Fear-Setting: Tim Ferriss’ #1 Tool for Bold Decisions
The Cost of Delaying Your Dreams
We all fantasize about a European summer.
The kind where you lose track of time in a sunny café. Where you wander through side streets without a plan. Where your mind slows down long enough to hear your own thoughts again.
All too often, dreams never make it past the dreaming stage. We tell ourselves that we’ll go next year. That we’ll wait until we have more money. More time.
But the longer you wait, the heavier the lift. The responsibilities pile up. The window of possibility narrows. And if you wait too long, sure, you might still have the money.
But will you have the time? The energy? The health? You may have a mortgage, a growing family, or an even more demanding job. Your career might take off in ways that make it harder—not easier—to step away. You might become indispensable to the very machine that’s keeping you from the life you want. Tomorrow isn’t guaranteed. The fantasy we push off to “someday” becomes more expensive with every passing year—not just in dollars, but in opportunity costs.
If your dream summer trip is slowly slipping to next year, I’d like to invite you to try this exercise from one of my favorite people, Tim Ferriss.
Tim found himself in a similar trap back in 2004. He was burning out—fast. Exhausted, chemically dependent on stimulants to start the day and sedatives to end it, he was chained to a business that felt more like a prison than a project.
He wanted to take a month-long break in London to unplug and reassess. But the thought alone made his heart race.
What if my company collapses while I’m gone?
What if I get depressed?
What if I miss a letter from the IRS?
That’s when he stumbled across a quote from the Stoic philosopher Seneca that stopped him in his tracks:
“We suffer more often in imagination than in reality.” - Seneca
He realized something: the pain he was feeling wasn’t from what had actually happened—it was from the story he was telling himself about what might happen.
Rather than trying to power through the anxiety or drown it in distractions, he decided to work with it. He created a written exercise, not to define his goals, but to define his fears. He called it Fear-Setting.
Fear-Setting
We often talk about setting goals. But not nearly as much attention is directed towards the fear that gets in the way of achieving them.
Let’s walk through the exercise using the European Summer Trip.
Step 1: Define – Prevent – Repair
Start by writing down all of your fears associated with the topic. What am I afraid will go wrong if I do this? Tim recommends 10-20 items.
Then, list how you might prevent that fear from coming true, without bailing on the whole thing.
Finally, ask: If the thing I’m afraid of does happen, how could I repair the damage.
Here are the results from our example:
European Summer Trip
What if I get lonely and want to come home?
→ How can I prevent it?
Stay in co-living spaces or hostels. Plan social activities. Schedule weekly calls with friends and family.
→ How can I repair it if it happens?
Visit a friend in another city. Cut the trip short without guilt. Come home for a weekend and then go back.
What if I spend too much money and come home broke?
→ How can I prevent it?
Set a budget. Make modest accommodations. Favor affordable countries.
→ How can I repair it if it happens?
Take on freelance work. Reduce expenses temporarily upon coming home.
Suddenly, the fears seem a bit more manageable
Step 2: List the Potential Upsides
Even if you fail or only succeed partially, what benefits might you gain just from trying?
Here are the results from our example:
European Summer Trip
Create meaningful memories that help you grow into your future self
Discover more affordable ways to travel in the future
Return home with stories you can tell when you’re old and decrepit
Prove that you have autonomy in your own life!
You’re not trying to convince yourself it’ll all be perfect. You’re just giving weight to the positive possibilities that occur from simply taking the shot.
Step 3: The Cost of Inaction
When Tim ran this exercise, his fears around going to London began to lose their value. And the cost of not going became greater than the cost of going.
The choice was reframed. He wasn’t choosing between risk and safety.
He was choosing between known stagnation and potential growth.
Here are the results from our example:
European Summer Trip
(If I don’t take this trip, what will my life look like emotionally, physically, financially?)
6 Months - No new stories or memories; same routine; few thousand dollars richer
1 Year - New year, same feeling, but easier to ignore because were used to it
3 Years - New responsibilities, the trip becomes logistically harder; feelings of regret
50 Years - You look back and realize… that was the moment. And you let it pass.
Bonus Step!
Now that we’ve completed the Fear Setting exercise from Tim Ferriss, I want to take it one step further, with a simple exercise I did at the end of last year. It’s one I didn’t expect to have such an impact. It takes five, maybe ten minutes.
Write down your greatest fears.
Not spiders or public speaking.
The ones that would haunt you on your deathbed if left unaddressed.
Here are a few of mine:
On my deathbed, feeling like I didn’t give it my all
Not being able to retire—working until I die
Creating so many obligations that I no longer own my life—instead, my life owns me
The moment you write them down, you put things in perspective. The fear of getting lonely on your solo summer trip? Or spending a little too much money? Really not so bad.
What’s actually scary is never taking the trip!
Letting comfort, guilt, or timing run your life until one day you realize… you missed it.
Fear-setting gives you a strategy. The worst fears exercise gives you a compass.
Together, they help you live a life you’ll be proud to look back on.
Remember that right now you are the oldest you’ve ever been, and the youngest you’ll ever be.
(Did I just convince myself to take a trip to Europe?)
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Why you should define your fears instead of your goals | Tim Ferriss | TED