From Goal Setting to Fear Setting. How to Confront Your Fears and Move past Your Worst Case Scenarios. Personal Development for Introverts.

Does thinking about 2026 make you feel excited… or a little anxious? Then let's talk about Fear Setting.

If you’re walking into the new year with big dreams and big doubts, you’re in good company. In this episode, I share a powerful mental and emotional exercise called fear setting, popularized by author and entrepreneur Tim Ferriss, that has helped me face my fears with more clarity and confidence.

Unlike goal setting, fear setting asks you to define exactly what you’re afraid of, explore ways to reduce or prevent those fears, and consider how you’d recover if the worst did happen. It sounds intense, but it’s a surprisingly freeing process that can help you move forward instead of staying stuck.

I walk you through the three key parts of fear setting using a personal example — my journey to cotinue building Podground as we move into the new year. This simple exercise helped me name what I was afraid of (from rejection to the fear of success), and then take small, intentional steps forward with faith and focus.

Whether you’re considering a job change, a creative project, or just feel pulled toward something new — this episode will help you get clear on what’s stopping you, and why it doesn’t have to.

This episode is for you if:

• You want to do something big or new in 2026 but feel afraid
• You feel overwhelmed by your own expectations
• You’ve been stuck in overthinking and are ready for clarity
• You want a faith-based approach to bold, wise decision-making

 What You’ll Learn:

• What fear setting is, and how Tim Ferriss used it to make bold life decisions
• A 3-part fear setting framework: Define, Prevent, and Repair
• How to consider both the benefits of action and the cost of inaction
• A real-life example of how I used fear setting to step into growth
• A reminder that God can be trusted with your future and your fears
  
  

Scripture Mentioned:
 Proverbs 3:5-6
 "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight."

📌 Resources Mentioned:

• The 4-Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss
• Fear Setting Worksheet - here

Thanks for being here! If you'd like to support the show, please visit buymeacoffee.com/remiroy to give a one-time or monthly gift. 

And if you can’t give financially right now? A rating, a review, or simply sharing the show with a friend goes such a long way.

Thank you for being here. I see you. I appreciate you.

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hi, Brian. Happy New Year again. I truly hope you've started the year off on a strong note. I hope you're feeling energized and hopeful. I hope you know without a shadow of a doubt that there's a way out. No matter how much 2025 did meet your expectations. I hope your belief is strong in the fact that whatever you set your mind to do in 2026 is possible. If you put in the right effort and apply wisdom, no matter how hard things have been, in the past, it can work for you right now. Into this episode, I want to invite you to do something you may never have done before, and that is to name your fears about this new year, your fears about your goals, your dreams, your family, whatever it is. Name those fears and get acquainted with them. It sounds a little counterintuitive, right? And don't worry, we're going to talk about it. I also want to share a few of my own plans for 2026 and invite you to reflect on yours. Now I get it. This time of year can feel overwhelming, especially if you are an intentional person. It's kind of like that saying, ignorance is bliss. If you're just existing, you're just coasting through life, you might feel fine. But when you truly want your life to matter, when you want to make your time count, the awareness, it can feel like a heavy weight on you. So from one intentional human to another, let's just take a deep breath, a collective breath. Let's lean into calm, away from chaos. All will be well by God's grace. Okay? Agreed? All right, let's get into it. You're listening to the Driven Introvert Podcast, the place to be for dreamers, doers, and entrepreneurs who are ready to birth the dreams, callings, and ideas the Lord has placed in their hearts. Do you sense that God is calling you to step out and do something new, but you're held back by fear and uncertainty? Do you struggle with believing that you can do great things because of your quiet, reserved, and introverted nature? Welcome here. I'm Remy Roy, your host and founder of ShePact.com. I'm an author, an entrepreneur, a creative, and a committed trier. I'm here to help you get on stock and make progress on your God idea. Let's go. Okay, one big thing I've been doing for a while now is called fear setting. If you've never heard of it, think of it like goal setting. But instead of simply listing your goals, you're examining the fears that are showing up around your next steps. You're not ignoring them, you're actively naming them, looking at them closely, and getting curious about what they're trying to tell you. I came across this concept in the four-hour work week by Tim Ferretts, it's a book a couple of years ago. It's a great book. I highly recommend it. If you read it with an open mind, you'll get a lot from it. If you don't believe in possibility, you might just think he's blowing smoke, right? But if you believe in possibility like I do, there's a lot to gain. So the idea behind Fear Session is this whenever you're stepping into a new season, a big decision, a new level of growth, and you feel hesitant or unsure, instead of pushing the fear away, define it, sit with it and think through it. Now I know it sounds kind of wild because we often think that focusing on our fears will make them even bigger, like why would I pay attention to my fears? But most of the time, you have to understand our fears are exaggerated. They're not rooted in reality. And even the worst thing, when it does happen, the outcome is rarely fatal or irreversible. So we blow things out of proportion in our minds when we're afraid. So this is how fear setting works. Number one is you list everything you fear about taking this particular step. Number two, you prevent. You think through ways you can reduce the chances of those things happening. And number three, you repair. You write down how you'd recover if the worst happened. I'll go through that again. Three steps to fear setting. Define, prevent, repair. Number one, define. List everything you fear about taking this new step. Number two, prevent. Think through ways you can reduce the chances of those things actually happening, like everything you fear about taking that step. What ways can you reduce the chances of those things happening? And number three, repair. Write down how you would recover if the worst actually happened. Here's how I've used this personality. When I was contemplating my next step with my company, I had a lot of fears, naturally. I knew that it would be a great opportunity to do something really involved and exciting. But I also knew it was complex. I didn't have a lot of experience and it required more than I'll ever do, more than I've ever done before. So I realized that I was holding back. Every time I thought about it, I had mixed feelings. But I've learned that mixed feelings are actually a good thing. You can lean into it, you can figure out what exactly you're feeling and why. So when I read about fear setting, I thought, oh yes, I want to do this. So I wrote down all the fears I had. You know, fear of rejection, what if no one wanted it? What if I built it and no one wanted it? Fear of looking foolish, fear that I might fumble or mess things up, fear that maybe I'll even succeed, and then I'll have to stretch myself even more to accommodate all the extra work and responsibility that this thing would bring into my life. So fear of success essentially. So I defined those fears, and then I worked out ways to prevent those worst case scenarios and how I would bounce back if it actually happened. Right? So for example, fear of rejection. What if no one wants it? Well, how can I make sure that people actually want this? How can I be sure that they want this before I go ahead and do it? Fear of looking foolish. What makes me look foolish? If I'm not prepared, if I don't know what I'm talking about, so how can I prevent that? By preparing, by learning, by connecting with people who know what they're doing and learning from them. Right? What if I fumble and mess things up? It's the same thing. Have I prepared? Have I practiced? And that always helps me out. You know, have I practiced what I'm gonna do? Have I talked to people, learned what they need, how to see how to make it work? Right? So these are all the things that I can do to prevent the worst case from happening. Right? So I wrote down a couple of pages actually of these scenarios and how I might react and respond to them if they did happen. It was not an easy exercise, but it was worth it. One day I will share those things on the podcast here. So I want to challenge you to do this exercise. You think that focusing on your fears would demoralize you, but it actually empowers you. It brings clarity. It's like turning on the light in a dark room. You realize the monster under the bed isn't real, or at least not as scary as you thought. Maybe it's just a stuffed animal or something. So here's a practical example. Let's say you really want financial security in 2026 and you know that maybe starting something on this side is the next step. You don't want to quit your job right now, but you want to do something else. But you are overwhelmed by the decision, which is natural. Try fear setting. List every fear. What could go wrong? Well, maybe I try and I put all my effort into this thing and it doesn't work. Then ask, how can I prevent it? How can I prevent that from happening? Maybe before I leap, I learn as much as I can, I examine it as realistically as possible, but also giving room for wonder and hope and possibilities. That way I'm doing everything to give myself as much room to succeed as possible. And if it still happens and I fail, then what happens? Well, for me, I'll cry if I have to. Then I'll pick myself up, and worst case I'll go back to my regular job, or best case I try again, with more experience under my belt. Right? I think when you begin to examine decisions this way, you feel more confident, more energized about going after them. Instead of letting the fear just cloud your mind, you don't know why you're afraid. You don't know what you can do about it, but it just keeps you stuck. Don't do that. So you do all of this and then you ask yourself, what are the potential benefits of actually taking action? So here we're talked about the fears, the thing that's good the things that could go wrong. Well, what could actually go right? What if things do go right? What if you start that thing and yes, it requires a lot of work, but it opens doors, connections, more income, a wider network, more peace, more possibilities. Write that stuff down too. Right? And finally, this is a big one. What are the consequences of inaction? So you've thought about the fears, you've thought about what could go wrong. What if you didn't do anything? If you do nothing, where will you be in a year, five years? Chances are you still be stuck in that same place. Same feelings, same fears. That's what makes fear certain so powerful. It helps you move forward. When you it's like shining a light in the dark, like I said, now you know what's there. You can take your step more confidently. There is consequence to inaction because inaction is a choice too. I want you to do this, really lean into it. I'm doing it now for all the major decisions I'm considering. Most of them are career related. So that's for your setting. There's actually a workbook that walks you through the process. I'll leave a link in the show notes. I really hope you do it. I hope you lean into it. Be bold, be courageous. Whatever God has placed on your heart for 2026, pursue it with intention. Intention. I love this um verse in Proverbs 3, verses 5 to 6. It says, Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways submit to him and he will make your path straight. Above all else, trust God. He knows what he's doing. All right. That's fear setting for you. Here's your practical thought for the introvert. If you are shy, unsure, overwhelmed, you don't know where your life is going, you don't know if your decisions are working, you don't know if the path that you have chosen is actually your own. There's a tendency for you as an introvert to let your mind go to scary places and unhelpful places. This is one of the things that happens a lot to introverts. If we're not careful, we can spiral. The thoughts can just keep coming and coming in waves and you spiral. Resist the urge. Stay within the boundaries of empowerment. When you fear set, don't stay too long in considering everything that might go wrong. Move on to the next step. What if it does go right? The goal is to examine all three questions. It goes wrong, it goes right. What if I do nothing? Right? Focus on what can happen if things absolutely went right. Lean into hope. Believe that there's more ahead of you than there is behind you, because it's true. All right. I'm wishing you all the best for 2026. Make sure you do the fear setting exercise. And if you want to reach out to me and kind of talk it through with me, let me know. Send me an email at thedrivenintrovert at sheepack.com. I'm rooting for you. In the next episode, we're going to jump back into a decision-making series. Because trust me, a new year comes with the need to make choices that would determine the course of that year. So we're going to talk about that. Thank you so much for joining me on this one, and uh, I'll see you in the next one. Bye. Thank you so much for listening. If you enjoy this conversation, please take a moment to follow or subscribe to the podcast. I'd also love your feedback on this episode. You can scroll down on your app and click write a review. I'd love to read your takeaways from this conversation. As always, don't forget to take courage, trust God, and go pursue your big ideas. See you next time. The Dream Introvert is produced by ShePack.com and Remy Roy. Want to ask a question or share a comment on a future episode? Click on the link in the show notes to record your question in a voicemail.