How Fear Setting is the Fastest Way to Hitting Your Goals

How often do you let your fears control your decisions? Probably more often than you think. There's a little exercise you can do and you can get it below. 

It requires defining your fears instead of your goals. Tim Ferriss shared this idea and now I am passing it on to you.

The essence of fear-setting is to transform your fear of the invisible unknown into a worst-case scenario. In order to conquer the fear of the unknown, we must turn it into something known.

When we go to write down your goal, something will pop up in your mind and the Little Bosses in your head will bring up all of your fears, like “you are not going to do that, who are you to do that, who do you think you are.”

After graduating from University I started a painting business instead of finding a job and boy did I have a financial awakening. I struggled to get customers and I made every mistake imaginable. I was spending lots of money on equipment and marketing, but not making any sales.

So, what happened?

Fear entered my mind and Little Bosses took over - fear of not having enough money, fear of being a failure, fear of disappointing the people working for me and fear of my family and friends doubting me. But instead of getting caught up in all of these fears, I chose to define my fears and chip away at them one at a time.

Ron Scolastico said it best: “If you would go every day to a very large tree and take five swings had it with a very sharp ask, eventually, no matter how large the tree, it would have to come down.”

You can take a virtual ax and chop your fears down just the same.

For the following questions, write down and do not edit as much as you can. Don’t think about your answers too much.

Spend a few minutes on each answer.

1. Define your nightmare, the absolute worst that could happen if you did what you are considering?

What doubts, fears, and “what-ifs” pop up as you consider taking action? Put as much horrible detail in as you can.

Would it be the end of your life? How likely is this worst-case scenario to happen? What would be the permanent impact on a scale of 1-10? Are these things really permanent?

2. What steps could you take to repair the damage? Even if they are only temporary solutions, how would you manage to get your situation back under control?

Although you may need to be creative, it’s very likely that there are somewhat easy or simple ways to repair any damage.

3. What are the outcomes of more probable scenarios?

How likely is that that you could produce at least a moderately good outcome? Have less intelligent people done this before and pulled it off?

What are the temporary and permanent benefits you might gain, both internal (such as confidence) and external, from these more-likely scenarios?

4. What are you putting off out of fear?

What we fear doing most is usually what we most need to do.

5. What is it costing you to postpone action?

We rarely consider the financial, physical, and emotional costs of NOT doing things. But this is just as important as measuring the cost of action!

If you don’t do these things you want to do, where will you be in one, five, or ten years? What will your life be like?

What are you waiting for?

Chances are when it comes down to it, you’re afraid. So is everyone else in the world.

Embrace it, and take action!

About Dan

Dan LeFave is a mentor to spiritual entrepreneurs and coaches, the Prepare for Success expert, speaker and author. His passion is teaching spiritual entrepreneurs how to tap into their own inner wisdom and merge it with the practical steps to create healthy sustainable businesses from a place of purpose, passion and prosperity. Get your “7 Time-Saving Secrets” report here. Learn more about how Dan can help you at www.DanLeFave.com.

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