FOMO: Making Critical Choices in Business

Business can create tons of opportunity and choices, how do you avoid FOMO when running a business?

To help you best deal with FOMO in business, we asked successful business owners and entrepreneurs this question for their best insights. From anticipating future pivots to keeping your end goal in mind, there are several strategies that may help you make the right choices for your business and avoid the fear of missing out on opportunities.

Here are nine tips for avoiding FOMO in business:

● Anticipate Future Pivots

● Stay in Your Lane

● Make Your Business Become The Envy of Others

● Be Clear With Your Purpose

● Stay Disciplined With Your Immediate and Long-Term Goals

● Give Yourself Permission To Say No Sometimes

● Look at How Far You’ve Come

● Be Prepared Always

● Keep Your End Goal in Mind

Anticipate Future Pivots

One way to avoid business FOMO is to remember that modern entrepreneurship involves a significant amount of pivoting. Your industry, product, or operations are unlikely to remain unchanged for the duration of your career. If you are a smart and adaptable founder then you will not be running your business the exact same way forever. Knowing that change is inevitable can help you let go of the fear of monotony and restriction and can help you make smart choices for your business rather than latching on to every passing trend.

Michael Alexis, TeamBuilding

Stay in Your Lane

All opportunities are not created equal. As a business leader, you will avoid FOMO if you stay in your lane. Stick to what you are good at, what you know really well. Anything outside of that will potentially have a negative effect on you and your business. You will lose credibility if you try to take advantage of something that you are not actually good at. You will lose credibility and that in and of itself is very hard to recover from.

Amanda Russo, Cornerstone Paradigm Consulting, LLC

Make Your Business Become The Envy of Others

The best cure for business FOMO is to be the creative and active company that others envy. Keep your eye out for great opportunities for your business to engage in, and allow your employees to express their creativity when it comes to generating their own ideas. Sometimes being an exciting company requires some risk-taking, but that doesn’t mean your business model has to be precarious. Simply seeking out good opportunities as they arise and being open to saying “yes” will allow your business to be the envy of others.

John Jacob, Hoist

Be Clear With Your Purpose

Making choices is hard when you don't know where you're going, so it's crucial that you're clear on the purpose of your business. If you want to run a lifestyle business that gives you a lot of free time, you'll make different choices then when you scale up an agency, for example.

Get clear on your goals and whenever an opportunity presents itself, ask yourself: "Is this in line with my goals?" If it isn't but you're still feeling pulled to say yes, follow up with: "Would this be a lot of fun/enrich my life?" If then the answer is yes, you might still want to go for it, but always keep your goals in mind and consider whether saying "yes" leads you toward those goals, or means getting side-tracked.

Sofie Couwenbergh, Let Me Write That Down for You

Stay Disciplined With Your Immediate and Long-Term Goals

I have trained myself to cherish professional JOMO, the joy of missing out, in order to counteract business FOMO. More specifically, I develop short-, medium-, and long-term goals that professional decisions must fulfill. While entrepreneurs face many great opportunities in the market, the best practice is to discipline yourself to only enter business agreements that advance business goals. I like to support partners and acquaintances, celebrating their successes when they host events, but I’ve learned to minimize commitments that don’t serve the greater mission of my organization.

Thomas Yuan, Sanebox

Give Yourself Permission To Say No Sometimes

FOMO is a common problem for people who run businesses. There are so many opportunities and choices, that it can be hard to know which ones are the best for you and your business. I've found that one of the most helpful things is to have a strategy and stick to it, even if it means passing up some opportunities. If you're always looking out for something new, you'll never get anything done and you'll lose track of what's important. I think it's important not to let FOMO take over your life — you have to give yourself permission to say "no" sometimes!

Chad Rubin, Profasee

Look at How Far You’ve Come

When you’re running a business, keeping track of your peers’ achievements becomes unavoidable. However, it’s important to not let this derail or demotivate you. If you find yourself making comparisons and feeling insecure, take a moment to examine how far you’ve come. Although it’s easy to lose track of your achievements and focus on another’s, try to remember that everyone’s journey comes with its own risks and rewards. Their success doesn’t imply your failure and you still have an amazing journey ahead of you.

Chris Roth, Highline Wellness

Be Prepared Always

One way to avoid FOMO while running a business is to always be prepared. The ability to time travel and see into the future would solve a lot of business problems when it comes to business-related FOMO. If you knew a particular event was coming up well in advance, you’d be able to prepare for it and improve your overall profitability. Not planning in advance can cause businesses to miss out on opportunities completely while their competitors take in all the profits.

Businesses need to predict and foresee events and start planning early which means they’ll be prepared and organized before an event really impacts them. Planning and trusting yourself will help you gain the confidence that you are growing your business at your own pace. Dig deep and try to find out why the feelings of FOMO are coming up and do some mindset work around overcoming that.

Maneesh Sharma, Donorbox

Keep Your End Goal in Mind

When we keep the end goal in mind, we can ask ourselves, does this opportunity move me closer to my goal? If not, it needs to be put on hold. You can have a running list of these ideas that you could revisit at a later date but not until you have accomplished what you set out to accomplish for the day, week, month etc. The first journal I created was for the small business owner who couldn't focus. Planning ahead and knowing exactly when and what you will be doing helps.

I find when business owners don’t do this,? they have time to think about what they perceive as missing out on. Use a planner/journal to map out what you are doing. Perform a time audit to ensure you are using your time effectively and know where you are spending your time. Work in the areas that give the biggest return on investment so that you are making progress. The key is to keep busy enough where you are moving the needle forward without worrying that you are missing out on other opportunities.

Sharon McLaughlin, Mind Lull

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