Why you need to define your fears and not your goals: A case study of Tim Farris TED talk

My days lately have been fraught with disappointment and depression. I think I have gotten to that point in living where everything I see or someone does, pisses me off. I am at that point acquaintance becomes irritants.

The unfortunate victim of this mood are innocuous friends who come around only to get sting by the venom of my attitude.

When I face these demons, the only likely cause is that my fears have come knocking. It has come to make me a prey to the captive of my thoughts.

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Over time, I have learn not to write when I have gotten closed in to this mood. My words become raw, and most times ill spoken.

That is how it has always been until I came in contact with a Ted(Technology Entertainment Design) talk by Tim Farris. The title is; Why you should define your fears instead of your goals.

Funny enough I had seen this video before now, but didn't appreciate it much until today when my demons came visiting. I had to watch it as much as five more times to fully appreciate the knowledge the young man shared.

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In our experiences in life, I have come to realise that most of the things we Fear or think about ends up not coming into reality.

According to a quote by Seneca referenced by Tim

We suffer more in imagination than on reality.

Our imaginations has been our greatest enemies. It tells us why we ought not to take the very next step we want to. It gives us a thousand and one reason why we must fail in whatever venture we want to go into, thereby restricting you to inactivity.

Our mind questions our audacity and boldness. It dissects our weaknesses and find every ill about you on why you are not qualified to make a change or take a step.

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On Dreams

It is often said that if your dreams do not scare you, then it is not big enough. A dream mighty enough, is capable of putting one on depressant before one could get sleep.

Why this is so is because when you conceive this dream, all the anti-deterant towards its accomplishment would be triggered. It becomes a war between your strengths and weakness in the subconscious mind.

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This has been my very plight. However, I learnt something yesterday, hence, i made this post.

According to Tim Farris, why he got over the period of self destruction was when he understood the principles of setting his fears other than his goals. A principle he learnt from the Stoic philosophers.

Now what he did was to highlight his fears in three columns and headers, which he advised his listeners to do.

1. In the first column was what he called Define. Now what one has to do here was to list all the fears that stopped one from taking the very next step in that big dream or idea of yours.

2. In the second column was what he called Prevent. Now when these fears has been highlighted, list out the things you could do to prevent it from happening.

3. The third column is the Repair stage. That is, if you could not prevent that fears and it did came to pass, what could you do to repair them?

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Immediately he finished his analysis, I decided to try out these steps and apply it to myself. It made me feel an average better. I said an average better, because, i learnt pretty fast that some of these fears were well founded.

However, I made a step further to write down my goals too, and figure out the fears that would prevent its existence. They are divided into Joint and Personal goals, and of course some of these goals are short and long term too.

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Joint Goals

1.The project blue waves of Nigerian empowerment on Steemit. It focuses on community development and newbies mentor ship. It is already high and running.

2. Creation of a hub after the explosion of the Nigerian community in the platform within our local. The idea is to have a community identity and home to the budding writer and veterans in the platform. It will aid and foster effective and swift meet ups.

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Personal Goals

1. Become a branded name on the platform and explore the area of Taxation Law in cryptocurrency in various countries.

2. A good grade upon graduation and distinction in law school.

3. A novel by the end of my schooling journey, though not stated it yet. Still waiting for the perfect time. (I know, there is no perfect time.)

4. Success and comfort for family before leaving school, steemit gave me a green light.

5. Law practice at the highest level and retire a sound judge. These were goals before steemit.

Now that goal has been stated, let me go to my fear settings.

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I have already highlighted the principles that guides fear settings. They are;

Define

1. Fear of my temperament

Overtime I have known the person I am and become. My personality trait does not afford me to go the little extra. I love setting standards not based on what is the best but on what is better than the next person bar.

I could be careless with responsibilities and want to give up easily when things are not going my way, a behavior inherited from my father. I hate myself for it.

My nightmare here is the disappointment of myself.

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2. My studies.

I will be in my 4 year of my law studies in school. The year every predecessors I have known termed as the most dreaded. It could make or mar you in the faculty. Then I happen to have found Steemit.

Even more worse is that I happen to have run for an election into a leadership position in school which I won, which have created pending administrative duties.

Being a steemit blogger has not been in any word funny. I joined steemit in July but was inactive because of my semester exams until second week of August.

I am on holidays now and feel I have the time in the world, yet one would discover that one have yet not achieved anything on the platform.

One of my nightmare has been how to create a balance between Steemit, administrative duties and my studies when the need arises. This fear is seriously founded and rooted.

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3. Family

It happened that I am the first born of my family and as such the first son. The whole extended responsibilities have been a living horror to me.

I never want to disappoint them. Never want to compromise their trust.

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4. Steemit

I have feared that what if I invested so much in this platform and it happened not to live up to the expectations it poses?

What if I spent money in investment in steem, if I had it and it happened that the coin goes into extinction?

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Prevent

1. On the first fears, I decided to be more responsive to things and responsibilities. Take up leadership positions and throw myself out to the world, make mistakes and learn from them.

I decided to create personal standard for myself. One that I ought to complete and if I don't i punish myself for it.

2. I discovered that the best way to still maintain the attention of my studies and my blog is to channel my ideas into blogging about the things I study. That way, I am giving the two vocations the needed attention it deserved.

On administrative, I decided to give my studies and steemit a break when needed. It affords me the opportunity to concentrate and achieve better, without disappointment. A sound way to achieve this I thought is setting priorities and getting things meant to the day done without any form of procrastination.

3. I have to get involved with the world. Make connections, friends that would be of lasting benefit. I discovered that if I need prevent graduating from school a poor lawyer, I have to develop myself in other areas, such as skills, entrepreneurship and individually.

4. On the Steemit project.

I could decide not to run the project of bringing in newbies into the platform. I could decide not to invest any dime of my money in it.

I could decide that the best way to stay safe is to blog with my spare time, tell nobody about it and live a peaceful, happy ever after.

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Repair

If worst come to it, I have to retrace myself backwards. Seek counselling, and advise. Probably at the expense of things being too damaged, and me in dire need of damage control. However, the wrong must be set right.

I could fail a course, get carried away by the prospect of making money on Steemit and end up with carryovers in different subject. I could not graduate with my mate if I don't give my studies the full attention it deserved. But i could repair this damage by quitting Steemit for the time being and continue when I have set things right with studies.

I could end up graduating without the needed attention in the profession. I could not be able to live up to the expectations of family, friends and well- wishers. Thereby, killing the whole hope of great expectations imposed on me. I could repair this by getting a menial job to make ends meet. I will have to go through sweat and blood to make sure that those under my care are seen through school.

Steemit project could fail, immediately I decide to invest time and money in it. People I convinced to join will come back to hunt me and I become a social enemy.

The way I thought about repairing this was to also get counselling on how to carry on.

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Cost of Inaction

Now that I have known my fears and highlighted what I could do to prevent and repair it. What would be the result, if I decided not to take any positive steps towards the accomplishment of the goals because of these fears.

I will end up being a loser and one who constantly backed down from dreams. It will become a continuous dream chaser without realizing anyone.

I would be seen as not worthy of greater things because in have not been diligent enough to overcome my fears.

And when I eventually get to the psychological period in life of Integrity v Despair, the latter would be my lot.

And I will die a bitter old man with too much regrets. That is if I would get old.

So the question now is, which should I prefer? It is the fears that exist only in my mind or the result of inactivity that will exist in reality?

I will say that I fancy my chances with my fears to my inaction.

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If you have read till this point, I must say thank you. And here is a little exercise for you too.

Go back and do your own fear settings using the principle of

1. Stating your goals

2. Defining your fears

3. Preventing the fears

4. Repairing such fears if it did happen

5. The result if you failed to act because of the fears.

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THANKS FOR THE READ

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@camzy made the toons for me.

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Image source: pixabay