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Fear can be helpful but can also be a pain in the ass.  It’s helpful if it prevents you from getting run over in traffic but harmful if it prevents you from reaching your goals.  To stop fear from holding you back, put a simple strategy that has worked for over 2,000 years in your ‘courage box’ and pull it out when you need it. 

When Lionel Richie was young and just starting out, he suffered severely from stage fright.  To help is son manage these intense feelings, his Dad would say to him “What is the similarity between a hero and a coward?” The answer is they were both scared to death.  It’s just that one stepped forward and one stepped back.  So, whenever he felt scared or when thought he wasn’t going to be able to do something, he would reach into his ‘courage box’ and remember to just take a step forward.

Seth Godin in his new book The Song of Significance shares the results of a survey he conducted of 10,000 people in 90 countries where he asked people to tell him about the best job they’ve ever had.   He asked them 14 questions about what made it the best job including whether it was because they were paid a lot and they didn’t have to work very hard.  

The results were consistent no matter which country they came from or the age of the person responding.

 The top three things that made a job stand out as the best they’ve ever had were:

 1. I surprised myself with what I could accomplish.

 2. I could work independently.

 3. The team built something important.

The point he drew from the survey was that the work that people did in the best jobs they’d ever had made them feel significant.  Significance gave people meaning, make them feel optimistic and more human.  

Where does significance come from?  It comes from making a change.   For ourselves and for others.   

The thought of change for many people brings up fears that can stop progress dead in its tracks or invoke feelings of stress that can become overwhelming.  

Fear Setting Strategy

Tim Ferriss in a TED talk he did back in 2017, shared how he uses a three-step strategy developed over 2,000 years ago by Greek Stoic philosophers to help him overcome fear.  The strategy he uses is called Fear Setting which is based on the Stoics’s approach of Premeditatio Malorum (the Premeditation of Evils exercise).

It’s a reflective practice where you contemplate and mentally prepare for potential adversities, challenges, or negative events that may occur in the future.  By doing this, the Stoics found you can reduce your emotional reactivity to possible dangers allowing you to take steps forward when you are uncertain, knowing it will be OK and you can manage whatever happens.   For Tim, being able to reduce emotional reactivity is a superpower. 

The Stoics believed we can't control everything in life, like the weather or what others do, but we can control how we react.  Their practices say we should focus on things we can change, like our thoughts and actions.  As Senecca put it nearly 2000 years ago: “We suffer more often in our imagination than in reality.” 

Stoicism has helped a lot of people become successful.  Ryan Holiday in his book The Obstacle is the Way shows how some of the most successful people in history—from John D. Rockefeller to Amelia Earhart to Ulysses S. Grant to Steve Jobs—have applied stoicism to overcome difficult or even impossible situations. Their embrace of these principles ultimately mattered more than their natural intelligence, talents, or luck.

I’ve been using the Fear Setting strategy for several years now and its helped me make some big changes in my life.  One in particular was shifting my practice from being hired to lead and deliver projects to creating content for others to learn how to do it for themselves.  I had a lot of fear about whether I could create content that was useful and whether I could attract new clients.  The fears I have still exist, but what this strategy has done for me is not let them stop me from moving forward.  I come back to my Fear Setting strategies every month. 

How to use the Fear Setting Strategy

Three steps to help you examine and overcome irrational fears:

1. Ask: What If I .…? 

 The first step is to write down all the things that could go wrong if you made the decision and work out what you can do to prevent it from happening or repair it if it does.  You can do this by making three columns on a piece of paper.  In the first write ‘Define’, in the second write ‘Prevent’ and the third ‘Repair’. 

You start by writing in the Define column all the things that you think can go wrong.  Don’t be shy here.  Let them all flow out.

In the Prevent column, you write down what you can do to stop each fear from happening or reduce the likelihood of it occurring. 

In the Repair column you then write down all the things you can do to make it better or reduce the damage if it does happen. 

Ask yourself, is it possible someone else has figured out a solution to this problem before?  Who could I ask for help?

This sheet becomes your playbook to help set the conditions for success in your favour.

2. Ask: What are the Benefits of Making an Attempt.…?

The second step is to ask yourself what would the benefits be of at least making an attempt.  These benefits could be financial, capabilities, career or emotional. 

If the decision or challenge will help you make a change for yourself or for others it can help you feel significant which, as Seth Godin says, gives you a boost of happiness and wellbeing that can bring newfound joy to your life.

3. Ask: What are the Costs of Inaction….?

The third step is to think about what costs there would be if you avoid this decision or taking up this opportunity, in six months, 12 months or in three year’s time.   

Ask yourself what the costs would be to your career, financially, emotionally or physically etc.

Making Your Decision

To make your decision bring all three steps together by adding up the the benefits of taking action and costs of not taking action and seeing if they outweigh the odds and consequences of your fears becoming reality.

I have found the exercise of getting fears out of my head and examining them makes them seem a lot smaller and more manageable.

If you’re looking for a strategy that’s worked for over 2,000 years to stop fears getting in the way of you taking steps forward, starting a project that makes change or letting go of old habits, put the Fear Setting Strategy in your courage box and bring it out when you need it next.

I’ve created a template for you to give the Fear Setting Strategy a try.   Download it here - > Download.

Let me know how you go. 

Cheers, Craig