How can we get ready for the future?

You can get ready for the future by following three steps:

1. Anticipating the future requirements for skills and knowledge within the context you are operating in.
2. Acquiring the right skills and knowledge that bridge any gaps between future and present state.
3. Acting now (that is taking action now rather than procrastinating). ‘Just do it’ will be your motto.

Anticipate the future requirements

I have documented no less than 135 possible threats to our job security. These threats include job losses due to automation and organisational redundancies, inability to pay increasing daily expenses due to low wage growth, and inability to find full-time jobs due to changing demographics.

Rather, the speed at which automation will be deployed in our workplaces and lives will take many people off guard because of their complacency or ignorance of what automation and machines are capable of doing.

How we respond now to future-proof ourselves from these changes will ultimately determine whether or not our jobs will be lost due to automation or whether we still have jobs after automation thereby maintaining our job security.

Acquire the right skills and knowledge

The future of work is about being more human, acquiring employable skills that future employers will die for, and being flexible and adaptive to the ever-changing circumstances.

First off, to anticipate the future, we must start by equipping ourselves with the right information and knowledge.

We must be equipped with the relevant information to make informed choices about our future, jobs, skills, pathways to success, and ultimately our financial freedom.

The right education and learning will significantly reduce our risk of failure. It will increase our job security.

That’s why it’s so important to invest in ourselves first before anything else.

By investing in your own education and knowledge, you can effectively avoid any potential dangers ahead and take safer pathways that you are comfortable with.

Secondly, the next investment that you must make is to continuously upgrade your work skills and experience to meet the future job demands of current and future employers.

The world is changing so fast that it’s really hard to keep up.

For us, it’s about anticipating what the future of work looks like.

It’s about predicting what those job demands are.

Essentially it boils do to three things.

1. Identify whether our jobs are at risk from automation.
2. Identify skills that are likely to be in great demand in the future.
3. Learn how to organise our education, training, and development around the new economy and the future of work.

Research shows that starting a side-business or side-gig while still having a full-time job is the best pathway to success in the long-run.

In a 2014 research entitled Multiple Job Holding, Skill Diversification, and Mobility, Panos, Pouliakas, and Zangelidis investigated the interrelated dynamics of dual job holding, human capital, occupational choice, and job mobility.

They found that individuals are using multiple jobs holding as a conduit for obtaining new skills and expertise. These jobs are a stepping-stone to new careers and self-employment.

From a practical perspective, multiple jobs holding will give you the diversity and security of income, increased job security, and a strong foundation upon which you can have an ongoing career of your choice.

From the evidence gathered by the researchers, individuals doing a side job or business other than their primary occupation are more likely to switch to a new primary job in the following year.

That new job is likely to be different from their current primary employment.

The study also found that self-employed contract work can also be used as economic security and for upward mobility.

Therefore, it important for you to acquire the necessary knowledge, skill, and expertise by starting and running a side-business while you still have your 9-to-5 job.

Act now

Dreams and intentions are great starting points.

It’s now a matter of just doing it.

Making a start can be the hardest thing. But once you have started, it’s a matter of sustaining that momentum.

As you continuously iterate your knowledge and ideas, you will fine-tune and improve yourself and approach.

When you have decided to embark on a journey of entrepreneurship or freelancing, you need to find a business idea that sells.

Here’s a seven-step process to explore some suitable business ideas, selecting that one idea that potentially sells, and making that idea work for you.

• Step 1 – You brainstorm and select your proposed business idea from a comprehensive list that I have compiled on this blog. Get your creative juices flowing.
• Step 2 – Develop an overall strategy for making money. This step requires you to determine your money-making criteria and meeting those criteria. You will need to update your strategy as you gather more information. Remember that people don’t plan to fail, they fail to plan.
• Step 3 – Acquire or develop a product (e.g., e-Books, tools, coaching services, training, etc) that will help solve your target customers’ problem. The aim is to sell a relevant product to your customers and make money. Test out your proposed product by converting it into a minimum viable product.
• Step 4 – Identify the best platforms and established marketplaces (e.g., eBay, Facebook, blogs, etc.) where the majority of your target customers hang out so that you can sell them your proposed product.
• Step 5 – Validate your minimum viable product with your customers using these established marketplaces.
• Step 6 – Work hard to market and drive Internet traffic to your chosen platforms so that you can convert your visitors into leads and thereafter transforming them into paying customers.
• Step 7 – Depending on your testing results, you could scale-up selling this product with your own website, find another new product to sell, or ditch the product altogether.