How to Overcome FOMO: Fear of Missing Out

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The Famous Fear of Missing Out

You hear about FOMO a lot these days. In fact, the word was added to the Oxford English Dictionary in 2013.

We constantly live with the feeling that we're missing something and that other people have a way better life

It’s certainly not a good thing. And it leads you to check social media again and again and again so you don’t feel out of the loop. So you know you’re doing okay. So you don’t feel left out.

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Facebook And Social Media Don't Make You Happy

People with FOMO tend to check social media more often and are even likelier to use their phone while driving.

Even though we know that the pictures people post on social media are not real, we're still comparing ourselves with them and feel miserable after. Or we try to post something too, just to show that we have a cool life as well.

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If one only wished to be happy, this could be easily accomplished; but we wish to be happier than other people, and this is always difficult, for we believe others to be happier than they are.

MONTESQUIEU

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We Fall For Social Media Easily

As Erica Jong once said: “Jealousy is all the fun you think they had.”

Even if we logically know Facebook isn’t an accurate depiction of people’s lives, well, confronting your seeming inadequacy 24/7 against an unachievable false reality can hammer your already vulnerable self-esteem. You just can’t compete with their highly-edited topiary of lifestyle awesomeness — especially when you’re feeling a little down or anxious to begin with.

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The Key Is Attention

Looking at social media for happiness is a bad idea. You won’t find it out there. Sounds cliche, but the research says you need to look inside:

“The problem with FOMO is the individuals it impacts are looking outward instead of inward,” McLaughlin said. “When you’re so tuned in to the ‘other,’ or the ‘better’ (in your mind), you lose your authentic sense of self. This constant fear of missing out means you are not participating as a real person in your own world.”

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Attention Determines Happiness

Your happiness is determined by how you allocate your attention. What you attend to drives your behavior and it determines your happiness. Attention is the glue that holds your life together… The scarcity of attentional resources means that you must consider how you can make and facilitate better decisions about what to pay attention to and in what ways. If you are not as happy as you could be, then you must be misallocating your attention… So changing behavior and enhancing happiness is as much about withdrawing attention from the negative as it is about attending to the positive.

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Try Gratitude

But how do you focus your attention so that you appreciate the real world and don’t turn to Facebook (which is only going to make you feel worse)? What can you pay attention to when life is, frankly, kinda sad or boring?

Well, try gratitude

Look around. What good things might you be taking for granted? Home? Family? Friends?

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Gratitude Backed By Research

Research shows it works. Mentally subtracting cherished moments from your life makes you appreciate them more, makes you grateful and makes you happier.

"…we found that gratitude, controlling for materialism, uniquely predicts all outcomes considered: higher grade point average, life satisfaction, social integration, and absorption, as well as lower envy and depression."

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