Watching LiveWire, we’ve seen lots of INSEAD interview action in the past few weeks, including this disappointed but determined post from an India applicant in Malta who didn’t get an invitation: “Spent all of summer in pursuit of INSEAD,” he or she wrote. “Heartbroken but not Fallen yet!!” Cue a collective “aww” in the Clear Admit office. Keep calm and stay positive!
In today’s Fridays from the Frontline, we hear from someone who did make the cut at INSEAD only to arrive on campus and confront a challenge of a whole new sort: FOMO, or fear of missing out.
There are just so many amazing and fascinating events and activities taking place all the time as part of INSEAD’s warp-speed, 10-month MBA program that it can be hard not to fixate on what you’re missing out on in any given moment.
Victor Lamm found himself in just that position when he began his MBA program at INSEAD this past fall. Suspecting that others might be wrestling with similar struggles, he wrote a funny and insightful blog post for the “INSEAD MBA Experience” student blog, which he’s graciously allowed us to repost here for Clear Admit readers to enjoy.
A Division I tennis player in college, Lamm earned an MS in sports business from New York University (coaching the men’s tennis team in the process). He also has worked in communications for several leading sports organizations, including the French Tennis Federation, the Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games and the Lagardère Paris Racing, a prestigious European tennis club. At INSEAD, he is studying marketing, strategy, entrepreneurship and management with the goal of becoming a leader in tomorrow’s sports industry.
Read on to learn some of the strategies he’s developed to combat FOMO, which while perhaps even more pronounced at INSEAD and other one-year MBA programs, can be a common phenomenon at any business school given the frenetic pace and unfathomably limitless number of opportunities that confront MBA students.
The following post has been republished in its entirety from its original source, the INSEAD MBA Experience.
6 Tips for a Successful FOMO Detox at INSEAD
We’ve learned many colloquialisms since we stepped foot on the INSEAD campus: breakout rooms, Dash, splash, Renaissance, lunch roulette, Fonty. But one word seems to stand out though: FOMO a.k.a. fear of missing out. There’s no cure for it, but here are a few ways we can try to avoid it. Or at least suffer less from it.
1) Accept that we cannot do everything
No matter how well we allocate our time, we will not be able to do everything. What’s the solution then? Well it’s actually very simple. Realize and accept that we just cannot do everything we want in a given day.
There’s just simply not enough time to do it all. Last time I checked, there was 24 hours in a day. If we account six hours of class on average, seven to eight hours to sleep, 10 minutes to brush our teeth (do not save time on this), 20 minutes to shower (same as the toothbrush), 30 minutes of commuting, 2 hours to eat, we have only around 6 or 7 hours for professional clubs, company presentations, leisure time, and social stuff. That’s not that much.
Which makes me move to my next point: We all have to prioritize at some point.
2) Prioritize
I heard that we could be hunters or explorers. Lions or gazelles. No matter who we are, what we do, we won’t be able to do it all anyway. So what do we have to do? Prioritize. When we feel rushed and pressured to do it all, let’s take a step back and remind ourselves why we came to INSEAD in the first place.
Maybe it’s: 1) Have fun, 2) Get better at ping pong, 2) Find a job. I’m not sure if these are the right priorities, but maybe it’s really yours. It’s not quite mine (I would put ping pong first), but I respect it because there’s no right or wrong answer to that question. The most important thing is to be clear on what we want, and to make choices according to those priorities.
It’s just like the Everest assignment. To reach the Everest, we couldn’t let the photographer take his stupid pictures at levels one and two. We have to see the big picture and make compromises to reach the top.
