Your Fear Of Following Through Is Killing Your Business

Samantha Martin — December 8, 2016 Follow @Socially_Sam

Most of us are aware of what FOMO is – Fear of Missing Out. It mainly comes from being tuned into social media so much that you don’t miss a thing that’s going on in your world. Or the lives of your friends and family. You don’t miss a second of anything and you’re the first to try every new app and every update. But when you’re disconnected the FOMO kicks in and it can cause high levels of anxiety. However, your desire to not miss a beat and jump from one shiny object to the next is giving you FOFT – Fear of Following Through. And it’s killing your business.

I see it all the time amongst other social media people. The first sign of a new app and off they go chasing the shiny object proclaiming it to be a game changer and the next great big thing. Two minutes later and it’s no longer shiny enough and there’s a new glitter ball on the block that’s the real game-changer. And so it continues.

Then there are the endless new ‘shows’, be it live streams, podcasts, vlogs, Snapchat stories, Twitter video, Instagram video. Constant announcements of new roles, new ventures, new eBooks, new, new, just anything new. But for a business plan, this is a waste of time and energy. It’s worse than those endless buzzwords you spout!

No Plan Syndrome

You may think that all this jumping between new shiny objects is just part of the race to be first to market. Everyone wants to be the first person to be the clear leader of a new app. We’ve seen this become almost competition like with all the new live streaming apps. Competition is good. Competition is healthy. But when the competition to be first or the best or to gain vanity numbers takes precedence over the actual business plan then you’re in trouble. Because it leaves you with no plan. And no plan means you lack consistency.

If we’ve learnt one thing from watching hundreds of sometimes repetitive Gary Vee videos, is that patience and consistency are key to success. Your FOMO is not demonstrating your dedication to the plan. Your patience and consistency are none existent which means you have no commitment to what you say you believe in. If you truly believe that this latest app is a game changer, then stick with it. If you truly believe that your ‘show’ is going to be a great hit and help loads of people, don’t give up after 5 episodes. Give up after 50 or even 500 if you feel it’s not working. But if you are going all in, then at least stick it out.

When Fear of Following Through Shows Up

All this constant chopping and changing what direction you are going in or taking your company in is very confusing to your viewers and your potential clients. As marketing people, we tell our clients to find their niche and stick to it. But marketers are bad at following their own advice and are the world’s worst for jumping on every bandwagon that comes a calling. But when you’re bandwagon hopping and announcing more game changers than an ever changing game, all you show the outside world is that you lack commitment. If you can’t commit to following a plan for your own business, then how can you expect clients to trust you to follow the plan for their business?

You are just showing that you have a fear of following through. You can’t be trusted to follow through on the plan or what you say you’re going to do. Therefore, you need to be careful about what bandwagons you jump on or trends you follow. Just going all in and proclaiming a new app a game changer without thinking through the strategy of using it first is not a good idea. Yes, great, you may be first to market and have bragging rights that you were the first to hit a million hearts on Periscope. So damn what! Who cares about the vanity stuff when it’s not aligned to your business plan. All’s you are demonstrating is your ability to abandon something you said you would do and chase something else you haven’t thought about.

Where Is Your Road Map Taking You?

If you’re in business or an entrepreneur, then you should appreciate the value of having a plan. Now the plan doesn’t need to be massively detailed, but, if you want to grow your business then you need to know where you want to go. And then you need to plan on how you are going to get there. You can potentially get to the point of being successful or doing ok and then get swept up in the day to day running of your business and not take the time to have a plan of how you are going to go forward. This can and probably will be a huge mistake because you will become complacent and in business that is not a good place to be.

So, you need to make the plan of where you are going. As you’re in the social media sphere then I’m going to safely assume that there is a degree of content marketing going on in what you do. Whether that’s producing live streams, videos, blogs or Snaps. Whatever that content is, it should form part of the plan of where you are going. This is where your fear of following through can take over, again. We know that consistency is key to content so if you have a plan and you follow it then you’ll meet the consistency requirements your audience would expect.

But if you let FOMO take over and you don’t stick to the plan or even have a plan, then soon enough it will kill off your business. Guaranteed.

Plan to kill the fear of following through

If you’ve been overdosing this past year on FOMO and haven’t seen any change in your business. In that, you haven’t moved forward. Or you’ve made tons of announcements on the exciting things you’ve got lined up but not actually delivered on any of them. If you’ve started more ‘shows’ than your audience can now remember, only to kill them off by episode 3. Now is the time to stop. This method is not working.

Now I will hold my hand up and say that I struggle to stick to my own plans. But it’s not because I’m off chasing shiny objects, it’s because I have actual client work to do so my blogging plans do often slide. But recently I’ve made a huge effort to stick to the plan and I’ve seen a big increase in my engagement levels and reader numbers are way up. I’ve also brought work in I didn’t expect to be getting, which is great. Plans obviously work.

And that’s another thing I’ve noticed. All these folks that chase so many shiny objects and jump on all these bandwagons. How do they find the time to do any paid work? How are they servicing their clients? That’s probably the key. They don’t have any hence all the time to chase other stuff.

So why not start to make your plan now for next year and make a promise to yourself that you’ll leave the bandwagons alone and stick to the plan instead?

Hard work and commitment aren’t dirty words

I know so many with extreme FOMO are just looking for the short cut. The get rich quick route, hence why they change route so often. Guys, let me break this one to you not so gently. The shortcut does not exist! How can you even think there is a shortcut when you spend half your life hanging on Gary Vee’s every word?

Now, confession time, I don’t always agree with Gary’s work mode. Sometimes I do think he can overkill the work hard mythology and this whole thing of humble bragging about the hours worked isn’t that cool. Go home and spend tie with your kids some more!

Yes, you do have to put the hours in. It is damn hard work. And, you do have to make sacrifices. But never let your kids be the sacrifice. You can’t ever get that time back. And yes, your kid will learn a work ethic from you, but not at the cost of them not spending enough time with you. That’s not sacrifice. That’s stupidity. There are plenty of things you can go without. Nights out with friends, watching tv, having hangovers. Sacrifice those things for your hard work. Make the sacrifice personal and you’ll want the success even more. But stay committed to the process otherwise all you’re doing is being yet another guy with the fear of following through.

Go Big Or Go Home

Make big plans, but stick to them. If you say you’ll do a live stream every day, then do the live stream every day. If you say you’ll daily vlog, then daily vlog. Whatever plan you come up with, devise a process to follow the plan. Break it down into workable chunks so you know what you need to do every single day. Create reminders and checklists for yourself. Have a structure to your day so that you set out each morning with specific tasks that will help you stick to the plan. And remember to avoid the social media faux pas that will make you look a bit silly.

Show your commitment to what it is you are setting out to do. And if you can’t do that then you might as well give up and go home. Because you won’t ever get the success you want. You’ve just got a fear of following through with the plan. Then you should question if what it is you’re doing is what you want to do. Or if you just jumped on the passing bandwagon because it was shiny and everyone else was jumping on it. Don’t be that sheep.

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