The Affliction of Abundance
You’re about to launch a new product, but you can’t decide on the tech stack. You’ve been researching for weeks, worried that you might miss out on the perfect solution. Sounds familiar? This is FOBO – the Fear of a Better Option. It’s the lesser-known cousin of FOMO, and it might be secretly sabotaging your decision-making process.
As psychologist Barry Schwartz puts it: “Learning to choose is hard. Learning to choose well is harder. And learning to choose well in a world of unlimited possibilities is harder still, perhaps too hard.” It’s a bit like standing in front of a buffet with endless choices, but standing here starving because you can’t bring yourself to settle on an option.
FOMO, or fear of missing out, is a term that has become common in everyday language and has permeated most corners of our popular culture. But the author who coined the term FOMO, Patrick McGinnis, recently warned people about another fear they may experience at some point in their lives: FOBO, or the fear of a better option. It’s the nagging question that prevents you from making a choice: “What if there’s something better out there?”
Maximizers are particularly prone to FOBO. While satisficers simply try to find a solution that is good enough, maximizers try to make an optimal decision. This means considering all the possible options for fear that they will miss out on the best one, and often leads to indecision, stress, and frustration.
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