Fear-Setting by Tim Ferriss
Fear-Setting by Tim Ferriss

Define your fears instead of your goals to overcome inaction.

Define your fears instead of your goals to overcome inaction.

We suffer more often in imagination than in reality. — Seneca the Younger

You already set goals—from your career achievements to your athletic progress, you have milestones to hit and you relentlessly pursue them. But while goal-setting is widely popular, one of the most important and overlooked exercises is that of "fear-setting." It is an exercise Tim developed that originally appeared in his bestselling book

The 4-Hour Workweek⁠

. He later covered it in

his 2017 TED talk⁠

(below), which has over 6 million views combined:

⁠

Tim puts it⁠

Fear-setting has produced my biggest business and personal successes, as well as repeatedly helped me to avoid catastrophic mistakes.

For instance, it led Tim to take a 15-month break to travel around the world, which then led to the creation of

The 4-Hour Workweek⁠

In a nutshell, fear-setting is an exercise that allows you to define and face your worst fears, outline next steps for preventing or overcoming them, and face the consequences of not taking action. You'll likely see that things aren't as bad as they seemed. With fear-setting, you must consider the costs of your inaction—the costs of not making those important decisions—and create a plan to tackle those decisions head on. You'll likely discover that things aren't as bad as they seem.

This Coda template includes step-by-step instructions to help you navigate your own challenges and fears.