Suhaib Anappadiyan (pictured) is a GP Specialty Trainee in Northampton
Tope Ojo is Training Programme Director for the Northampton and Kettering GP Specialty Training Programme.
Not long ago, I was sitting alone in my consultation room after evening clinic. The waiting room was empty. The phones had stopped ringing. Most of my colleagues had already gone home.
I should have left too.
Instead, I did what many of us do when we are tired, emotionally drained, and looking for a distraction. I opened LinkedIn.
Suddenly, the achievements of strangers felt larger than my entire day.
Within a few minutes, I regretted it. One doctor had won a prestigious fellowship. Another had published a paper. Someone else had started a healthcare company. A former colleague was speaking at an international conference.
I put my phone down.
Suddenly, the achievements of strangers felt larger than my entire day.
The irony was that only an hour earlier I had been the voice of reassurance. I been there for someone who simply needed me to listen and bear witness. I had reviewed medications, explained blood results, and helped people make sense of frightening symptoms.
Yet none of that seemed important while I was scrolling. Instead, I felt as though I was falling behind.
Many doctors know this feeling. We rarely admit it to each other, but it exists. It follows us between clinics and meetings. It sits quietly beside us during appraisal season. It appears while scrolling through social media late at night.
Eventually, I came across two terms coined by Patrick McGinnis: FOMO — the Fear of Missing Out — and FOBO — the Fear of a Better Option.1.2
For the first time, I felt that somebody had put a name to what many of us experience every day.
FOMO tells us that everyone else is doing something more exciting, more meaningful, or more successful than we are.
FOBO tells us not to commit because there may be a better opportunity waiting around the corner.
Together, they create a restless dissatisfaction.
General practice seems particularly vulnerable to this.
Never have there been so many possibilities. We can become educators, researchers, lifestyle medicine physicians, leaders, entrepreneurs, academics, GPwSIs, or portfolio doctors. The opportunities are wonderful. But they can also be overwhelming.
Because somewhere along the way, many of us stopped seeing these opportunities as options and started seeing them as obligations. We tell ourselves that we should be doing more.
Another qualification.
Another project.
Another publication.
Another leadership role.
Another achievement.
The finish line keeps moving.
No matter how much we carry out, there is always somebody doing something bigger. And if we are not careful, we begin to measure our worth against impossible standards.
A while ago, I spoke to my Training Programme Director about this feeling. I told him that I felt as though I was constantly trying to catch up. That no matter what I achieved, there always seemed to be another mountain ahead.
His response was simple. No one can live five lives at the same time.
That sentence stayed with me. Because it is true.
Every meaningful choice comes at the cost of another.
Every path requires us to leave something behind.
That is not failure.
That is life.
Can we look in the mirror and honestly say, “What I did today was enough?”
Yet doctors are often uncomfortable with limits. We are trained to solve problems, maximise outcomes, and optimise everything.
That is why we struggle when confronted with a truth that cannot be optimised: we cannot do it all.
The longer I work in general practice, the more I realise that the most important moments of my day rarely appear on a CV.
They are the moments that nobody sees.
The patient who finally feels heard.
The person whose fear is eased.
The quiet thank you at the end of a difficult consultation.
The privilege of being trusted during someone’s worst day.
These moments do not generate likes, awards, or professional recognition. But they are the reason many of us entered medicine in the first place.
Perhaps the antidote to FOMO and FOBO is not another achievement. It is perspective.
Perhaps it is remembering that our value does not depend on how impressive we appear online. It is understanding that a meaningful career is not built by keeping every door open. It is built by walking through one door wholeheartedly.
As doctors, we spend much of our lives encouraging patients to be kinder to themselves.
It is time we listened to our own advice. Because at the end of a long clinic, after the emails are answered and the paperwork is done, there is one question that matters more than any fellowship, publication, or title:
Can we look in the mirror and honestly say, “What I did today was enough?”
For most of us, the answer is yes. We simply need to give ourselves permission to believe it.
References
- https://patrickmcginnis.com/blog/meet-fobo-the-evil-brother-of-fomo-that-can-ruin-your-life/ [accessed 25/6/26]
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear_of_missing_out [accessed 25/6/26]
Featured Photo by Mohammadreza alidoost on Unsplash
