How to Redefine Meaningful Success through Conquering Fear

Most people avoid fear. By proxy, they avoid challenges and the subsequent beneficial growth. This is also why most people are comforted by the now and have an inability to push toward the unknown.

Funny enough, it wasn’t always like this. As babies (specifically toddlers), we were all fearless. Short of a lack of access to food, we explored. We watched others keenly and experienced a multi-sensory lifestyle. From touch to sound, we tasted life with courage.

However, with every subsequent fall, we realized there were limits. Some natural (i.e. physics) and some socio-economic, these limitations impacted us so much that we actively avoided pain. Eventually, we avoided growth.

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90% of people don’t know this life hack

I recently stumbled on another great TedTalk titled: “Why You Should Define Your Fears Instead of Your Goals” by Tim Ferris, Author of the 4-Hour Work Week. Watch below:

The hard choices — what we most fear doing, asking, saying — are very often exactly what we need to do. How can we overcome self-paralysis and take action? Tim Ferriss encourages us to fully envision and write down our fears in detail, in a simple but powerful exercise he calls “fear-setting.” Learn more about how this practice can help you thrive in high-stress environments and separate what you can control from what you cannot.

Here are 6 lessons I learned, followed by an explanation:

You’re always on the verge of either success or self-destruction.
Embrace uncertainty as a motivator for self-improvement.
When dealing with depression, learning how to prevent self-destruction is more helpful than success recipients.
Stoicism helps prevent self-destruction by teaching you to focus on what you can control and reduce emotional reactions.
“We suffer more often in imagination than in reality.”
A great exercise is using “premeditatio malorum” to visualize worst-case scenarios to motivate action and overcome paralysis.

The Exercise with Fear Itself

One way to do this exercise is to define your fears before taking action.

Writing down your fears and worst-case scenarios helps you visualize them so you can take the necessary actions. Tim calls this “fear-setting,” similar to “goal-setting.” It consists of 3 pages (the most important is page 3):

The first page is about whatever makes you fear

Break it down into three parts:

Define: List the worst things that could happen if you take a particular action.
- Prevent: Brainstorm and write down steps you can take to prevent or reduce the likelihood of that fear becoming a reality.
- Repair: This is about planning for damage control if the worst-case scenarios become a reality. Example Scenario: You’re thinking about quitting smoking.
Define: I might have cravings when trying to quit and come back to smoking.
- Prevent: Identify what triggers me to smoke and remove them from my life. Create a support system of friends and family.
- Repair: If I experience a relapse, I need to review my quit plan. Seek help from my support system. Stay positive and know that this is common.

On the second page, write about the benefits of taking action or your potential success.

Imagine what happens after you step out of your comfort zone and take action. What would you look like? Are there benefits? What can you achieve?

The third page is about the cost of inaction. This is the most important part.

Ask yourself: If I avoid my fears, stay in my comfort zone, and don’t take action, what would my life look like in the next 6 months, 1 year, 5 years, or even 20 years?

Go into full detail and imagine your situation emotionally, spiritually, financially, and physically.

Leaving your fears and insecurities behind

Now, you can compare two different future versions of yourself:

one who hasn’t confronted this fear, and
the one who has.

Visualize and decide if it’s worth taking this particular action you’re thinking about or not. You’ll find that some of your fears are true, and the consequences aren’t worth your focus, but you shouldn’t conclude that without a detailed analysis.

In the end, there is… “Nothing to fear but fear itself,” a phrase from Franklin D. Roosevelt’s 1933 inaugural address. Roosevelt went on to say, “I assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is… fear itself — nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.”

We will all have to conquer our fears in our final moments. Why not learn to conquer it today?