 Fearsetting Fearsetting starts by listing the fears associated with the situation or a potential course of action Just getting them out of your head and on to paper This is often an eye-opening step because the longer things stay in your head the more they tend to appear inflated and dramatic But so often the first response people have to this first step is oh There aren't that many fears actually Then for each of the fears you've listed try and think of some way that you can reduce it Repair it and reframe it For example, if I'm worried about taking ownership of a decision that normally gets escalated to management Then I'd start by listing the specific consequences that I'm worried about as a result of taking this action I might for example be concerned that management feel undermined and will thus make my life difficult I may be worried that I'll get sacked or make a mistake that causes problems for the users Taking each of these concerns in turn I'd attempt to identify ways to reduce either the chances of that concern becoming a reality or the scale of its impact Then ways I could repair the situation. Should it become a reality? before finally taking an alternative perspective and reframing it as a potential benefit The first benefit of fear setting is that most teams find very few specific concerns when they try to list them Just getting the fear out of their heads and onto paper often clarifies how much the fear has escalated in their minds Then by creating a prevention plan and a recovery plan They feel much more comfortable tackling the fear before considering how even failure could be beneficial to them