Fear Audit

Fear Audit takes the fear that is stalling a decision and makes it specific. For each fear, you define exactly what you're afraid of, then the worst realistic outcome, then what you would do to prevent it, then how would you repair it if it happened anyway, and finally, what avoiding the decision costs you in three months, or a year, or even three years' time. The last set of questions is usually the one that moves people forwards. Tim Ferriss popularised this as fear-setting, and he's open about where it came from: the Stoic practice of premeditatio malorum, rehearsing misfortune in advance, written about by Seneca in the first century. Fear does most of its damage while it's vague. Undefined, it stays enormous and permanent. Written down as a specific event, with a prevention plan and a repair plan beside it, it usually turns out to be survivable, often reversible, and smaller than the cost of another year of deciding to do nothing about it. Be concrete. For example, 'it will go wrong' is not a fear, it's just a vague fog. Whereas 'I will spend £6,000 and have nothing to show for it' is something that you can actually plan around. Use it before a decision you've been circling for months. Just one sitting of 40 minutes or so, and you will usually know.