Technical professionals are under pressure to learn something new for fear of missing out on the latest technologies. Non-technical professionals fear that technology and automation will take their roles away, so they are also under pressure to learn something new—all for the same reasons – fear of missing out or losing their value. Fear takes over their minds. They begin to panic. So they open books, take courses online, or maybe join colleges again. The alarm is still there because they may sense that learning new things is too late. They start to feel anxious. They begin to think, “Why didn’t I learn this before?” or “Why did I pick this topic when there is something new I should have learned already?” Panic. Panic. What happens then? Sadness. Hopelessness. Anxiety. Guilt. All such negative emotions would take over their minds when they should focus on positive development and learning. Yes, people multitask constantly, but it is not easy to be sad and stay focused at the same time. So what to do? Give up, no! Rush to learn every new thing out there? There is no time! What to do?

My advice to the reader who feels with what I am writing here is simple. 1) keep doing what you are doing, AND 2) think of ONE problem you want to solve and focus only on the skills necessary to help solve that problem. Organize your time between (1) the current job you are good at and (2) the goal of solving the problem. You will either find a new opportunity to take on or pick up new ideas to support your current job. In both cases, you will be in control and have something different and authentic. Knowing that one problem may seem impossible to solve initially, it is okay to step back, break the problem into parts, and build a solution one step at a time. If you reach a roadblock with one solution, try again or pick a new problem. But if you decide to move on to the next problem, put down your thoughts about the last one so that, at the very least, you did accomplish something, even if it was just thoughts written down. This whole idea may sound like an infinite cycle, but this is what learning is all about! That way, you focus on solving problems and learning new things instead of wasting time panicking. Voila! We solved the panic problem!!