F.O.B.O.

Any of you millennials remember that Avril Lavigne song Anything But Ordinary? This song resonates so deeply with me lately, so if you’re feeling nostalgic give it a quick listen on your streaming service of choice. It’ll help set precedence (in a fun way) for this week’s topic and hopefully trigger some Spotify AI magic to incorporate a few entertaining throwbacks in your rotation.  

Over the past week, I’ve had some amazing traction with my new business development engineering position. I’ve had conversations with extremely interesting individuals, connections in my network that are super helpful, and… well… good luck. I heard once somewhere that luck is when opportunity meets preparation, so I’m going to go with that one.

I came home to my parents and my sister (just about 9 days until I’m officially a Texan) and I was so excited to share all of the news with them. I think I was talking at the same speed you would put an audio textbook on in the car as you’re heading into class for a pop quiz on that chapter… or one of those terms and conditions sections of a radio ad. All they could say at the end was “and that was just today?”

When I called my boyfriend on the way home from work, it didn’t feel like a ton had happened. I think it’s because we both have so much stuff going on with him wrapping up flight school and my new job title that the positive chaos is kind of normal. But we totally dig it and that’s why we’re on this crazy journey together. But why did I need to regurgitate to my family what I had just spent an hour on the phone discussing with my significant other?

I have a deep, dark secret. It is something that affects me every day. Just like the fear of heights, drowning, and spiders are all very real fears, I have a very different but extremely realistic fear. I fear not being interesting enough. Surface level, this sounds really silly and kind of asshole-like, but the impact it makes on my day to day interactions is crazy.

Sometimes I feel extremely inadequate with my inability to “wow” the people around me. I feel like this is a weird thing to admit, especially on something as public as my blog site, but honestly I just want to be authentic with you all. I don’t want to seem full of myself or constantly lay out my resume of accomplishments, but I’ve realized it’s a constant quest for a bizarre type of approval. I’m not involved in a million things just because of my mission in life, but it’s also because I think I have a mis-wire in my brain.

As I suspected, I’m not the only one with this fear, so that helps ease some of my anxious feeling around this topic. Forbes calls it FOBO (fear of being ordinary) and Business Insider did an entire article outlining the traits of “boring people” you can read in less than a few minutes. This is a real concern that people have with themselves. I’m no psychologist, but I have a feeling this dives way into the depths of my repressed social anxiety that comes out to play every once in a while.

So this week I am forgoing advice and I’m instead asking for your perspective:

For my high achievers and my prolific creatives, do you have this same type of fear? Is this part of what fuels your high productivity? Is this part of why you involve yourself in so many projects? Do you think other people will think you’re boring if you don’t have enough diversity in your accomplishments? Have your figured out a way to redirect these thoughts?