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We hear a lot about FOMO (fear of missing out) these days.
For as long as we can remember, FOMO has been widely used in ads that say, “Get this deal while supplies last!” Of course, FOMO plays a role in other areas of our lives as well. For example, social media.
Then there’s FOPO (Fear of People’s Opinions).
Psychologist Michael Gervais, a leading expert on the relationship between the mind and human performance, believes FOPO is a hidden epidemic and a dangerous threat to human potential. He says that worrying about what people think about us has become an irrational, counterproductive, and unhealthy obsession in modern society. When people experience FOPO, he says, they lose faith and confidence in themselves and their performance suffers.
Mr. Gervais has spent his career supporting talented people in the worlds of business, sports, the arts, and science who need to achieve extraordinary results. His clients include world record holders, Olympians, internationally acclaimed artists and musicians, MVPs of every major sport, CEOs of the Fortune 100, and more.
his new book First rule of mastery: Stop worrying about what people think of you..
What is the conclusion? When we value other people’s opinions more than our own, we end up living our lives according to their opinions rather than our own. The key to living a high-performance life is to shift your attention from your outer world to your inner world.
The obvious first question is: What role does self-awareness (or lack thereof) play in the FOPO phenomenon?
Gervais agrees that the increased surveillance that comes with social media could lead to an increase in FOPOs. “Constant exposure to cherry-picked highlights of other people’s lives can lead people to fall into the trap of constant comparison, seeking external validation, and looking outward to see how they feel about themselves. There is,” he says.
Michael Gervais
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He states that increasing awareness of fear of other people’s opinions is the first step to releasing the power that others have over us. “To change our relationship with FOPO, we need to be aware of our thought processes and how they influence our perceptions and behaviors,” he says. “This includes understanding the mental models that shape our biases, beliefs, and worldviews.”
According to him, personal information is one of the easiest places for FOPOs to breed.
“We have a natural urge to define ourselves in relation to the world around us and to give others a clear idea of who we are,” he says. “At its core, identity is how people answer the question ‘Who am I?'”
He says that we construct identities because they help us better understand our place in a complex social world.
“We know where we work (“I work at Apple”), what we do (“I’m a football player”), our personality traits (“I’m an optimist”), and more. Identify yourself by different labels. But if you don’t really know who you are, or if you’re stuck in an identity that doesn’t allow you to evolve or grow, the certainty that “this is who I am” comes at a high price. In that case, opinions that challenge our view of ourselves can be felt as a threat. In such cases, we leverage resources to protect that identity, which can be a painstaking task.
Gervais says having a clear sense of purpose plays an important role in dealing with FOPO.
“With FOPO, we develop a built-in mechanism to check outside of ourselves whether everything is okay. We place too much importance on what other people think about us,” he says. says.
Purpose, he says, is the belief that you are living to do something. “It is an internally derived, generalized intention that is meaningful to you and also important to the world beyond you. In short, your purpose is important to you. It is an intrinsic value to you. There is. It is bigger than you. And the purpose is future-oriented.”
Instead of looking outside ourselves to see if others approve, “we can turn that mechanism inward and rewire it to check on our purpose.” he says. Instead of “Am I true to my purpose?” and “Am I well-liked?” it becomes a new reference point.
Purpose, rather than recognition, becomes the filter by which we make decisions, establish priorities, and make choices, he says.
So what is the possible relationship between FOPO and the increased incidence of workplace burnout?
Gervais says FOPO is “an exhaustive attempt to interpret what others are thinking in order to avoid negative evaluations by others.” He compares this to applications that run silently in the background of your computer, consuming memory, processing power, battery life, and ultimately reducing performance.
“FOPO consumes a lot of internal resources,” he says. “We control the narrative, we manage the perceptions of others, we suppress our own opinions, we over-apologize, we agree with others to avoid offending them, we make every effort to please them, we emphasize our strengths and Using self-deprecating humor to downplay a point, distorting it and accommodating, overcompensating for perceived shortcomings, seeking approval, increasing heart rate, muscle tension, tension: FOPO is our It exhausts the system. It promotes burnout.”
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How does confirmation bias shape people’s interpretations of what others think of them?
Mr. Gervais said that FOPO preemptive process. “To increase acceptance in relationships and avoid rejection, we try to predict what someone thinks about us. The human mind tends to seek out, interpret, and remember information in ways that affirm existing beliefs and expectations.”
Why do so many people seem so sensitive to the opinions of others? Above all, we are social animals, says Gervais. We are wired to care what others think about us. The key to valuing others’ opinions of us more than what they think of us is: know yourselfhe says. “Then the opinions of others only serve as a feedback loop to maintain your view of yourself.”
What can parents do to help their children grow up confident and resilient to FOPO?
“From an early age, children are conditioned to seek approval,” Gervais says. “That conditioning carries over into adulthood, where we seek approval from our bosses, spouses, friends, and co-workers. Over time, we find ourselves checking outside of ourselves to see if everything is okay. Develop built-in mechanisms to check.”
Incorporating mindfulness into a child’s daily routine is a powerful tool for their mental, emotional and physical health, he says. “They learn to focus on their own inner thoughts and feelings, rather than external judgments and expectations. This increased self-awareness teaches children to value their own experiences. Masu.”
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