Fear of missing out This is one of the most known types of fears. You always feel that if you do not do something now, it will never happen again. Most times, it will happen, or you will forget that it ever happened. For example, if you see a proposal from someone to buy your product or your freelancing services, you might accept an undervalued offer, because you do not want to miss it. You start thinking: “What if I do not receive any offer this month? I should take it”. Another example could be when you do an interview, and you need a job. You might receive an offer that you will not negotiate because you fear that you might miss the opportunity. If you would try to understand how much recruiting is costing companies, and how much is involved in the process, you would realize that you have more power than you think. A most common example of the fear of missing out is the billions that are being made by companies with sales. We all know campaigns like Black Friday. Remember, any money you spend remains spent. You are not saving anything. The only winner out of the situation is the company that made a profit on you. Do not worry. It happened to me so many, and it happens to a lot of people every day. You are not alone. We all live with the fear of missing out or FOMO. : If you overthink about a situation, you should not do it. Try to think about what is the desired outcome and what you win. Solution Of course, sometimes you need to compromise on the situation. For example, if you have no money left and you receive a terrible job offer, you might take it for a period, before you find a new one. Try to put yourself first in advantage and next time remain employed, before looking for a new job Fear of delivering ( Software, Writing, Youtube ) Why only these three, when the fear of delivering could be in a lot of areas? Software is something I do daily Writing I always want to do, but I do not dedicate a lot of time Youtube, because I want to help people with tutorials, and I hope to start soon. If you notice, writing and Youtube are the things I rarely do, or I do not do. Why? Fear of writing bad content, or not delivering good enough Youtube tutorials for people. Do you see yourself? You code an app. You believe that it’s mediocre and tell yourself that you will work a bit more on it to solve the issues. Time passes, and you abandon the project because you start something else. You want to write an article, you have some ideas, you write a few sentences, and suddenly you stop. Why? You do not know where to publish. You start to think that even if you post nobody will read. If people read, they will not like it and so on. Same with Youtube or Instagram or any other platform where you could put your face in front of millions of people. You do not do it, because you fear to deliver content which people will not like. You know the Nike slogan? Just do it. Solution: Launch apps, publish articles and record videos. There is no perfect in anything. All the smart and successful people were once some newbies who had no clue about things they know today. All the big apps were once a few screens, with a lot of bugs and spaghetti code. You are not delivering for people to criticize, you are giving to the people that find the most in your work. One person will like it, and then you will learn what that person wanted. You iterate, and in the end, you start to do quality things that reward your time and perseverance. Fear of applying for interviews In my experience, most of the job specifications are written for perfect candidates. People that have all those specs, mentioned in the job listing, do not exist. In tech, it is common that HR has no clue what are the technologies required for that job, except the common one like Javascript, or iOS or Android etc. They try to look for matching keywords on the candidate profile and then they send a cold message. Why don’t we act like HR people? Solution: You read a job description that you like, for a company that you appreciate, but you do not meet all the years of experience or all the required degrees. If some things from there match your experience, let’s say you have two years of experience, but the job says 4, apply for it. I’m not saying to submit your application for totally different things, but in a lot of situations, you might be a top candidate for the job. Try always to have a well written and designed resume. If you need, pay $5 - 10 on a resume builder website or learn some design skills to build it yourself. Today, there are a lot of websites that could help you. An excellent resume will make you stand out and will allow the person reading your resume to appreciate your attention to details. What’s the worst thing that could happen? Not be called for an interview. Do not worry. In a few days, you will forget that you ever applied. Fear of cold messaging or talking with strangers. In today’s era, it’s so easy to contact someone or meet new people, but still, we do not do it. You can send a direct message on Twitter or LinkedIn in just a few minutes. I usually tell myself. I will do it later, or if I message people will not respond so why bother. We always think about “What will that person think about me if I message them?” There is a chance that the message will be answered or not. Try to be polite and respect people’s time when you send the message. Do not send long messages and try to make it personal. Any person that will see a personalized message will appreciate it more. Solution: Do not send a message to someone only when you need something. For example, if you see an article online, and you like it, you can send a few kind words to the person that wrote about it. Take care. Don’t make it too awkward. In the past months, I started to message people more and more, when I feel like doing it, without feeling that it is wrong. I still need to improve my writing skills, but nothing terrible has happened. I offer the same treatment when someone writes to me. I respond to 99% of the time, even if I can’t help or I’m not interested. Fear of feeling like an impostor How many times did you feel that it’s not worth trying to sell your services, or start writing tutorials, or speak at a conference because you thought that you don’t know enough information? If you are like me, you probably felt it a lot of times. Even the most successful people do not know everything. They are successful, because they did more than anyone else, and that’s what you have to do. Solution: You might have a different angle to a problem, or maybe you studied a topic more than other people. As humans, we do not have the same level of knowledge. That’s why we work as teams. We complete each other. If you deliver a thing to someone that will save that person even 5 minutes of their life is still better than not doing so. Conclusion All the fears I wrote about above are mine. They are probably the same fears that millions of other people have every day. I’m doing my best to control them through the solutions I gave. Every time they overwhelm me, I try to learn as much as I can, but in the end, nothing is wrong with having fears. Try to understand how to overcome them, and you will become stronger. If you liked my post please . I write about start ups & about my coding experience as a mobile developer. follow me on Twitter
