“I’m Afraid of Missing Out”

Why FOMO Happens

We often worry there’s something wrong with us if we have fear of missing out. But it’s actually a beautiful, human thing. It’s saying that you want to be connected with your community. It’s a very human thing, craving social connection. That’s amazing.

Knowing this, fear of missing out can even serve as an exciting reminder that we’re human. Because we try to suppress so many of our human thoughts and emotions. But negative emotion is a good thing. The reason why we call it “negative” emotion is because we’re typically having thoughts that aren’t super positive that create these emotions.

But emotions are simply things we feel inside our bodies. Negative or positive, we don’t have to try to avoid emotions. All we have to do is get more comfortable with being uncomfortable. Then we can handle feeling any feeling.

Areas Where We Most Commonly See Fear of Missing Out

Social Gatherings

Maybe a cool event is coming up. t’s going to be so much fun. All your favorite people will be there. There are going to be great pictures and memories. It’s going to be amazing. You think, “They’re going to have the best time. They’re going to make connections with each other. They’re going to create memories. They’re going to change their lives during this event and I’m not going to be there. I won’t be part of the crew anymore. I’ll be forgotten.”

Of course, this isn’t the case. In these situations, it’s all about trusting yourself and being happy and content with yourself. You can go to or not go to a million events but at the end of the day, if you’re happy with yourself, the fear of missing out won’t be as powerful. You’ll believe, “I’m perfectly fine as I am. People love me just as I am even if I can’t go to certain things. There’s always next time. I can create an experience any time that I want.”

While it’s a beautiful thing that you crave connecting with people, you don’t have to be at every event and do everything to maintain that human connection.

Lifestyle

What about health goals? In my Society group, I have many women with many different goals. Some want to lose a few pounds. Some want to gain a few pounds. Some are fine just the way they are. But sometimes, when one person looks at another person’s goal, they can be influenced to think that should be their goal, too.

But “should” is a thought distortion that means that what we’re doing right now isn’t good enough. It makes us feel less confident in our own goals, so we start looking at what other people are doing and thinking, “So-and-so got great results. She’s doing it right. I have to change what I’m doing to do it her way.” This creates lots of confusion, negative emotion, and doubt.

Instead, we have to start having thoughts like, “There are many different ways to do the same thing. Other goals are allowed. Even if I don’t have the same goal as somebody else, we can still support one another on our journeys.

If we want to try new things out of curiosity, we want to make sure we have the right thought for curiosity: “I know what works for me but I’m not opposed to trying something else to see if it could help me even more.” But ultimately, at the end of the day, we have to come back and check in with ourselves and see if it works for our body type and our lifestyle. When we can explore different things and ultimately decide what works for us, that’s when we’ll no longer have fear of missing out.

Family

People in a partnership or marriage sometimes miss being single. Then there are the single people who would give anything to have a partner or spouse. Some people want to have children while others envy those who don’t. On both ends, there is fear of missing out. Because whatever circumstance is in your life, you can’t avoid the fear of missing out. You can always find another thing to have fear of missing out for.

We can take any circumstance and have fear of missing out on it. As they say, the grass is always greener on the other side. We can always have fear of missing out on the grass we don’t have in our yard. But it all comes down to nurturing the grass that we do have.

The FUN of Missing Out

What if instead of fear of missing out, we could have the fun of missing out? In order for us to have fun missing out, we have to create a feeling of excitement and fun. What thoughts give us a fun feeling with the circumstance of missing a great event, like an amazing boathouse party full of expensive champagne?

Instead of going to fear of missing out, we need to shift to the fun of missing out. We can think, “What else do I want to do? How can I turn this around?”. Maybe you just want to drink tea and watch a great movie at home alone. Maybe you can realize you’re missing nothing because you can be just fine right here in this moment. If you can create feelings of content and fun, the action you’ll take is investing the time to be compassionate toward yourself and knowing you’ll be okay even if you miss this opportunity.

Strategies for Handling FOMO

1)    Recognize that you’re having fear of missing out.

2)    Accept that you’re having these thoughts and feelings. Know it’s completely okay.

3)    Decide if you want to shift into what’s best for you, like a place of self-compassion. How can you own what you’re doing?

4)    Get out of your head. Find a way to connect mind, body, and breath to be in the moment. Meditation can be a great strategy for this. Shift into parasympathetic mode and slow things down.

5)    Think about the other times you’ve missed out on things. Everything was fine. Maybe regret will come up, but all that means is that you made the best decision you could back then. But you’re different now. You can’t compare apples to oranges.

To listen to the podcast episode, click here.