FOMO - loss of profit syndrome. How to stop chasing opportunities and start living

Yulia Suntsova

In the information age, many suffer from the feeling that all the fun is where they are not. All around live a bright and eventful life - endlessly go to exhibitions, concerts, fitness, yoga, spend a lot of time at parties and with friends, manage to work, get additional education and more, build "love" and be sure to watch all the latest movie posters ... Half of the friendliness, despite the pandemic, drinks cocktails under palm trees in warm countries. Friends find time for makeup, manicure, taping courses and other beauty. Instagram people have better home interiors than yours, and breakfast tastes better. Everyone's life is just fireworks, and something is clearly wrong with you.

If you find yourself constantly worrying and feeling worthless, and everyone is doing better than you, perhaps this is the Lost Profit Syndrome.

FOMO - fear of missing out - Syndrome of missed profit - literally "fear that you are missing something", an obsessive feeling that you live a much less fulfilling life than those around you, do not have time for anything, although you could.

"Syndrome of loss of profits is accompanied by a mass of unpleasant experiences and thoughts. Such can be "internal voices", for example: "Here I am again late"; “Others do and succeed more than I do”; “How can I choose the right one, after all, choosing one, I will have to give up everything else”, “I do not have time to do everything necessary / important / interesting - I need to become more accessible, open to people, but I don’t have enough time and energy for everything”, “I participate in several programs, projects, communities at the same time, but this is not enough”, “How can I find time for myself if I don’t have time to do anything”, “Close ones require too much attention / take away from important / take time, but it’s not enough for business. "Feelings of inferiority and unfulfillment make it difficult to live, eat and sleep. You can list more and more: each person has his own spectrum of experiences, but the common thing in them is that they are all negative", - Natalya Manukhina, Ph.D. EBTA, explains to Novye Izvestia).

To a greater extent, FOMO affects two types of socially active people. The first category includes "business people": men and women, especially those involved in specialties where it is necessary to constantly improve their competence: complete their studies, keep KPIs, raise their career status.

The second category includes people who were forced to interrupt their social activity - women during the period of caring for children; people who are sick for a long time; people who have moved to another region or country; those who have lost their jobs - in a word, all those who, for some reason, cannot return to their former once rich life. They watch others from the sidelines, spend hours stuck in social networks, not daring to manifest themselves in face-to-face communication, declare themselves and start acting in reality.

"FOMO is 100% a disease of the Internet, it is provoked by social networks. The more often we scroll through the tapes, the more we find comparisons not in our favor. And this happens unconsciously for conscious people! Even people with a very busy and active life are not protected from the syndrome. It is customary to post some positive events, bright events and successes on the Internet. As a result, the achievements of others form a snowball of “successful success,” which covers and self-destructs others with an avalanche”, - explains Ksenia Avers, a businesswoman and a psychologist.

Comparing oneself with others, with their results, is often not in their favor, and this is the most fertile ground for the appearance of the syndrome. It is also easy to fall under the yoke of FOMO people who are dependent on other people's opinions, people who fall under the influence of fashion trends, people who have not decided on their interests and long-term goals. Often one of the aspects for a person to develop FOMO is low self-esteem. Such people often have concomitant "diseases": codependent relationships, falling into the Karpman triangle (victim / aggressor / rescuer), most often "symptoms" are manifested in working relationships and in endless grumbling about external circumstances (shifted point of responsibility), explains the psychologist.

The FOMO phenomenon is new and is largely associated with the development of IT and social networks, however, the very human need to constantly “keep abreast” is not so new, because for centuries it helped our ancestors to survive.

For the first time, they started talking about the syndrome of loss of profits in the 2000s, when consumers and buyers were faced with an unlimited choice of goods in stores and endless amounts of information on the Internet. In 2013, scientists from the Universities of Essex and the University of California scientifically confirmed that the syndrome is directly related not only to dissatisfaction with one's life, but also to the use of social networks. In the same year, the abbreviation FOMO was included in the Oxford English Dictionary.

Four out of ten experience FOMO at least occasionally, with men more likely than women. According to another study, the "disease" has taken over modern society much more extensively and has affected as many as 56% of people.

As the researchers note, the disease is exacerbated if there is a habit of frequently scrolling the tape - that is, constantly watching someone else's life.

"FOMO is directly related to dissatisfaction with one's own life. Social networks, photos with the ideal life of friends, acquaintances or even not acquaintances, people, but simply those in whose life you feel involved, only intensify the unpleasant state. Fear of missing out on something new; the desire to delve into all sorts of forms of social communication (attend all parties, concerts, forums, city events, holidays, do not miss the latest in theater, cinema, etc.); an obsessive desire to please others, accept praise and be available for communication; the need for constant updating of the feed of VK, Facebook, Instagram and other social networks - all this is about FOMO. People with lost profits use social media as an exclusive vehicle for self-expression. In the worst case, this can manifest itself in meaningless Internet disputes, trolling. Experiencing FOMO leads to swings or lowered moods, apathy, feelings of boredom and loneliness, in some cases to depression", - says Maria Zinovieva, a social psychologist.

By itself, such a condition is not recognized as a mental disorder; it cannot be found in the section "Mental Disorders" of the International Classification of Diseases. However, as has been proven, well-established FOMO is often accompanied by something from a number of recognized diseases: obsessive-compulsive disorder, anxiety, depression, borderline personality disorder, panic attacks.

How to "diagnose" FOMO? By itself, the use of Facebook, Instagram, Twitter is not a disease. However, if the desire to check a friend's feed becomes uncontrollable, the lack of this opportunity causes severe anxiety, depression, or the person is haunted by an irrational fear that if you just let go of the phone, drop out of online, you will definitely miss something important in your life. Typical signs of FOMO are the desire to always stay connected and the desire to receive approval and positive feedback.

Another symptom of lost profit syndrome can be fabing - the habit of constantly being distracted by your smartphone, no matter what you do (even while going to the toilet, on a date or while driving).

"The syndrome of missed profit is harmful because it greatly reduces a person's self-esteem and undermines his will. It forces you to think more of yourself in terms of failure than success. Forces to avoid setting and performing tasks to increase their competitiveness. Shifts attention to “I don’t…. in comparison with others ”exclusively in their own minds, thereby encouraging to avoid real communication. Perfectionists can spend all their resources to compensate for these unpleasant sensations and professionally “burn out”", - says Natalya Manukhina.

How can you "cure" yourself of this unpleasant disorder?

"Generally healthy people rarely experience unnecessary things. FOMO is a part of modern culture, and since it exists, it means that it is caused by something objective and serves something. The loss of profit syndrome actually prompts: to be in a continuous search for opportunities, and not to stand still or live only on memories of the past. Find existing but untapped opportunities. Do not make a decision outright, but double-check, compare options. Combine and simultaneously participate in several activities, and not get stuck forever in just one business. Strive to develop in different guises, roles, to develop continuously. Getting rid of FOMO or learning how to use it more effectively is the main question for a modern person”, - adds Natalia Manukhina.

"Like any mental state, increased anxiety has its pros and cons. Within reasonable limits, focused attention and the ability to seize an opportunity can pay great dividends. And a successful entrepreneur, if suddenly this skill is removed from him, can be thrown overboard for a long time. On the other hand, anxiety, taken to an extreme, which has become painful, almost completely blocks all productive activities", - explains Ksenia Kasyanova, Research and Development Director of the CROS agency.

What therapy works most often for my clients?

1. Awareness of the experiences corresponding to this syndrome,
2. Recognition of one's inaction or a plurality of useless actions,
3. Setting realistic achievable goals, developing and taking the first step,
4. Revealing specific results from each of your actions and correlating them with the path that leads to the set goal,
5. Creating and maintaining real relationships in different, several areas of life,
6. Receiving and accepting feedback on the results of their actions from real people.

"Treatment" three in one - and from low self-esteem, and from self-destruction, and from the syndrome - is the building of internal life supports. The more legs a chair has, the more stable it is. It is the same with a person - the more support he has, the more independent he is from the inevitable life changes and troubles, and the more competitive. The motto of sustainable and stable people is the phrase: "I have me, and we can handle it". The most protected are people with a high level of "selfhood" who clearly define their goals and life strategy. They are the least susceptible to someone else's opinion, and someone else's event flow. They clearly know what they like and what they want - right now and in the long term, and they themselves form such results, and everything else is not interesting to them. They have a high degree of responsibility for their goals and results, there is no position of the victim and the blame for failures from external circumstances. They have a favorite business, a hobby, close people. Success can also be a fulcrum, no matter where, whether in sports, hobbies, work, relationships, family, friendship, etc. Strive to develop life in balance and without distortions in any area. It is unrealistic to do everything in life and it is not necessary - you do not have to. The main thing is to know what exactly you want, to remember your interests, and to bring it to life, without looking back at others", - advises Ksenia Avers.

"Remove unnecessary applications and turn off pop-up notifications in those programs that are not of great importance to you, leave groups and unsubscribe from accounts that are not very useful, refuse unnecessary e-mail newsletters. Periodic digital detox, I am sure, will soon also become an integral part of our life and will be prescribed for FOMO addicts. Don't take your smartphone to bed or surf the Internet before falling asleep. After waking up, take care of yourself first - news, gossip and beautiful pictures from someone else's life will wait. External messages increase anxiety, which interferes with our natural biorhythms. Create two separate schedules, separate the two streams of life - for work and for personal life. Walk more outside without the reflective desire to photograph or photograph something. It won't be easy at first, so take these steps gradually and ... Your life will be filled with an abundance of real and conscious life!", - Maria Zinovieva recommends.