What do you fear most in your profession? In the realm of personal and professional growth, it's often the tasks we fear the most that hold the key to our advancement. In this episode, Dr. Walker emphasizes the importance of confronting our fears to unlock our potential via “fear setting,” a term coined by Tim Ferriss. Whether it's making that daunting phone call or initiating a difficult conversation, facing the unknown is a crucial step towards achieving our goals–and fear setting is how we can inch one step closer to them.
TCCBB #71 Breaking Through Barriers with Fear Setting for Counselors
Ditching New Year's Resolutions for a More Effective Approach
As we move beyond the initial enthusiasm of New Year's resolutions (it's not January anymore, folks), I'd like to suggest a shift towards a more sustainable plan for personal and professional growth.
What I mean by this is that it's time to let the goals go if you aren't working towards them! The all-or-nothing approach to New Year's Resolutions makes us automatically assume that if you skip a day or get out of the habit of your goals, you've already failed–time to give up!
This is where Tim Ferriss's concept of “fear setting,” comes in. Fear setting, which borrows from the more widely-used term “goal setting,” challenges the traditional approach to goal setting by focusing on confronting fears rather than avoiding them. Most people inherently run from strategies like fear setting, but what if we settled into them in order to better reach our goals?
The Power of Fear Setting
So what IS fear setting? Fear setting is about identifying the things that scare us the most and devising a plan to face them. This approach not only helps us overcome our fears but also propels us towards achieving our most ambitious goals.
For example, in his TED Talk, Ferriss illustrates how a sabbatical can be a really generative space for burned-out business owners. But how do you get to a place where you can actually take a sabbatical? Who will answer the phone calls, answer support tickets, etc etc? This really resonated with me as someone who has a lot of support tickets to answer!
For me to be able to answer the question, “can I take a sabbatical,” I had to ask myself the following question: can the people who support my business effectively support the business while I'm gone? The answer is, ultimately, “yes!” While some things may go amiss, I can be away from my business for a stretch of time. The entire tree will not fall while I'm gone. Some branches may fall, but we can fix that.
But will the whole tree die? Probably not. This is called calculated risk, and for most people, taking a break to discourage burnout is less of a risk than staying in a situation where burnout is inevitable.
Steps for Effective Fear Setting
Let's talk now about how to actually practice fear setting. Ferriss's blog post breaks down the fear setting process into actionable steps, guiding readers through identifying their deepest fears, assessing the worst-case scenarios, and developing strategies to mitigate potential setbacks. This structured approach encourages readers to tackle their fears head-on and embrace the opportunities that come with stepping out of their comfort zones.
Take a moment and ask yourself the following questions written by Tim Ferriss in relation to a road block you are having (my road block was not stepping away from my business to care for myself).
- Define Your Nightmare. What is the absolute worst thing that could happen if __________?
- What steps could you take to repair the damage? Think about how much repair work you would have to do if things seriously went off track. What would that look like?
- What are the outcomes or benefits, both temporary and permanent, of more probable scenarios? Could anything beneficial happen from you taking this step? Would you feel a ton better if this thing was simply off your plate?
- If you were fired from your job today, what would you do to get things under financial control? If you quit your job in order to test out other career options, just how bad could things get?
- What are you putting off out of fear? Unfortunately, “what we fear the most is usually what we most need to do” (Ferriss).
- What is it costing you–financially, emotionally, and physically–to postpone action? If you don't pursue this action, where will you be in one year or five or ten?
Transformative Outcomes
It might seem counterintuitive to say that there definitely ARE positive outcomes of adopting a fear-based approach to goal setting, but I am here to beg you to consider how confronting your fears can lead to significant personal and professional growth.
When you choose to take a calculated risk, you choose to assume that some positivity can come from just “eating the frog.” This kind of facing your fears builds the kind of resilience that can only come from facing and overcoming challenges.
Conclusion: YOUR Action Items
- How will YOU apply the principles of fear setting in your own life?
- How will you encourage others to do the same?
Remember that by shifting focus from traditional resolutions to tackling the underlying fears that hold us back, we can all unlock new levels of success and fulfillment. We can kick resolutions to the curb by getting our practices into a space where we are changing the world!