the “big three”—adequate amounts of sleep, eating a nutritious diet, and moving your body, ideally exercising.

Your brain’s health and performance as well as your overall wellbeing depend on maintaining a strong mind-body connection. To monitor and manage your overall physical, mental and emotional states, you also need to make sure you’re noticing your feelings, managing your energy, and making quality time for social activities with friends, family and acquaintances. When you listen to the signals your brain and body send you about your mood, stress levels, and aches and pains, you’re better equipped to manage your physical and mental health and feel more fulfilled. Plus, you’re more empowered to make changes that can have a positive impact on you. Self-care is a necessity, not a luxury. And if you don’t take care of yourself, who will?

2. Be curious, including experiment with AI. Artificial intelligence is doing more than changing the way we work; it’s reshaping the environment in which we live and work. You don’t need to become an expert in how AI works; instead, you need to challenge yourself to learn new things and become a life-long learner who’s curious not only about AI but other things too. You also will benefit from being observant, asking questions and listening deeply. By doing so, you’ll increase your wisdom about how to work and live, which is more valuable than acquiring more knowledge. These days knowledge can become out-of-date quickly, almost as fast as a carton of milk. For more on this topic, check out my blog post 7 ways to start transforming from a “knowledge” to a “wisdom” worker.

3. Enjoy new experiences, especially those that also cultivate awe. New activities, from visiting a new exhibit at your local museum to traveling to new places, introduce you to new things that add to your lived experiences. The novelty you notice also helps you feel more alive. By stimulating your curiosity and opening your aperture to observe new panoramas, you expand your perspective. Based on what you see and feel, you can gain new insights, adjust your point of view, decide to do something differently, or whatever—all things that can help you cope better with uncertainty.

And, when you seek opportunities to experience awe—that is being in the presence of something vast that brings out feelings of respect, wonder, amazement, or even shock—you can reap a number of wellness-related and other benefits. These can include positive emotions, such as joy and gratitude, which are linked to better health and well-being. You also can become more creative, think more critically, and become more satisfied with your life.

Many of us feel awe in the presence of nature or special situations, such as viewing the sun rise or set over the ocean, seeing snowcapped mountains from an airplane, or watching athletes breaking a record. However, you can find awe anywhere in everyday things. Consider listening to music, looking at a piece of art, walking through a building, smelling flowers, watching a baby sleep, or anything else that you appreciate.

For more about the power of awe, check out the book, Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How It Can Transform Your Life by Dacher Keltner. He’s the founding director of the Greater Good Science Center  (which is a great resource for improving the quality of your life) and a professor of psychology at the University of California, Berkeley as well as consultant to the two Pixar Inside Out movies. (Dr. Keltner helped with character development and emotions.)

By taking care of your body and mind and living your life to the fullest, you’ll be leaning into your humanity. And as a result you’ll differentiate yourself from AI and other fast-moving trends, which will add to your wisdom and make you more valuable and relevant.