Tim Ferriss. Andrew "Drew" Kelly “If you have fears, you are simply human.” — Tim Ferriss

We all deal with fears in life that can leave us paralyzed to take action on our dreams or prevent us from achieving our definition of success.

Whether you have fears of asking someone out on a date, quitting a job, taking that vacation you’ve always promised yourself, asking for a promotion or starting your own company, learning how to “fear less” can help you take action on what you’ve always wanted to do.

I recently had the pleasure of interviewing Tim Ferriss about his new TV show, “Fearless with Tim Ferriss,” which premieres Tuesday, May 30th on the AT&T Audience Network.

Tim was inspired to bring this show to life because over the past decade he realized that “there are many hungry, driven people out there who are very smart, have goals that they've set and can achieve great things but for whatever reason haven't yet.”

From what he’s observed, it’s because they have an emergency brake that can be traced to a collection of fears. These fears are usually the by-product of an overactive imagination or failure to closely examine the spooky things lurking in the shadows.

Have you ever looked at someone achieving at the highest levels imaginable and thought to yourself, “What do they have that I don’t?”

Well, there’s a critical differentiator between people who do big things and those who don't. Tim explained that the core skill is the ability to examine and deconstruct your fears so you can separate the well-founded fears from the unfounded fears.

He believes that “there are many potential closet Elon Musks in the world who have tremendous capacity but haven’t exercised it because of fear.” However, if examined, they’d find those fears to be nonsensical.

For instance, on a scale of impact from 1 to 10, they would be losing out on a potential benefit that has a permanent positive impact of 8 to 10, because of their fear of something that has a temporary, reversible negative impact of 1 to 3.

Being “fearless” vs. learning to “fear less”

When it comes to approaching your fears to achieve success at the highest level, most advice out there tells you to “be fearless” in the sense of having no fear at all.

Well, Tim draws a clear distinction between being “fearless” and learning to “fear less”—defining fearlessness as “dangerous, uninformed confidence,” while advocating for fearing less through what he calls “fear-setting” and “fear-rehearsal,” which leads to “informed, risk mitigating confidence.”

Whether it’s quitting your job, ending a bad relationship or becoming the next Elon Musk, here’s how you can fear less to make the tough decisions you need to succeed on your own terms:

Fear-setting exercise to fear less

Before we dive into the exercise, it’s important to understand the relationship between fear and risk. Risk is the probability of an irreversible negative outcome — key emphasis on irreversible. Fear is the feeling you experience when assessing risk.

Our goal here is to examine and deconstruct your fears, making it easier to separate your well-founded fears from your unfounded ones so that you can take extremely calculated risks.

Step 1: Define the risk

Grab a piece of paper and turn it vertically. In the heading write down whatever risk you’re considering. For example, let's say you’re afraid of quitting your job to start your own business, you’d write, “Quitting my job to start my own business” in the page header.

Then divide the page into three columns by drawing two lines equal distance from each other in the center of the page.

Step 2: Define worst-case scenarios

In the first column, write down, in bullet points, all of the worst-case scenarios that could possibly happen if you acted on what you’re considering. For example, “I won’t be able to pay my rent and will have to move into my parents’ cold, moldy basement.”

Be sure to be specific! Write down as many negative outcomes imaginable—aim for volume.

Step 3: Minimize the risk

In the second column write down, respectively, what you could do to minimize the possibility of each negative outcome written in the first column. For example, “I will wait to quit my job until my business can sufficiently cover all of my basic expenses.”

Step 4: Plan for worst-case scenarios

In the third column write down all of the things that you could do to get back on track if each negative outcome happened. For example, “I could do entry level work within my current profession until I find a job doing what I do now.”

Step 5: Fear-rehearsal (extra credit!)

Lastly, you want to simulate your worst fears as a way to inoculate you from your fears. For example, spend a week sleeping in your parents’ basement to experience your fear first hand. More than likely you’ll come to realize that your worst-case scenarios aren’t nearly as bad as you thought they were.

Tim does some form of fear-setting or fear-rehearsal every quarter and attributes it to all of his biggest successes or biggest disasters. Most of the people he admires actively teach themselves how to fear less, so I wasn’t surprised that a high percentage of people he interviews on the show rely on some aspect of stoic philosophy to deal with fear.

As an entrepreneur, author and speaker, Noelle Bloom takes a stand for success without sacrifice. She's the founder of Live the Fabulous™, a new way of sustainable living for thought leaders, founders, CEO's, entrepreneurs and business owners while making a difference in the world. She helps high-achieving entrepreneurs take back control of their lives so that they can achieve sustainable success, genuine fulfillment and lasting happiness.