FOMO costs us a lot. Yes, we joke about it – ahhhhh you’ve got FOMO. Or you miss the weekend party and you feel sad #FOMO, but FOMO is a real thing and a difficulty which we as humans have been struggling with for a very long time. There’s always something better. There’s always hidden potential which calls us away from where we are to somewhere else.

I remember how I used to live my life. I would start something – a new job or a new business or a new volunteer position at church and everything seemed GLORIOUS. That is, until something else popped up on the scene – hello, look me! I’m awesome. I’m amazing. I’m going to be loads of fun. And because well, who wouldn’t be interested in all the awesome amazing fun potential of this new thing – I said the ultimate words… ‘yes’

And then I was in, and now I was doing my old things and my new thing and it was a little bit tough but you know what, I figured it out. Until all of a sudden someone approached me, “Hey Fran, I’m doing this awesome documentary. It’s going to be so great. Do you want to be a part of it?” And, you know what? It sounded so good. So, so good, I found I really wanted to say yes and I did.

Now I was doing all these things and the new documentary which appeared so good was badly run and demanding a crazy amount of my time so all the other things in my life suffered. I started performing badly at the first thing and the second thing. My team members dropped off, I messed up with a key client, and my health started to decline. I was stressed. I felt overwhelmed. I felt like everyone wanted a piece of me and was demanding my time and energy. But in their defence, I had promised it to them.

I let FOMO drive my ‘yes’ rather than what was truly the best for my life at that stage. As a result my integrity and my performance suffered. My relationships suffered. And I even suffered.

It’s important to remember that you don’t have to take every opportunity that comes your way. You don’t need to be friends with every person who walks into your life and you don’t have to be good at everything.

“People think focus means saying yes to the thing you’ve got to focus on. But that’s not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully. I’m actually as proud of the things we haven’t done as the things I have done. Innovation is saying no to 1,000 things.” – Steve Jobs

That’s true for most of life. People have painted success as saying yes to 1000 things and if we don’t, we worry we’ll fail. We don’t say no to new clients because we fear missing out on income opportunities.

We don’t say no to more training because we are afraid of missing out on learning a new skill.

We don’t say no to lunch invites because we fear missing out on key networking events.

We have push notifications.

We have Facebook open on our computer screens.

We don’t close the office door.

We’re so busy saying yes to the vague possibility that something more valuable than what we have now is out there that we never get around to actually working on it.

Our schedules tell the sad stories

No boundaries. No focus. No clarity. Deep down, we know. Our time on earth is what it is. We can’t change that, but we can change how we use that time and what our energy goes towards. So when  we pencil in another maybe, we throw away the time spent on our current project.

“An opportunity with a ‘yes’ attached is an obligation. Too many obligations is an obstacle.” Michel Hyatt.

Don’t do your life from a place of fear or lack. Rather, do it from a place of abundance. There is always another deal. And another lunch. Don’t hand over your destiny because you said too many yeses and not enough nos.