Facing FOMO in L&D
As L&D professionals, we have a staggering wealth of resources. Newcomers and veteran L&D practitioners can agree that at times, navigating the landscape can feel like drinking from a water-hose. Chances are, social media has played a part in connecting you with new people, tools, and resources. The ability to connect is us in such an efficient way is one of the best parts about using social media professionally. Consequentially, the negative effects of social media that we feel in our personal lives can also manifest, in particular, FOMO or the fear of missing out. Let’s look at four ways you can face FOMO in L&D.
Find your focus.
Let’s be real. You might miss something. Find your focus and rely on your personal learning network to fill in the gaps on expos, events, webinars, and anything else you might have missed. When I was first getting started, a mentor shared a powerful analogy that shaped how I approach my personal learning. Imagine being in a swimming pool surrounded by tennis balls. If you were to lunge at a group of tennis balls in the water, you would push them further away. But if you intentionally pursue one tennis ball, you can come within reach of it until it’s in your hands. Once you’re holding that one tennis ball, you can confidently move on to the others. In this analogy, I see the swimming pool as a career in L&D, and the tennis balls as the many goals, events, and positions one may wish to have. To avoid FOMO, find a focus and pursue it until you’re the expert. Don’t lunge at the “tennis balls,” you’ll exhaust yourself.
What’s the one thing that you really want to learn more about?
Once you figure that out, start to aggregate your resources and pursue the ones that help you get closer to your personal learning goal.
How do you know when you’re ready for a new topic? Ask yourself: “Am I using what I learned in my day-to-day role? “Am I advocating what I learned with my peers?” “What other topics in the L&D community relate to my recent learnings and do they interest me?”
If you ask yourself those questions and you struggle a bit, consider tip two.
Link to a priority.
Who doesn’t love a good professional conference? The energy, the vendors, the speakers. The best learning conferences provide a spark of inspiration that lasts for months! However, one of the most challenging things about attending a paid L&D event is funding. While some companies may provide a budget for attending these types of events, it can oftentimes be elusive or you may find it difficult to ask for the funding to attend. Finding funding can be an even more daunting task if you are a freelancer. When it comes time to ask the higher powers for funding, consider framing the request by finding a link to a priority. Understand the business priorities at your organization at the moment. For example, perhaps the organization is undergoing a technology transformation and wants to ensure their employees are using the latest and greatest tools. If you find a conference that focuses on new technology, your conversation might sound like this:
“I know that we have a company-wide initiative to improve our technical capabilities. The Learning Technology 3000 conference is coming up soon. Learning about Y at the conference would help me do Z for the company.”
Did you notice the structure of that request? ‘X’ – the name of the conference – will do ‘Y’ for ‘Z.’ Linking your request back to a company priority may help justify the funding for you to attend. But what if your request is denied? It stings. Don’t give up. If you cannot attend, search for the hashtag participants of the conference are encouraged to use. In many cases, you’ll get live tweets from the sessions, and can garner just as much inspiration – without the credit card bill. Additionally, many conference hosts now record their sessions and post them online after the conference has ended.
Consider the utility, not the opportunity.
We are fortunate to work in an industry that’s changing and consistently surfacing new talent. Due to the diversity in topics that one can delve into as an L&D practitioner, consider the utility, not the opportunity. Simply put, there are more Twitter chats, meet-ups, blog posts, think pieces, tools, conferences, publications, websites, and theories in L&D than any one person could hope to utilize at a given time – or even possibly over the course of a career. As you curate your social media feed, consider the utility of the topics you seek out. For example, if you don’t see that a particular event will help you accomplish the goal you identified in step one, it is more than OK to disconnect. Many people will say that networking is key to success in this industry, and I agree to a certain extent, but as you get started, the utility – being able to immediately apply what you gain from each L&D experience you engage with – is more important than the actual opportunity itself. Again, don’t lunge after the tennis balls; you’ll push them further away.
Pay it forward.
Finally, face FOMO by paying it forward. Have you ever had a subject matter expert hold back critical information that would have been helpful days, weeks, or even months ago? Don’t be that SME. In step one, you identified a focus that was important to you. As you engage with the L&D resources that are available, you’ll develop a unique perspective of how those resources apply to the specific use case that led you to your initial goal. Pay it forward by sharing that perspective. What did you learn? How did it help you, your organization, your industry? Consider publishing a blog post with a recap of an event you attended or sharing a thread using the event’s hashtag on Twitter. By sharing your perspective, you may just help a fledgling L&D professional find their focus by inspiring them to learn more. After all, that’s what we do best, right?
Conclusion
Time will always be a limiting factor for L&D practitioners. Our personal learning networks are filled with incredible – often free – resources that enable us to work better. Learning how to engage with those resources is key in making the resources work for us. FOMO is a force that if goes unchecked, can derail your work, and leave you perpetually lunging after tennis balls in a fit of frustration. Start facing FOMO today by finding your focus, and you’ll see that you’re not missing out after all.