Go for the experience, not the symbol

We all know that Facebook doesn’t provide a very well-rounded picture of people’s lives. It’s more like the cherry-picked perfection version.

People with FOMO have ambivalent feelings toward Facebook. It brings them up when they post about their own carefully edited version of life awesomeness, and slams them back down when they feel they have to compete with other people's lifestyle awesomeness - especially when they're feeling a little down or anxious themselves.

Looking at social media for happiness is a bad idea. You won’t find it out there. Your happiness is determined by how you allocate your attention. What you attend to drives your behavior and it determines your happiness. 

Changing behavior and enhancing happiness is as much about withdrawing attention from the negative as it is about attending to the positive.

Choosing one path means missing another.

When you feel FOMO coming on, ask yourself if the trigger is really something you wish you were doing yourself, or if the sudden recollection of the great number of choices in life has simply brought on a moment of insecurity about your own. 

If it’s the latter, taking a moment to reaffirm your decision is all it takes to chase the FOMO away.

Keep in mind that your FOMO trigger may not relate directly to something you wish you were doing yourself, but can instead point more broadly to something you want to change about your life.

Examine the source of your FOMO before dismissing it; there may be a good reason you feel insecure about your decisions.

Blogger and entrepreneur Anil Dash wrote about the “Joy of Missing Out,” a term he coined to describe the satisfaction of doing things on his own terms. 

If you return, decide which sites to spent time on and which not.

In many cases, rejections are blessings in disguise. Maybe you don't want those customers that rejected your product.

Refer and direct those customers to your competitors that fit their needs. They certainly would not forget the lengths you went to. Such service is rare.

You might initially doubt yourself, question your competency and your self-worth but after you have weathered the storm, activate your growth mindset and start asking questions: 

What can I do differently? What have I discovered about myself? What changes can I make? What will I do differently next time? 

Legitimate fear tends to make us want to get the heck out of whatever situation we are in.

Not-helpful fear makes us hesitate rather than bolt.

We are afraid of looking stupid, and so we don’t ask a burning question. We fear failing, and so we don’t even try. 

• IF my team grumbles or pushes-back because I’m not working on the weekends anymore,
• THEN I will forward them Leslie Perlow’s Harvard Business Review article about how ‘Predictable Time Off’ improves both work quality
• AND quality of life, even in client-oriented businesses.

Fear is the thing that in truth makes actions hard, not the action that we think we are afraid of.

Ask yourself concrete questions to reveal your truth:

What are you working for? What impact do you want to create in your job? What skills do you want to develop and leverage?

Keep it short and simple—just focus on what gets you out the door every day. 

Your mantra should encompass who you are, where you want to go, and the impact you want to make during your 9-to-5. 

The many relationships we foster are valuable and enrich our lives. But the pressure we put on ourselves to maintain these relationships can, at times, be damaging. 

When you feel overextended, it’s important to learn to just say no to a dinner out or a weekend work trip.

When you're feeling unfocused, before trying to make big changes in your life, to fix things, press the reset button and put yourself to bed.

And if you have trouble getting to sleep, try a sleep meditation.

Living a life with meaning and purpose is key to improving your psychological well-being. Your purpose doesn’t necessarily have to involve changing the world or devoting yourself to helping others.

If you lack a purpose, think about the legacy you’d like to leave behind and establish some objectives that can help you reach those goals. 

it is the combination of feeling good and functioning effectively. People with high psychological well-being report feeling capable, well-supported, and satisfied with life, besides living longer and healthier lives.

Researchers found that the absence of distress doesn’t necessarily correlate with high psychological well-being, but it does with having one’s basic needs met.