There's an element of 'comparanoia' in FOMO, as well as a sense of grieving for the life you thought you'd have but never did.
“Never be so focused on what you’re looking for that you overlook the thing you actually find.”
– Ann Patchett
What am I missing out on!?
You might be deep in the middle of a project when suddenly, the Fear Of Missing Out (FOMO) hits. One moment you’re focused, the next you’re scrolling through social media, comparing your day to everyone else’s.
While you contemplate doing the dishes, someone else is sailing the Caribbean.
While you listen, yet again, to the trials and tribulations of your garrulous neighbour, someone else is surrounded by laughing and loving friends.
While you prepare to clean out your cat’s litter tray, someone else is preparing to attend a big event, all dressed up and keen to advertise it.
While you make a start on the ironing, some glamorous globetrotting couple proclaims “We’re in Peru this week!”
Such exciting lives! Such a feeling of being locked inside while everyone else cavorts outside in the sunshine.
A recent client, Serena, had become somewhat depressed. When I asked her about it, she told me life was passing her by. She was 24!
“I see other people I went to school with, and they have careers, partners. They go on vacations… they do stuff!” She studied the floor. “I just seem to hold down crappy jobs and never go out!”
There’s an element of ‘comparanoia‘ in FOMO, as well as a sense of grieving for the life you thought you’d have but never did.
But there can also be something else.
The grass is always greener!
Always wanting what we haven’t got can be a kind of fire that burns within some people. A perverse and contrary envy.
The average person may crave fame; the famous person may crave anonymity. The childless may crave a baby; parents may crave the carefree life of the childless… and so on.
We can all get the feeling: There’s something I’m missing out on! And, well, there invariably is. The party animal misses out on the clarity of a clean and calm life; the ascetic health enthusiast misses out on the hectic highs of party time.
Not one of us can lead all possible lives.
And I suspect FOMO has gotten worse in recent decades.
An epidemic of FOMOitis?
Fear of Missing Out, popularly known as FOMO, has become a pervasive modern experience, amplified by the omnipresence of social media and the pressure to keep up with seemingly limitless opportunities and connections.
For many clients, FOMO can erode self-esteem, increase anxiety, and diminish life satisfaction.
We all see the lives we’re not living paraded in front of us as we scroll the carefully choreographed highlights of other people’s existence. And if we time it just right, we get to bear witness to the beautiful celebrity gracing the red carpet just as we prepare to, yet again, wash the dishes and take out the trash!
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One: Normalize the experience and explore its roots
Before diving into solutions, it’s important to validate and normalize the client’s emotional response. It’s human to have FOMO sometimes. It can also be a motivating force. By seeing what others do we can aspire rather than just feel bad.
Serena had actually said she had FOMO. She’d used the word. Yet I didn’t want her labouring under yet another diagnostic label.
I suggested to Serena that anybody can get this feeling of missing out, particularly during periods of change such as graduation, career shifts, parenthood, or relocation. A sense of:
What am I NOT getting that I used to, should, or could be getting?
Use gentle inquiry: “Where did this pressure to ‘not miss out’ originate for you?” or “Who taught you that being everywhere at once is necessary for success or happiness?”
Serena told me that her mother had always harped on about what Serena’s friends were getting because they worked so hard at school. She recalled a time in which her friend was awarded with a trip to Italy for coming top in her exams.
“See!” her mother had scolded. “If you’d worked as hard as her we might have taken you somewhere. Now she’s having fun in the sun and you’re stuck here!”
This memory is one we worked on hypnotically in later sessions.
Two: Reframe FOMO into values-based living
Sometimes FOMO is a question of missing out not so much on things we care about, but on things we feel we are supposed to care about.
We can help our clients reframe their experiences from a fear-based focus to a values-aligned framework.
Instead of asking “What am I missing?”, encourage them to ask “What truly matters to me?”
Serena had told me something very germane when recounting the time her mother had gone on about her friend “having fun in the sun” while Serena stayed home. Serena had said, “I don’t even like too much sun!”
Sometimes when we look at what we are not getting, we don’t stop to think whether we’d actually really want it anyway!
What is right for me may not be right for you.
So if I see a friend (or friend of a friend of a friend!) on social media seemingly having a whale of a time, I can observe myself to see whether I actually want what they seem to have, or just feel I should want it.
Careful what you wish for!
Essentially, at least some FOMO is predicated on all-or-nothing thinking: “Someone else has something I don’t. I want that too! I am completely miserable! They are completely happy!”
All we see is what we think is the divide.
So we can guide clients to evaluate whether the events, people, or opportunities they’re craving align with their authentic priorities or are simply driven by fear of exclusion.
We could ask questions such as:
- “Have you ever said ‘yes’ to something (through not wanting to miss out) and later regretted it?”
- “Have you ever said ‘no’ to something and felt at peace with that?”
And if the answer is no, we can ask them to imagine those scenarios.
I explored with Serena the old adage “Be careful what you wish for.” And we discussed some of the examples she’d given me of times when she’d felt FOMO.
We explored how many of them she’d actually really want and I asked her Socratically to imagine any possible downsides to the experiences she envied (such as a hangover after the party she hadn’t been at and the hassle of maintaining the swimming pool she saw in someone’s backyard on social media).
But this isn’t to say that some FOMO really is connected to the non-fulfilment of vital human needs in your client’s life.
Three: Look for what might genuinely be missing
You can’t always get what you want. I tell you, baby
You can’t always get what you want, no
But if you try sometimes you just might find, uh, mm
You get what you need.
– from the song “You can’t always get what you want” by the Rolling Stones
At the risk of sounding judgemental (don’t judge me on that!) we can distinguish between greed and need.
What I mean is that my social life may be entirely good and satisfactory but if I still get FOMO because I’m aware that my friend is out every night having a wild time, then that might be a greed in me rather than a need in me.
If, on the other hand, I never see a real, live human being from one month to the next, then the experience of FOMO would be a genuine manifestation of an unmet need.
So we need to see whether our clients’ needs are met adequately in order to ascertain whether their FOMO is predicated on greed or need. And if they’re truly not meeting their emotional and/or physical needs in balance, then we need to help them do that (and not just to minimize FOMO!).
When you are fully fed you don’t envy the man or woman who is eating a sumptuous meal.
I helped Serena devise a strategy for meeting up more often with her friends – something she wanted to do. We also looked at what she might want in a career and created goals around updating her skill set and looking at what kind of professional roles she was interested in pursuing.
She told me she felt like she was “staying in her lane more”. I asked her about this metaphor and she said she meant she was more focused on her life rather than looking at other people’s.
I suggested we can’t always tell what anyone’s life is like from the outside, “especially if it’s carefully packaged in glitter.”
FOMO is ultimately a fear rooted in scarcity – not just of experiences, but of time, connection, meaning, and self-trust. As therapists and coaches, our task is not to eradicate FOMO for our clients, but to transform it into an opportunity for clarity about what they really want and need in life.
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About Mark Tyrrell
Psychology is my passion. I've been a psychotherapist trainer since 1998, specializing in brief, solution focused approaches. I now teach practitioners all over the world via our online courses.
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