Tess Brigham: Are you having FOGO the fear of going out?
Well, today I'm going to explain to you the two reasons why
you're having this kind of fear. And I'm going to give you three
tips that you can use today to help you start to fear less
about going out. I am Tess Brigham licensed psychotherapist
and board certified coach, and welcome to my youtube channel.
I'm here every single Thursday with a brand new video. Alright,
let's get started. So, fogo fogo is the fear of going out if you
have not heard this term before, right before it was FOMO the
fear of missing out but now it's FOGO and so I first want to say
that there's a lot of misconceptions about what it
means, you know, FOMO I think a lot of times we get wrapped up
in Oh, they're an introvert so they have FOGO, they're an
extrovert, they have FOMO, it's got nothing to do with whether
or not you get energy from people or if your interactions
with people drain you, you know, it's got nothing to do with your
temperament and that way, a big reason why everybody is
experiencing some level of FOGO. While there's excitement about
getting back and being vaccinated, a lot of people are
experiencing fogo for the exact same reasons why we felt anxious
a year ago. And those two reasons are this. Number one,
change is hard, right, we're being forced to create another
change another transition yet again. And number two, the other
thing is, is that we don't know what to expect, yet again, just
like before, right? So change, any kind of change is difficult.
Any kind of transition in our life is very, very hard. This is
why people talk about transitions that they have been
for years and years and years. And what's really difficult is
is that we had this big transition a year ago where we
didn't know how long it was going to last what it was going
to look like. And, you know, should I should I buckled down
and create a whole work setup for myself? Or should I wait?
Right? Like, there were all of these questions for so long
about what all of this was gonna look like? So here we are, a
year later being told, oh, yeah, right, you just got settled in
over here. Now, you're gonna have to do that over again, all
of these transitions over and over again, they are exhausting
for people. And that's where that fogo comes from that that
fear. And that anxiety is you're being asked to force to change
again, for the second time in a short amount of time. The second
one is we don't really know what to expect. Well, we have some
sort of companies are trying to figure out what it looks like
now that we're going to be back. A lot of companies have no idea
exactly what it's all going to pan out to be. And there is a
lot of uncertainty uncertainty of what work is going to look
like, Is it going to be a hybrid? Am I going to go into
work one day, a week, five days a week? You know, am I ever
going to go back to work again? You know, will I you know,
what's what's travel gonna look like? Right? All of these
questions, everyone keeps talking about the new normal.
And that's hard. These two things together, the lack of, of
knowing what to expect combined with the change creates this
anxiety that we're all feeling. So your fogo is very normal and
natural to feel. So what do you do about it? Well, the number
one thing I always say about dealing with feelings, except
them. It's okay. It's okay to feel it. Just like I said to you
before, right. We've been yanked around a lot. We were all of a
sudden, were be bopping around our lives. The virus hits the
pandemic hits, boom, we're working from home, we don't know
how long it's going to be. And it might feel like even though
2020 felt long and even 2021 is feeling a little long, right? It
still was a quick transition. I mean, if you even think about a
school year with a kid, yeah, I mean, yeah, it's a typical
school year. But right, those transitions are difficult. You
know, we're just getting into a group of things. And now we're
being yanked out again, and, and being told, okay, now go back to
work. Now that you've enjoyed being at home, go back to work.
So recognize it, it's okay, embrace it, do not shame
yourself for your feelings. It's okay. The second thing you want
to do is don't avoid the worst thing you can do for anxiety is
avoid. avoidance is kryptonite is not good when it comes to
anxiety. Because the thing is, is that when we're anxious about
anxious about something, we avoid it, and then we avoid it.
And we're like, Oh, good. I didn't have to do that really
anxious thing. But the problem is, is that the next time you go
and you have to do that anxious thing, it becomes a little bit
even bigger, and oh my god, well, that's the thing I avoided
last time because it was so hard. So things have been
avoided again, right? When we avoid we build something up in
our minds as being bigger and bigger and bigger and the
anticipation or the fear of it becomes bigger than the actual
thing. So if you can feel yourself right now, feeling In
this fear of going out,
I would challenge you to start to think about, okay. Maybe
going back to work feels like a big one. So I would start to
pick some smaller things, maybe driving to work one morning
maybe driving what your commute would be picking small things to
show you that that whatever it is that you're going back to
isn't as scary as you think it is, you know, really picking
small things, if you're worried about Oh, god, I'm so used to
like getting up in the morning and rolling over and just
getting into my first zoom meeting, start getting up
earlier and start challenging yourself to get up and shower
and get dressed and be ready for work just like you were before
for your first zoom meeting of the day, create smaller things
and then start to build up as we get closer and closer to going
back to work. The last one is this, start to think about and
break things up into two categories. The first one is
things that I'm really enjoying about my life right now that I
want to keep going and that I can feasibly keep going. And
things that I you know, I know I'm going to need to face,
right? So for example, there's certain things of the structure
of your life right now that you're really enjoying that's
working for you. Then think about how you can approach your
boss to talk to them about how do I do this? How do I make this
better? How do I make this permanent? Or how do I, you
know, work from home a couple days, a couple days a week,
right? Think about the things that are working for you? Is it
working out in the middle of the afternoon? You know, what are
the things that are really good for you unhealthy for you that
you've adapted in this last year? And how do you keep those
going? Then in this other category might be the things
where you have to accept, like, as much as I would love to work
from home all the time. I know I'm going to have to go into
work a couple days a week. So then it's really coming back to
Okay, these things I'm going to have to accept I'm going to
accept that they're going to change and what can I do today
to start integrating those into my life right that goes back to
the non avoiding all right, so if you have fogo please don't
fear you there is absolutely nothing wrong with you. If you
like this video, please give it a thumbs up if you like my
channel. If you like all these videos, please watch a lots of
them. I have lots of videos on careers. I have a video on how
to deal with imposter syndrome. I have videos on how to deal
with toxic bosses. I have videos on how to deal with a passive
aggressive co worker lots of different things about career
that are available for you here. And if you love the video or if
you want a certain kind of video, please drop a line today.
Let me know give it a thumbs up and I will see you next time.
Unknown: Bye bye