Dealing with FOMO

We're all addicted to something.

I'm no different.

I had to keep up with every new Star Wars or Marvel movie and show. I had to play DotA every night to keep up with my friends (real and virtual). I had to follow all the gaming news (even though I never play new games lol).

I had plenty of goals when it came to my workouts and music. Guess what I did? I tried to keep playing DotA anyway. (Say goodbye to good sleep.)

There's a problem with this approach.

As we get older, responsibilities pile up.

You get a job. Maybe you have kids. The day starts. You have to help them get ready for school and you have to go to work. Maybe the work day is draining. Then you have to come home and get ready for the next day.

We flop on the couch and proclaim that we "don't have time" for all the goals we have in the back of our heads that are bothering us. Our entertainment helps us forget about them, but they're still there. Things get "worse" because time keeps passing and you keep pushing back that thing you need to do more and more.

Sadly, we're conditioned into this state.

"Have fun while you're young" is horrible advice. If you've been conditioned to keep getting hits of dopamine, you'll think that this is where the fun lies. So whenever you do have a bit of free time, you sacrifice work on a goal for fun in the moment.

If this has been your default state (combined with a lot of free time when you're younger) then you'll squeeze out time in your schedule to keep doing that when given the chance.

You only have so much time in the day.

You only have so much time in your one life.

There are two important questions you need to ask yourself:

What do you really want?

And..

Is your entertainment keeping you from it?

The goal is to have the time and energy for the thing you really want out of life.

It's possible, even if you don't like the answer.

You're going to have to rip the band-aid off and accept the sacrifice.

Sacrifice is Inevitable

You can't stop it.

Either you sacrifice your time and put it in the gym for some abs or you sacrifice your abs for eating cookies every night.

The modern world provides waaaaaaaaaay too many options to entertain us.

Games?

They can be free! You don't even need a console or computer! You can just use your phone!

Movies and TV?

You can watch every movie or show in the history of movies or shows from your own house! (As long as you have all the streaming services.)

Social interaction?

Keep up with every human on the planet with the use of the internet!

Hungry?

Order whatever you want with your phone! Have it delivered to your doorstep!

(It seems like if we just shut off the internet at night everyone would be sleeping better and have more peaceful minds, but I digress.)

Since we were raised to seek entertainment, it keeps amplifying if we allow it. Then we don't want to do the work.

Sacrifice is inevitable.

If you don't sacrifice for the thing you want, then the thing you want becomes the sacrifice.

FOMO: The Fear of Missing Out

Let's talk about the title of this thing.

Our friends, our family and the world keeps talking about the latest trends, fads, movies, shows, politics, drama, video games, sports games, etc.

If we're not keeping up with it, we're an outcast.

We're not part of the "tribe" of humanity.

The historical reason for this horrible feeling is that if you weren't part of the tribe, it was a lot harder to hunt, gather, find a mate and protect yourself.

Going alone meant death.

If you're not doing these things, you're the weird one.

(A simple solution to that last point is to just find your "tribe" online. There's a lot of other weirdos like you if you look.)

Trust me, I know the feeling.

But for as cool as all of those things I listed are, how many of them relate to a personal goal of yours?

I'm guessing close to zero, and most people are in the same boat.

There is nothing about watching 3 hours of your favorite sports team that has to do with whether or not you hit the gym today, especially if your time is tight.

I'm not talking to the single college bros with all the free time in the world.

I'm talking to the people who are strapped for time.

Please just analyze your day. If you're really tight on time and you're wasting it somewhere, the energy has to come from somewhere.

But how do we do it?

How a Carrot and a Binge Saved My Projects

To be clear, a project can be anything.

Your body is a project and, in my case, so is my music.

There were two things I've done that helped me stay consistent in both.

When I was working on music, the only time I had was at night, since I workout in the morning. Night is not the best time for motivation. Since that was the case, I decided to try something I had heard from YouTube: I was only allowed to play games once I had worked on a music project for 20-30 minutes (actual progress, not just eyeballing things). The "carrot on a stick." This kept me going most nights since the reward was so enticing. This wasn't good for my sleep and I later cut it out completely, but it was a great starting point.

I had another realization: shows would come out weekly on Disney+ or new movies would release to theaters (when it comes to my favorites: Star Wars or Marvel). Instead of going to the movie theater or watching a new show every week it came out, which strung me along to the story, I'd just wait until the movie was on the steaming service or the show was done and I could binge it all in a couple days.

This saved me time with going to the theater, and I could split up the movie over a couple of nights if I didn't have the time to watch it all the way through. With the shows, it made for a nice long "movie," and I got the story out of the way without wondering what would happen week to week (which would have sat in the back of my head for too long).

What's the lesson here?

Your entertainment isn't going anywhere.

Save it for after your work or your workouts.

This actually creates a craving, like Pavlov's dog, for the reward. Eventually you start feeling the craving when you do the work.

With the binge aspect, you know that you'll be able to get to it later, so you won't have a knee jerk reaction to watch everything all the time. It will actually help your reward system because it's teaching you to be patient.

Eventually, something else happened with my gaming experiment.

Since my sleep was getting compromised, I cut out gaming as the nightly reward and only allowed myself to play on the weekends. I didn't have the carrot-on-a-stick any more, so I wasn't as consistent with my music…at first. Eventually, I was so bored that I just accepted working on music anyway.

It is possible to find work you enjoy doing.

Shocking, I know.

Besides, if you don't have anything super stimulating getting in the way, your brain will want dopamine from something, so if you strip away enough cheap dopamine, work will feel good again.

As cheesy as it sounds, I was feeling good for getting up early and getting my workouts in. I was feeling good for releasing my music.

This is real dopamine.

It should come from delayed gratification.

Putting It Together: Dispelling the Fear

Mindset Shift

Ask yourself a few questions and do a little visualization.

• What do you hate about your life/body/fitness/health?

• I usually discourage the term "hate," but used properly, it's something that you will no longer settle for. Do you hate what the scale says? Do you hate how weak you are? Do you hate how you look in the mirror?

• Understand that all your little "fun" moments are going to make it worse because you're not working on this "thing."

• See yourself 1-5 years from now. If you keep doing the same things you're doing, what will happen? Won't you get more of the same or worse?

• Understand that all the goals you want (or wanted) are slipping away from your if you don't start putting in the work now. But just a few minutes per day goes a long way. Start making the trade now.

• Goals are great, but they're just in your head. A current state that disgusts you (after you stop ignoring it) is concrete and can be seen. It can the the spark that gets you going. The opposite of what you don't want is what you're aiming for.

Goals

• Yes, set goals. "Set systems, not goals!" What system are you going to make if it doesn't have a purpose?

• Set a goal (something within 1-3 months to be slightly reasonable and get you to start). It would be something related to step 1.

Don't quit your vice…yet. Do this.

• As a starting point for this whole dopamine detoxing thing, you're going to use your vice as a reward for the work you need to do.

• Don't be a maniac and workout for 10 minutes, then entertain yourself all day (even though that would work). Start with 2 hours allowed of entertainment and start pushing it back, like so:

  • 2 hours per day

  • 1 hour per day

  • Weekends only

  • Sundays only

  • A few days at the end of the month

  • A week at the end of a quarter

  • None?! Yes, it is possible to not have entertainment every night. Your ancestors didn't have it. You'll survive.

• This is a slower burn detox instead of you doing something unreasonable like swearing you'll never use entertainment again (unrealistic).

Drop the Past. Look Forward to the Future.

You will mourn your past life.

How do I know?

Because I'm living it.

I workout and play music.

I wish I had the time for day-long video game binges or could watch the entire MCU every month or watch silly 40+ minute Warcraft lore videos. But I'm in a different season of life now.

Ain't nobody got time fo' dat.

But the counter to that is that there should be goals on the opposite end that excites you.

As a reminder: your entertainment isn't going anywhere. You can recap a game, or binge a video game a couple years later, or watch an entire series in a weekend.

The work towards your goal can't be sacrificed. It requires daily effort.

Once you get into and starting seeing progress, you won't want to stop.

This is the healthy dopamine.

Chase that instead.

Thanks for reading!

As always if you have any questions or comments feel free to respond to this newsletter.