In Calm Mind, Healthy Body, I discussed in detail the power of taking control of your mind and learning to change the way you think about different situations and events. our experience is really something that happens within more than without – and our happiness, focus and more is all dependent on the way we interpret and react to events rather than those events themselves.

Using the power to meditate and journal to overcome stress is awesome but it doesn’t end there! In fact, there are countless ways you can change your mind for the better. This blog will serve as your ‘quick guide’ to help you learn more!

‘Fear Setting’

Fear setting is a concept that comes from author Tim Ferriss .

Essentially, fear setting is like goal setting – except you’re writing down your fears instead of your goals. These are the fears specifically that are holding you back from particular goals. So if your goal is to launch your own business, your fears might be:

• What if I’m not successful and I get into debt?
• What if I can’t support my family?
• What if my family think I’m reckless and leave me?
• What if I can’t get back my old job?
• What if it blows up in my face and everyone laughs at me?
• What if I hate it?

That’s step one.

Step two is to write down how likely each of those fears are to become reality and to write down the contingency plans in each scenario – what would you do if that did happen?

Essentially, this is just the same as using cognitive restructuring via ‘thought challenging’ but it’s in a more structure manner. So now you might write:

• What if I’m not successful and I get into debt? – Possible – I can live off savings/look for my old job

 

• What if I can’t support my family? – Unlikely – We can make do off of one salary/I can ask my parents for help/I can get another job

 

• What if my family think I’m reckless and leave me? – Very unlikely – If it did happen, I should question the loyalty of my family

 

• What if I can’t get back my old job? – Fairly Unlikely – But there are many other jobs I could do. Even if it means working in a supermarket for a while.

 

• What if it blows up in my face and everyone laughs at me? – Unlikely – I will just say at least I tried’

 

What if I hate it? – Unlikely – I just change my job back

Suddenly, you’ve exposed your fears as being not worthy of your consideration. Now you know what you’ll do if you do find yourself in those scenarios and you generally have robbed your concerns of the power they might have previously had over you.

Tim Ferriss takes this technique one step further too by recommending that you write down the opposite fear. What’s the opposite fear in this case?

It’s:

• Staying in the same job forever and never accomplishing my dreams – Likely which is actually more terrifying? As you can see, it doesn’t just apply to every day concerns and phobias
• It can even be used to change your motivations and your goals and to help you chase after your dreams!

Mind calming is extremely effective in helping you to overcome crippling fear and achieve success in your life. Would you be using this technique.