Let’s have a look into the Fear of Missing Out. It makes no sense to me. A client of mine recently wanted to sell the idea to me, that he is afraid of missing out. Curious of how this “fear” would affect him, I explored with him what his anxiety makes him do. And even more, what he is actually avoiding to do. Any anxiety dwells on avoidance. In oder to get to the core of your suffering, you need to find out what it is that you so strongly shy away from
My client stuck to his view, that he was avoding to miss out on things. And here he lost me. Because there is a logical issue with missing out. Quite frankly we are all missing out on things all the time. That is the truth of life. Whatever you do at any moment in time is an expression of choices you made and the circumstances you are in. While you are doing one thing or nothing, you are not doing everything else.
That brings up a more specific question: what do you think you are missing out on? My client said that he submerges in nightlife – going to bars and clubbing with friends – spending lots of cash on drinks. I wanted to know if the next morning he feels satisfied and congratulates himself for not having missed out, whenever he goes out. He said no.
What did he avoid while going out? And what else was he probably gaining while “not missing out”? Apart from numbing himself with alcohol, loud music and shallow half-drunk talk, he shied away from experiencing and facing his fear. He did that so often and regularly, that he fixated himself into a habit. His excuse became that he did not want to miss out.
The fear is actually an excuse. It’s a convenient way of making yourself belief, that
- you can’t do things on your own
- you are not allowed to enjoy staying at home
- you can’t say NO to friends and colleagues
- you don’t know what you need and want in this life
- others are more impartant than you or their opinion of yours is
It ultimately is your avoidance strategy to acknowledge that you have nothing better to do. And that would be very sad. The good news is, that this is not true. You do have better things to do. You just have to uncover them.
The more you align these things with your values in life, the more you will become alive, confident, content and sexy. The more you will become YOU.