Breathing and adopting a personal mantra are just a few ways to stop these stressors in their tracks.
You know about “FOMO,” or “fear of missing out.” But fewer people talk about a less recognized, but closely related, social affliction: FOPO, or “fear of other people’s opinions.”
The term was coined by Michael Gervais, Ph.D., a high performance psychologist and creator of the podcast Finding Mastery, in Harvard Business Review. He writes that stress-inducing FOPO can be a huge barrier in people’s professional and personal lives, causing them to avoid going after their goals or taking healthy risks, due to a fear of rejection.
“If you start paying less and less attention to what makes you you — your talents, beliefs, and values — and start conforming to what others may or may not think, you’ll harm your potential,” Gervais writes.
Luckily, the ability to tune out negative critics (including the one in your own head) is a skill that you can learn and improve over time. If you suffer from FOPO, try the following tips (it may even be easier to cure than FOMO!).
Be mindful
It might sound counterintuitive, but focusing on what’s causing you stress can actually help reduce its power over you.
“If you acknowledge and recognize unpleasant emotions, they have less power to cause you distress,” Leah Weiss, Ph.D., MSW, a researcher, lecturer at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, and author of How We Work, writes for Harvard Business Review. “When you pay attention to your body, you can catch emotional information upstream, before it hijacks your whole system.”
When you feel your body responding to stress or worry, rather than trying to stifle it (which can actually worsen your stress), tune in to what you’re feeling without judgment. Bringing awareness to your worries will help you manage your emotions more positively.