Overcoming fear of being unnecessary

Nico Jacobs
March 31, 2017

The job market is currently a major source of anxiety about being unnecessary. You have all kinds of qualities to offer, yet it is difficult to find a job. Automation also sometimes makes it difficult to keep a job. In addition, the crisis has taught us that people can be redundant pretty soon. Now I have only even mentioned the business part of your life, but in your private life you can also have the fear of being unnecessary.

In this article, I discuss the fear of being unnecessary and what you can do about it.

Research shows that people who do not feel useful or needed are much more likely to die prematurely than those who do not. However, there are multiple ways of being useful and needed.

Automation and redundant work

One of the biggest reasons for feeling unnecessary is that more and more work is becoming automated. Because education often lags behind developments in the job market, you may have inadvertently taken an education whose work will be performed by robots 10 years from now.

You can already see it in a lot of administrative work, such as accounting, being taken over by automated systems.

If you suffer from the fear that you will become unnecessary because your work can also be performed by robots, it is important to ask the following questions and follow the following tips.

  1. Consider whether all your work can be automated and what work cannot

Picking up the phone is always still something a person has to do. After the dialing menu, you always end up on the phone with someone from the company. So if you do a lot of administrative work, but with that comes phone work and answering emails, it's important to realize that that never ends. The only change might be video calls at some point.

  1. Explore if you can do something that doesn't require robots

Creative professions generally cannot be replaced by robots or automated systems. Therefore, see if you have a hobby you can make your job out of.

Fear of being unnecessary due to current healthcare (proposals)

Some life-ending proposals are hotly contested because people could be talked into thinking they are no longer needed and that their lives are complete. You may also have this fear that people will pressure you to end it when you no longer (can't) do anything useful, when you may still clearly enjoy your life.

  1. Being useful and being needed are two different things

First, realize that being useful and being needed are two different things. For example, family caregivers do this for a reason. Love for another person can ensure that you are definitely needed. The love you have for each other creates the need to keep living, regardless of whether you are still useful in the more material sense.

  1. Help others

So research shows that when people don't feel useful or needed it causes them to die prematurely. One way to avoid suffering from this after starting your retirement is to help other people. You can do this by babysitting your family's children or signing up for volunteer work.

Thereby also proving that helping others is good for your self-confidence and quality of life.

Fear of being unnecessary due to long-term unemployment

Participation laws mean that you don't always have to fear being unnecessary. Volunteer work is now often requested as a quid pro quo for benefits this is also to prevent this useless feeling.

Unfortunately, it sometimes falls short when you have to perform useless work like making clothespins or something similar.

  1. Help 1 individual every day

To avoid feeling unnecessary, you can train yourself to help other people. For example, you can do the following things:

  • Offering to clean windows at a disabled person's home.
  • Helping someone cross a busy street.
  • Give advice on an online forum on a topic you know something about.

  1. Learn something new every day

Another way to feel less useless is to learn something new every day. YouTube videos allow you to learn all kinds of new things, such as knitting and playing the guitar. You can also read informative books that will help you keep developing your business knowledge.

Similarly, there are those who learn yoga through YouTube and eventually make this their profession.

Remembering a new fact every day is also already good. Of course, you can't master every skill in 1 day. Therefore, start small and you can learn bigger things by the week as well, but don't forget the daily fact.

  1. Write down your talents

Before you fall into a total dip of being unnecessary due to long-term unemployment , you can write down what you are good at and how this can help people. This will reduce the feeling which can also reduce your fear of being unnecessary.

For example:

  • I am good at chores, with this I can help family and friends when they move.
  • I am social and people can talk their problems off with me.
  • I am good at explaining theory to practice, with this I can help children with homework.

  1. Use self-hypnosis

Then you can use self-hypnosis to repeat these talents to yourself. To repeat these types of hypnotic suggestions, take the following steps

Relax

First, it is important that you try to relax. For example, you sit on a nice chair and try to relax your muscles. Lying on your bed can also be a good way to relax.

Breathe

You can reinforce that relaxation through your breathing You breathe in and out through your nose. Try breathing through your belly. You then move your belly instead of your chest. By putting your hands on your belly you can check if this works.

When you lie on your back you automatically breathe through your abdomen.

Closing Eyes

To shut out stimuli, close your eyes. This helps you focus properly on the hypnotic suggestion.

Repeating Phrases

Now repeat aloud the talents you have and how you can use them to help other people. If the phrases are not yet well in your memory, you can also read them to yourself or have someone else read the phrases to you.

  1. Take a course

Sometimes feeling unnecessary comes from low self-esteem or self-assurance. In that case, brushing up on your knowledge can come in handy to keep your skills up to date so that you reduce the feeling of being unnecessary.

There are also many free online courses you can take if you do not currently have the financial freedom to take a paid course.

  1. Share your knowledge

Then, when you have gained new knowledge, you can share that knowledge with other people. You can do this in talks, or you can blog about what you know. In these two ways, you in turn also teach useful things to people.

As a result, your expertise about your field of study will become increasingly strong.

  1. Have confidence in yourself

Sometimes the fear of being unnecessary is also a reflection of low self-confidence. If you often walk around thinking you can't do anything, this is not good for your self-confidence. The exercise of writing down and repeating your talents can already do a lot to improve your self-confidence.

In addition, mindfulness is a great way to stop negative thoughts about your qualities. Through mindfulness, you make sure you are in the here and now with your attention. Of course, it's not bad to swoon away in your fantasy every now and then, but if this becomes negative, you can stop this with mindfulness.

  1. Visualize what being needed looks like

Sometimes you have a feeling of not being needed, or that fear, when in fact you don't have a clear idea of what being needed means. As stated at the beginning of this blog, being useful and being needed are not the same things.

Self-hypnosis allows you to visualize what it's like to be needed. You can make different degrees of this, such as being needed in your personal life by helping friends and family and being needed in business.

You then first repeat the steps to relax. Then you visualize a situation in which you are needed. You visualize the problem you can solve and how you will do so.

Visualizing something like this also makes you much more likely to implement any of the previous tips.

Want to learn more about mental techniques to reduce anxiety and get more enjoyment out of life? Then come to a seminar or check out the Hypnosis Institute Netherlands' training courses on this website.

Sources: