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Today’s episode is all about the fear of missing out. When was the last time you experienced FOMO? 

In this day and age, we’re constantly connected. And that means being bombarded daily with invitations to join fun, glamorous, or cool experiences. But we can’t…and shouldn’t…say yes to it all.

“The reality is, we cannot do everything all at once, we cannot be everywhere all at once.”

When you’re living a more aligned life, it’s inevitable you’ll choose not to do some things. And that’s a good thing! 

So, don’t let FOMO ruin the present moment. In this episode I share some tips and tools I’ve developed to help you move through FOMO and get back to living your amazing life.

Enjoy!

This episode covers:

• What is FOMO, really?
• The science behind why FOMO causes you to spiral
• My most recent bout of FOMO 
• 6 steps you can take to shift out of FOMO and back into the present moment

Links shared:

• Episode about stories we tell ourselves

Let’s get to know each other!

• Connect with me on Instagram @leannekallal and @theglowjo
• Request an episode topic or interview via email: hello@leannekallal.com
• Sign up for The GlowJo Newsletter at www.theglowjo.com

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

(Note: This transcript is auto-generated and may contain spelling and grammar errors. I hope it still proves to be useful in your listening experience!)

[00:00:00] Hello. Hello. Welcome to this week’s episode of the glow Joe podcast. This week, we are talking about FOMO. That’s right. The fear of missing out. Put your hand up or give me a head nod. If you have ever experienced this, I will do both at the same time because. This is something that I’ve experienced a lot of throughout my life.

And I have worked on it over the years to really get aligned and make decisions that are true for me and realize when I shouldn’t like when it’s actually not aligned for me to be at something, even though it looks fun, but recently I was hitting. With one of the biggest cases of FOMO that I have had in a very long time.

And so I want to share that experience with you today and share how I’ve learned to squash FOMO, and yeah. Nip it in the butt so that I can continue living my life and not feel like crap.

I think it’s safe to say that we have all experienced FOMO at one [00:01:00] time in our life. Especially if you are on social media, it is almost impossible to avoid the fear of missing out. We’re constantly connected in this day and age, whether it’s group threads or Instagram or Facebook or now tic talk and all, all the different things.

We are bombarded by. The coolest, the most shiny, fun, incredible experiences that everybody is doing in their life and that they’re choosing to showcase. Let’s just remember that. People choose what they share on social media media. And oftentimes they shared the highlights.

They share the best of the best. You’re not seeing the deep dark days and the emotions and when things aren’t going wrong. So let’s just remember that life is not perfect, even though life looks perfect on social media. It is not perfect. All right. So now I’m going to share the bout of FOMO that I had, and yeah.

Share more details about FOMO. I have some research [00:02:00] to share with you and why this is truly a thing. It is real. This is not something fabricated that has been made up. 

And then I’m going to share a simple six step process that you can do to help yourself move through this so that you eventually like, ideally we don’t, we don’t feel FOMO, but the reality is is that we cannot do everything all at once.

We can not be everywhere all at once. And I’m a true believer that we go through different seasons and phases of our life. And so shout out to my cousin for helping me remember. The season that I’m in right now. Um, when I was talking to her about this recent FOMO experience that I had, I woke up the one morning. I was already not feeling good. And on autopilot, I picked up my phone. I went to Instagram and.

Sure enough. Boom. That’s where I was hit with it. I have gone to this incredible event with the most amazing people from all over the world. In Croatia. I went there two [00:03:00] years in a row mindblowing business event and experience, and it was just, it was amazing. I. I’ve raved about it. I’ve had incredible memories, lots of laughs.

I’ve made some great connections from there. And then over the last couple of years, events have slowed down. Now events are back. They are back in. Everybody is excited, rightfully so and sharing about it. So when I went on my Instagram, I S I started scrolling and I just saw people that I I’m like, oh, there’s my friends.

There’s people that I haven’t seen in three years, because we live on different continents and I miss that person and that person’s there and that person went, oh my God, why did I decide not to go? And I started to spiral. 

I felt left out.

I felt like I was missing out on all of the fun on all of this knowledge and information. I felt like I was missing out on this incredible experience, especially because I know how incredible it [00:04:00] is, potential business opportunities. 

I was invited to go and I could have gone, but I made the decision not to. And then I started to beat myself up for the decision that I made. And I’m like, oh, well, your business isn’t as doing as well as it could be. And you’re, you’ve lost focus or you’re off track.

And all of these things started bubbling up to the surface and it left me feeling. Really really bad about myself. And I’m like, wait, this isn’t how I want to feel. And are these stories that I’m saying even true now, I, I released an episode recently on the stories we tell ourselves and how these stories that we tell ourselves can either serve us or hinder us.

And so I’ll make sure to link to that episode in the show notes, it’s a quick episode for you to listen to. And I know there’s quite a few people who enjoyed that one, so I hope you enjoyed it as well, but I had to catch myself and be like, wait a minute, you are telling yourself stories right [00:05:00] now. You let this one little thing spiral you out of control. And it went from missing out on things to all of a sudden I’m not good enough. I’m not successful enough, you know, will people even remember me? Cause I haven’t been anywhere in three years and we’ll even know how to be social. If I do go to a big event again, because my life has changed so much.

So as you can see, it was, uh, not a productive cycle, no bono. It was not very good. And that’s why I was like, yeah, it is time to stop this. 

Here is why FOMO is truly scientifically a thing. 

According to simply psychology.org. Researchers studied S D T self-determination theory. That’s right. Self-determination theory states that humans need three things to strive for.

They are competency, autonomy and relatedness. 

Guess where FOMO falls into the picture? Relatedness. 

What they found is that FOMO is [00:06:00] a negative emotional state that arises from unmet social, relatedness needs. 

And so here’s how I interpret this research combined with my personal experiences.

 No shocker here. I believe that yes, socializing is important. It is important for us to surround ourselves with like-minded people and to be around people and to have shared experiences individually, as well as with others in small groups or large groups, it’s important for us to go to events and have hobbies and life.

We are social beings and we are not meant to live in isolation, but here is the caveat. It is our responsibility as self-lead humans and self-lead adults to surround ourselves with people who are aligned with us who have similar hobbies, who. Light us up and make us feel [00:07:00] good. We don’t need to hang out with people who are exactly the same.

I actually think it’s really important that we have a lot of diverse people and perspectives in our life for so many reasons, but it’s really important that we pay attention to how the people in our life make us feel and how the things that we’re doing in our life make us. You know, if you’re constantly going to a social event that drains you and makes you feel depleted and less than in question your self worth and all of these other things, that’s probably not the event for you to go to.

 It’s also important to have balance. Balance is something I continually strive for, as I say on day six of a cleanse. I don’t know if this is balanced, maybe it’s balanced in some way. Um, but balance is important. And so how can we achieve balance? Well, I think one of the things we can do is to stop saying yes to everything.

Stop saying yes to everyone and their dog. You don’t need to do everything. Now, [00:08:00] if you are a people pleaser or a recovering people, pleaser like myself, this one can be hard for you. And this is where you want to be there. You want to support people. You don’t want to let someone down if they’re having a party or if they’ve invited you to do something.

I used to say. To so many things that I truly did not want to go to, or I wanted to go, but it was for the absolute wrong reasons. It was because I thought I should go or that I needed to go, or that I would let people down versus actually looking at. Am I excited to go? Is this something that I would enjoy?

Does this align with me? Does this fit into my schedule? I say no so much more now. And I know I’ve had a few friends say to me, like we always have to plan a couple of weeks in advance, like one or two weeks in advance to hang out. And that’s true because I leave a lot more. Space in my schedule now, because I know if I say yes to everything that I’m invited to do, I’m going to end up burnt out and run [00:09:00] down.

And I’m not going to be able to show up as my best self. 

And here’s the other thing, and this is, what’s so ironic about FOMO. There were so many times back in my full-on, yesterday’s where I would go to these events, or I would do the thing that I just had to do, and I didn’t want to miss out on, and I would be so.

I would be bored. I wouldn’t enjoy the conversations. I would be exhausted and not present. Um, because I had said yes to too many things and I really shouldn’t have been there. And so I went to this thing that I really felt like it was the most important thing for me to go to. And once I got there, I actually didn’t even enjoy myself and I wasn’t showing up as my best self either.

Here’s another interesting thing about FOMO. If you think about the time that you spend wasting and thinking about, oh my gosh, I could be doing this.

I could be doing that. Why aren’t I there, like I was doing with this event, I was [00:10:00] actually robbing myself of the presence. I wasn’t even able to experience and live my life in the present moment because I was focused hyper-focused around how I wasn’t there. And so it’s even worse. It’s like I wasn’t there, but I wasn’t here either.

And so I did choose to not go to that event for specific reasons, but me focusing on FOMO and feeling like crap, because I’m not there. It’s actually taking away from. Being able to focus on doing what is important for me to do right now as a person, um, as a business owner, as a creator. And so that is the tricky thing.

 I shared that with a friend yesterday and she had an aha moment. Woo. And I hope you do too, because that was one for me. It’s like, oh yeah. I thinking about that I’m not even able to live my life here. 

And so. What is the point? You can’t go back and change your mind. I can’t magically teleport to [00:11:00] Croatia and be there right now. I made my decision. I am here. So focus on being here. The power of presence is so important. 

Now that we’ve talked about FOMO, what it is, how it can show up and how we can start to spiral and how it actually robs us of the present moment, hopefully you are ready to shift into getting out of FOMO. 

So here are six questions that you can ask yourself.

One FOMO strikes to help you squash it and leave it behind so that you can focus on the present and live and have fun. 

Question number one. And if you haven’t already done, so make sure that you have a journal and a pen or use the notes in your phone. If you’re listening to this on the go, it really makes a difference to take the time to write and get these things out of our minds.

And I’m actually going to do an episode on that because there’s research around that as well. And so here’s question number one. How am I feeling right now? Now, this might seem overly [00:12:00] simple. You might be like Leann. I’m feeling like crap. I’m I’m not feeling good. I’m feeling anxious. I’m feeling whatever it is, but I want you to truly take a moment.

You can even write this question down so that you can reference and refer back to this. How am I feeling right now? When we take the time to sit and be present with our emotions. The simple act of identifying them actually starts to reduce the power that we give them. And so name your emotion.

It could be anxious. It could feel, you could feel guilt. Maybe you feel shame or maybe you feel embarrassed. Maybe you feel sad. Maybe you feel unworthy or not enough. Or maybe you’re just like, damn, I just, you know, it’s like, if that, if it’s that feeling like, I just wish I was there. Try to figure out, like, why, why do you, why do you wish you were there.

So that’s question number one, [00:13:00] question number two. Why am I feeling like this? Why am I feeling like this? Again? It might seem like a silly question to ask, but the more curious we can get about our emotional experience and what’s truly coming up for us.

The more equipped we are to be able to move forward. 

Let’s take guilt. Maybe you’re feeling guilty because you didn’t go to that thing. That was really important to your friend. And so you can say like, well, I’m feeling guilty because a part of me feels like I let my friend down and that might be true.

That might not be true. You don’t know that’s your perception. Um, but it’s important to start to peel back the layers or maybe like me, I was starting to feel like, oh my gosh, I’m not good enough. Am I. Am I not smart enough. Am I not successful enough to go to these things anymore? 

I realize this question might be tricky. I feel like we’re not used to asking ourselves questions that are simple like this, but [00:14:00] also kind of difficult at the same time. So trust whatever comes out, even if it’s not totally aligned with the question.

Okay. Onto question three. Now this applies to you. If you said no to something, and then now you’re seeing it and you’re like, oh my gosh, why did I say no to this? So this is the experience that I’ve been in. So if you didn’t say no to something, then this question is in for you.

And we can skip to the next question, but question three. Why did I say. To going to this event. I think that we have really good reasons for doing things, but we can get caught up and lost in the moment and forget the reasons why we decided something. And so take some time and remind yourself, why did you decide not to go?

Why was this a no. This is going to help you start to reconnect with what’s important to you right now in your life, because I truly believe we all go through seasons and with these seasons [00:15:00] come different values, goals, decisions, energy levels, financial levels. You know, this is like things ebb and flow.

Now on to number four, I want you to make a list of the people of the goals, of the values, of the hobbies, of the things that are important to you in your life right now. What are you focused on creating in your life? Right. And so this was a crucial step for me.

Step three and step four really, really helped me because when I started writing the set three, I was like, oh yeah, I had actually really good, valid reasons why I decided not to go. And it helped remove me from the emotional state of feeling like I was missing out and unworthiness and every, and like kind of what it was almost like the panic, like, oh, I’ve got to do something I’ve got to, like, it was this weird almost scarcity feeling that okay.

And so that really helped me. 

And then number four, just taking the [00:16:00] time again, to write out because something happens when we see it on paper, we see it in front of us instead of just swirling in our head. Um, oh yeah, this is what’s important to me right now. This is where I’m focusing my time, my energy, my finances, these are the relationships that I’m focused on building in my life right now.

That was an important step for me. And I hope that this step really helps you to.

I’ll right onto number five. And this builds on number four. I want you to make a list of the things, the places, the events, the people, the investments that are aligned with your goals, with your values.

Um, right now, You know, I think that it can be really, really helpful to have these lists pre-made so that we can check them when we’re emotional or when we need reminders or when we’re making decisions. Because oftentimes we can make decisions out of emotional places and we forget a lot of the grounded [00:17:00] facts or the things that are actually there, and that are important to us because we can get caught up in the moment and make these decisions in the moment.

And so make this list and take time to read it. And my hope is that when you’re reading this, even if it doesn’t necessarily solve everything in this moment for you, hopefully it acts as a good roadmap as you move forward in making decisions and what to say yes to and what to say no to.

And then when you are hit with that FOMO, you can pull it out and be like, oh yeah, that actually doesn’t align with. And do you know what worst case scenario it totally does align. And you’re like, no, I really wish I was at that event. Take note of it for next time. Take note, put that on your list of things that are aligned of things that are important to you.

And then you can start to take action steps to figure out how you can incorporate that into your life. 

 All into step number six. I want you to just take a deep breath and just [00:18:00] exhale and relax and just know that everything is going to be oh, okay. Life is going to go on.

You will get through them. Everything that you were learning about yourself is going to help you to make better decisions for yourself that are aligned in the future. And remember, the more you focus on what you were not doing or what you don’t have, or that cool thing you’re not at. The more you take away from your present moment and you have no idea.

You’re something absolutely incredible and miraculous could happen at any given moment. And so here’s to living in the present moment and here’s the living and aligned life. I hope you enjoy today’s episode. I look forward to seeing you next week in the glow, Joe.