Do You Have FOMO or FOBO?
The fear of better options might be preventing you from making the right decisions for your life.
Does it take you hours to make a simple decision? You might have FOBO. Fear of missing out has a more anxious sibling that could stop you going to social events — or choosing what to have for dinner. So what is behind the fear of better options and what can you do about it?
The Fear Of Better Options is a modern dilemma, and it’s a biggie. From making decisions about relationships, to college applications, new jobs, or choosing takeout coffees, multiple options can be overwhelming and cause the most decisive people to freeze and falter.
Science shows, the more choices we have, the FEWER choices we actually end up making.
It’s a problem that our forefathers didn’t face half as much as we do. They would follow in their father’s or mother’s footsteps, take a well-worn route and the decision about their future career and sometimes other life choices were all taken out of their hands.
Fast-forward a few decades and we are bombarded with hundreds of TV channels; streaming services offering thousands of options, more choice than we can handle, 24/7.
And how many times do you just end up watching an old episode of Friends?
Careers? The world is your oyster. Most people don’t need to pursue one career for their whole lives, but chop and change. So much flexibility can give you a FOBO headache and decision-making can become a cause of major stress.
From swiping left and right on hundreds of potential dates or mates, to more “must-read” books than any human being could ever read in their lifetime, multiple choices are one constant in our daily lives.
FOBO gives a name to that spiral we fall into when we obsessively research every possible option, fearing we’ll miss out on the “best” one. It can not only lead to indecision, but also regret and even lower levels of happiness.
What are the origins of FOBO?
Patrick McGinnis is the guy who coined the terms FOBO and the better-known acronym FOMO. He struggled so much with FOMO and FOBO that he came up with a name for them that identified what so many of us were experiencing. Both conditions can lead to FODA, which is the the Fear of Doing Anything. Everybody knows what that feels like, and it sucks.
Patrick wrote about his FOBO while a student at Harvard:
“Harvard is a place unlike others in terms of the amount of opportunities you have — classes, social events, interviews — at your disposal,” he says. “I came from a simple background — a small town in New England — and when I arrived I found it extremely overwhelming. I wanted to do everything — which is Fomo — but at the same time, I wasn’t willing to say no to anything and just choose one thing, which was Fobo. I would wait until the last minute to see if a better option came along. And I realised that that was a pervasive behaviour at Harvard because of it being a choice-rich environment.”
Evidence shows that those provided with fewer options in a decision-making task derived greater satisfaction from their decision outcomes.
When we have more choices, we make worse decisions or hesitate to make any decision at all. More importantly, we also spend time thinking about the choices we didn’t pick, instead of being happy with the one we did choose. The more choices, the more we feel we might have missed out on something better.
Simple solutions to thorny dilemmas
Patrick has come up with real-world solutions that are practical and can apply to any decision you need to make today:
1. For everyday things, I do what I call “Ask the Watch.” I whittle something down to two options and then assign each item to a side of my watch. Then I look down and see where the second hand is at that moment. Decision made. It sounds silly, but if you try it — asking the universe — you will thank me.
2. For the big things, I try to think like a venture capitalist. I write everything down on the topic — pros, cons, etc. — and I read it out loud. That process is basically like writing an investment memo for a V.C. investment, but in this case the investment is of your time, money, energy, etc.
As a writer I have adopted one of these techniques on a daily basis. With 485 unfinished drafts gathering dust on Medium, I realized something had to change, fast.
Rather than struggling to find ideas to write about, you might be like me and generate so many ideas you can’t decide which one to run with. You agonize over the first step to take, fearful of taking the wrong one, and end up doing nothing at all. When FOBO has struck in any area of your life, try one of Patrick’s methods to make decisions easier.
Give yourself fewer options
Albert Einstein famously overcame his FOBO — which he called option paralysis — by wearing the same sports coat and style of trousers every day. It is possible to have so many clothes that choosing an outfit is time-consuming and a bit tiresome. The first step is to limit the number of options.
Every decision you make uses up your mental energy. Just the simple act of thinking about whether you should choose A or B will tire you out and reduce your brainpower. The more decisions you have to make throughout the day, the weaker your decision making process will become.
This is why many successful individuals like Barack Obama, Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg and Albert Einstein decided to reduce the number of decisions they make throughout the day by doing things such as choosing to adopt a monotonous wardrobe.
“You’ll see I wear only gray or blue suits. I’m trying to pare down decisions. I don’t want to make decisions about what I’m eating or wearing. Because I have too many other decisions to make. You need to focus your decision-making energy. You need to routinize yourself. You can’t be going through the day distracted by trivia.” — Barack Obama
Many of our daily life decisions are more important than choosing what to wear, so what do you do if you’ve whittled down your options and still don’t know which one to go with?
Make a mostly fine decision
The Mostly Fine Decision — the outcome you’d be fine with, even if it’s not the absolute best possible outcome. This is a method for when you have agonized long enough and you need to make a decision.
“The MFD is the minimum outcome you’re willing to accept as a consequence of a decision. It’s what you’d be perfectly fine with, rather than the outcome that would be perfect,” — Tim Herrera, writing in The New York Times.
The MFD can be applied in any number of contexts that are stopping you in your tracks. It might be something you’re deciding between or something that you’re deciding to do — or not do.
Instead of a pro/con list, cut to the chase: What’s the worst thing that could happen if you made a decision about this today?
People often attribute too much finality to a choice, forgetting there will be opportunities to make new decisions after this one has played out.
If you feel like the fear of better options is stopping you from making any decisions at all, think through the “what’s the worst that could happen” scenarios. And remember, done is always better than perfect.
If you can’t see anything really negative as an outcome, flip a coin and take the decision out of your hand. Lots of people put a pin in a map to choose their holiday destination. It’s kinda crazy and spontaneous, but very liberating. Life is an adventure to be enjoyed, not a sentence to be endured.
Make decisions without agonizing over the outcome
To make the right choices, don’t worry about getting the very best all the time, and evaluate each outcome on its own merits rather than against others.
Don’t dumb down or lower your expectations too much, but accept that perfection is not always necessary to be happy. If doing a good job now is better than delaying it a week to make it perfect, getting it done now is a no brainer.
Listen to what your gut tells you, use the above methods for making your decision easier, then enjoy the satisfaction of getting things done, without worrying if you could have done something better. Remember:
- give yourself fewer options
- ask the watch/flip a coin
- evaluate pros and cons
- make a mostly fine decision
- done is better than perfect
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