If you are goal setting, you may want to start with identifying your fears. Tim Ferriss says that our fears are often the barrier to our achieving our goals and that until we find a way to face those fears, we risk inaction and even self-paralysis. He makes the case that the hard choices — what we most fear doing, asking, saying — are very often exactly what we most need to do. After his own near suicide, Tim came to the realization that he had to find a way to cope with his own fears. In this 13-minute TED Talk, he talks about his own journey and the system that he found for dealing with his fears in the hope that it might help others. He shares a simple but powerful exercise he calls “fear-setting.” Much of his approach is rooted in stoicism, citing Seneca’s famous quote that “We suffer more often in imagination then in reality.” If you’ve ever experienced inertia due to fears, whether in your work day or in any aspect of your life, this might be a useful tool.
For the transcript, reading list, and comments, visit his TED page.