“But everyone else is doing it!” How many times have you thought or uttered those words?
If you have a really close-knit group of friends, it’s totally natural to want to do things together. When it comes to life paths, though, what’s best for you often isn’t what's best for your friends, and vice versa. From being stuck at home while everyone went to uni, to having to leave for work at dawn when pals were just coming home from an epic night out, our coaches have been through it all – and have lived to tell the tale!
Our young coaches talk about the Fear of Missing Out.
"One of my first thoughts when I failed everything was that all my friends were going to be going off to university and just leaving me at home, and I was going to have no friends, and I was just going to be there all by myself. But in reality, a lot of people go to university later than everyone else and in fact, there were people on my course in their 40s and 50s."
"During school, I knew most of my friends wanted to go to university and I knew straight away that it's not something that I wanted to do. It wasn't the type of lifestyle that I wanted at the time."
"It was tough for me then to come away from that and see them go away and do their type of thing, but I knew that it wasn't what I wanted to do and it wasn't going to make me happy and I wasn't going to enjoy it."
"One of the good things that, looking back now, worked out for me was that I had to go to college alone. All my friends went to sixth form, which gave me a real independence. When it came to the decision of a degree or an apprenticeship, it was very much that my friends weren't a factor because I'd already gained that independence."
"It is hard, especially when you first start, to discipline yourself. You'll be watching videos of your friends out at clubs or doing whatever, living that university lifestyle, which is very different to yours."
"I'd be watching my friends go to university and move onto the next step, and I'd be watching all that from my phone while I'm still stuck in the same place. But at the end of the day, I need to be concerned with myself and what I want to do."
"It's sort of a bubble world, the social media part. Everyone's following everyone, everyone's copying everyone. No one's doing what they really want to do."
"My route that I've taken is I left school a year early, so I left in year twelve rather than year thirteen. A lot of my friends carried onand went straight to university. A lot of them made fun of me for that, calling me a drop-out, but I knew which route was right for me."
"If I had stuck in that friendship circle and in that friendship group, realistically I don't think I would have got into medicine. If you can communicate well, you're going to make friends and a lot of these people are like-minded individuals, people who want to do medicine or want to do the career path that you're interested in."
How do I beat FOMO?
- The first step to overcoming FOMO is not feeding it. And you know what FOMO feeds on? You’ve guessed it – social media! Perhaps a digital detox could do you good.
- Remember there are two sides to every story. OK, your friends are travelling around Thailand while you’re in an office in Milton Keynes – but you’re building your CV, learning new skills and earning money. Every experience enriches you in some way.
- Have you ever heard of JOMO – the Joy of Missing Out? JOMO means forgetting about what everyone else is doing to focus on your own time and needs. If people are having such a great time, why are they spending so much time posting pictures on the internet?! Try to get on with your life!
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