I've always been a yes person. Yes I wanna have a 6th part time job. Yes I want to go on that adventure. Yes I want to make more new friends. Yes I want to go snowboarding ... Yes because I don't want to miss out.
Although FOMO ( Fear Of Missing Out) can often be viewed as a negative and many people are not able to find a balance - my FOMO has turned "fear" into passion.
What this looked like for me was the opportunity to try a million different things. To fail and to succeed and through those failures and successes, to find a passion and a drive. Through this fear of missing out in my early 20's I was able to travel, meet the most amazing people, try new things and figure out who I really was.
I started snowboarding because of where I lived and the people I was friends with. I never liked it. But I went. Year after year and frozen fingers after frozen toes. One year I had the opportunity to travel to Austria for a holiday. While there, we went to the Alps and I (you guessed it - went boarding) And this is when it all changed. I loved it. I couldn't get enough. Something inside clicked. I got back to the West Coast of Canada, bought new gear and haven't looked back. The first year back, I was out every weekend. The next year it was every weekend and a couple "sick days" Then... it turned into something else entirely. I woke up on a 30 cm snow day and thought - "no one should miss out on days like this" Boom - I'm working at creating an app that wakes people up when it snows. Then I quit my normal job. Now I snowboard all winter. I get to travel and write and explore more places and run a company that I love.
I'm so much better at saying No now. I think I've started to figure out the things that are worth saying yes to and when its okay to say no.
Today you'll still find me saying Yes to way to many adventures but you'll also find me saying no. I'm not afraid that I'm going to miss out on something huge and life changing anymore because for the moment anyways, I've found my "raison d'etre" And today, with the first snowfall of my Canadian winter I wish you many more YES' and adventures as I pack my board for a quick run through an orchard before I start my "work day"