How The Fear Of Missing Out Almost Got Me Burned Out

My Journey to Letting Go of TikTok.

Read this story’s free version here.

Today social media almost dictates the rules and the fear of missing out (FOMO) can be a powerful force.

I will share with you in this article my experience of 3 years on the platform.

From 2020 my businesses as a day trader, professional coach, and psychic were growing and then suddenly I bumped into TikTok.

I am a 41 y.o. lady in the psychic business and I can tell you that to me was difficult to grow on the platform.

In my 3 years journey on TikTok, striving to grow on this platform, something unexpected happened that made me think of the true value of my efforts and the platform’s true values.

Now, I am not a social media expert but I understood enough to see when my content was not getting distributed anymore.

In January 2020, I started the channel and I was blown away by how fast it grew.

I was so excited and so motivated that I thought: “Now I am going to grow a great community”.

For a year, I put my heart into that platform, making truthful content nearly five times a day, interacting with live videos and even pulling some cards to random people for free.

I was motivated to build a profile that wouldn’t play with people’s anxiety, and that would help people to find their truth and get out of the situations they have been dwelling on for a long time.

The engagement was nice, my videos got distributed fast and I attained thousands very fast, and then, something changed.

By the end of 2022, when I opened my app, like I used to everyday.

Currently, the content that was popping up on my screen was NOT the kind of content I had chosen in the first place when I installed the app on my phone.

They were sad content, people crying, girls dancing in a very sexy way, and people eating like there was no tomorrow.

Anyway, I noticed that I started to make more and more content and was not reaching half of the audience that I was reaching before.

When I did my research on other psychics with big accounts on the platform, I saw that the content was so artificial and triggered the people’s anxiety.

Let me give you an example:

Your question to a psychic is if your ex is coming back.

The psychic that is triggering your anxiety intentionally will say in their readings that your ex will come back even if the cards say the contrary, so you can keep coming back to buy readings from them.

To me, seeing psychics like this was sad and strange because I follow a spiritual code of ethics, live in the Buddhist Etic of Śīla and I can’t lie at all.

Usually in my readings, if my cards say so, I say to the customers right away that the person won’t come back so they are released from this situation.

In my naivety, I continued to insist on making the content daily believing that I could bring a true message for those people there and I noticed that the way some people behave on the platform is wild, like everywhere else on the social media world.

The anonymity mask that the internet gives people, makes some of them behave in a way that they would never have the courage to behave in person.

I started to feel exhausted, stressed, and couldn’t sleep well.

One morning, I was going to the gym after a late night of making life on TikTok and then it hit me: “TikTok is making me tired, this is what is draining my energy”.

Because until then I was aware about the draining of energy but though: “Let me try a bit more, maybe I am the one who need to do more” but hey, I was doing much already.

TikTok almost got me into a spell.

After this insight, I started to be more aware os the density of the platform and started to notice that every time I went there somehow my heart accelerated a bit.

Then I realized that I was reacting with the FOMO to all the content creation I was doing there.

Almost every time I was recording a video there, my focus started to go to the “How many views am I going to get?”, “Will the platform distribute my content” and I see today that the focus was wrong.

This was when I decided to post once in a while.

I deleted the platform and came back after a week, and guess what, nothing was happening.

Then, I started to prioritize other things in my life and today I only let the videos be there because I came to the conclusion that unfortunately TikTok has become a toxic culture platform.

I am grateful for my time on TikTok and my past self who really put the energy out there to create and put plans into action and with this post I released the TikTok story that was stuck in my throat for such a long time.

Conclusion

I learned that when things are meant to happen, they happen and they flow effortlessly.

Don’t put all your energy into a platform, or business that you are intuitively feeling that is not working.

Avoid the fear of missing out and understand that the people who are meant to resonate with your energy and watch your content will find their way to you.

Prioritize your mental health and good sleep, so you can produce in a better way.

Don’t compare yourself with another content creator; remember that your path is yours only.

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© 2023 Zondra dos Anjos.