Getting Left Behind
You can’t always be ahead.
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One of the dominant forces in business decision making is the Fear Of Missing Out (FOMO). No one wants to be left behind, and often bad decisions are made too quickly based on the fear that everyone else is doing something and you might be left behind.
Managing FOMO is straightforward, it means you just need to stop paying attention to everyone else! Easier said than done, of course, but great businesses are built from the inside out and not from chasing some shiny new thing that everyone else is pursuing. Having confidence in your strategy will prevent you from chasing someone else’s.
Much harder to deal with is actually being left behind.
Not the fear of missing out, but actually missing out. When you realize your classmates from school have found more success, faster than you have. Or when your coworkers get promotions and you do not. Or when a friend gets an amazing new opportunity.
When these things happen, it’s natural to feel a lot of emotions at the same time:
Happiness for them.
Sadness for you.
Frustration that your hard work hasn’t paid off.
Anger that you were overlooked.
Having all of these emotions hit at the same time is very confusing, and can make it hard to think clearly. On the one hand you are happy for your friends and colleagues, but on the other hand you feel a lot of negative emotions from being left behind.
I can’t help you with managing emotions, that’s a very personal undertaking. However, I can give you some hints on what to do (and not do) while you’re managing these motions.
Don’t make any big decisions. When you are emotionally compromised, making big decisions is dangerous. Don’t quit your job in anger, or make other drastic changes looking for a quick fix.
Do rely on your support network. Talk about the struggle and the mixed feelings you have. You don’t have to work through them on your own.
Don’t lash out. It is very easy to blame others in these moments. The boss that didn’t promote you, or the company that didn’t hire you. Anger is a short term emotion, but actions can have long term consequences.
Do find reasons to be hopeful.
If you read too many auto-biographies you can start thinking that success is a straight line. In that mode of thinking, falling behind is the same as losing because it’s hard to catch up. It’s not true!
Success is very non-linear. Some days you’ll pull ahead and other days you’ll fall behind. Some days people will be jealous of your success, and others you will be jealous of theirs. It’s a cycle more than a line, and appreciating the rhythm of it can help put everything in perspective.
Falling behind hurts. No one’s ego is so strong that losing feels good, and the more it happens the harder it becomes to deal with it. None of what I say here is meant to trivialize the difficulty in navigating such complex situations.
But, the only way we really fail is by stopping. So instead of stopping, we do our best and keep moving forward. Someday, when you pull ahead again, it’ll feel a lot better.
For more on Mental Health, see:
I can so relate to this topic. It felt like I was reading myself. But the point is to keep moving.