Have you ever experienced FOMO? I feel like it’s a constant battle, especially with tools like Insta Stories- ever seen snippets of your friends at a conference you considered attending, and then rushed off to look for tickets to the next one?

Yeah, me too.

FOMO is such a strong emotion that it can actually drive behaviors you wouldn’t have otherwise engaged in!

Like how the other day, a newsletter from an industry leader landed in my inbox preaching the benefits of live video, and not wanting to waste a minute I ran into Matt’s office to tell him I would need to do an IG Live that afternoon. On what topic? Who knows! But if so-and-so said live video leads to growth, then I couldn’t afford to put off getting started!

Right?

Ehh… no.

My Why as a business owner is helping others focus on what matters most.

So when I paused and took a moment to consider HOW an impromptu Live broadcast would help others focus on what matters most, I realized it wouldn’t. Sure, it would alleviate my fears of missing out, but if I couldn’t come up with a compelling way to HELP our audience, a Live broadcast would just have been white noise. It would have been 100% about me, not them.

And that’s definitely not in sync with my Why.

Fear and panic are not effective decision-makers- they’ll push you to act as a way of avoiding pain and discomfort, simultaneously causing you to lose sight of your purpose, your values, your Why.

With all the methods, strategies, and products you COULD be using, sometimes it’s hard to see through the fog to focus on what you SHOULD be doing! And so we allow fear and panic to rule our hearts and heads, and then we end up chasing a dozen different rabbits and fail to catch ANY of them.

It’s how you find yourself at the end of another calendar year wondering how on earth you managed to fall short of every single one of your big goals- you were too busy chasing the wrong ones.

The cure?

Get REALLY clear on your Why. Your purpose as a business owner.

And then when you feel the fear and panic start to creep up and you rush to make a decision... pause, and ask whether this decision will push you *towards* or away from what you believe in and work towards as a business owner.

I promise you- the temptation of fear- and panic-driven decisions withers and dies in the face of a few deep breaths and intentional refocus on what matters most.

FEAR + PANIC ARE BAD BOSSES