Define, Prevent, Repair: a practical path to turn anxiety, fear and worry into momentum.

What if worry stopped being a wall and became an action signal?  

Today we take on the everyday fears that stall big goals and break them down using a simple, repeatable framework that turns anxiety into momentum. Drawing from coaching work and the fear-setting method popularized by Tim Ferriss, we show how to move from vague dread to concrete action without pretending fear disappears.  

You’ll leave with a t3-step tool you can use today: define the fear, prevent what you can, repair when needed. Apply it to outreach anxiety, high-stakes presentations, career shifts, or relocations. When the worry voice shows up, you’ll have a script to answer it and a system to keep moving.  

If this helped, share it with someone who’s stuck on the edge of a decision, and subscribe to get more practical frameworks for growth. Your next brave step is one question away: what’s the worst that can happen?  

Transcript

Why Worry Blocks An Extraordinary Life

Coaching School Insight And Fear-Setting

Real-World Example: Outthink Anxiety

The 3-Part Fear-Setting Framework

Step One: Define The Worst Case

Step Two: Prevent With Preparation

Control Versus Letting Go

Step Three: Repair With Plan B

Confidence From Plan B And Closing

SPEAKER_00 0:09

Welcome to another episode of Change Wired Podcast. My name is Angela Sharina. I'm your host. I'm your partner in transformation in change, your executive coach 360, and just someone with a lot, a lot of passion for learning more about, using, unlocking more of our human potential. So together we could create the most extraordinary life and live the most fulfilling lives. And today, guys, uh, we're gonna talk about something that might stop you from living your biggest, your most extraordinary life very easily. Something that gets to all of us, and depending on how well we can manage it, well, depending on that, we either will live our biggest, most extraordinary life every day, or not. I'm talking about worries and fears. This week in uh the coaching school where I'm getting through another certification, we were talking about worries and worry rules and how to deal with worry, how to help our clients to deal with worry. And there was an exercise when we were put into Zoom breakout rooms, and we partnered up, and one person was a coach, the other person was a client, and we had to work through some exercises that we learned during this week. And in my room, I had a fighter who is uh thinking about and succeeding uh in making career in I think MMA, like I'm not big in fighting, and I decided to walk him through some of some of my most I don't know, admired and effective exercises that I actually learned from Tim Ferris. And if you don't know who Tim Ferris is, look him up, a great entrepreneur author, and just many things has quite a following. So I walked my partner in the coaching session through this exercise fear setting that I learned from Team. And to be honest, I'm yet to find anything more effective than that. And it's very simple. And what it allowed me to do, and what it allowed me to help, I don't know, hundreds of clients to what it helped with is to worry less, and not in a way that you eliminate worry completely, or you start caring less, or you become this disattached person, or you become this rock who just doesn't care. Not in that way, but we all will continue to worry, or worries will come to us, but learning to deal with them effectively so they don't stand in the way of us taking more action. That is the purpose of the exercise and learning how to deal with worries. So I walked him through this exercise, and I'm gonna walk you through this exercise as well. So you as well have the tool to deal with worry as often as it comes up, to the point that it it becomes kind of like this noise. Oh, you know, I I hear that, and sometimes uh there is something to address. Worry is a good signal. In my blog post that I wrote about this exercise, I uh wrote this phrase worry is a signal, not a stop sign. So it tells you not to stop, but to be perhaps aware that there are certain things that might need to be addressed in order for your journey to be smoother. Whereas a lot of people, and I was one of those people, uh, think that worry is something that should stop you in your tracks or keep you safe. No worry is there to give you an idea. Hey, you know, these things you might need to look into, like whether that's your healthy relationship, something about your business. If you want for the experience, maybe you're making a choice, maybe you are making a decision, maybe you're thinking about new, I don't know, business, new relationship, new new hobby, whatever that might be, or moving to another country. Worry is there to help you take care of certain things and make sure that negative outcomes are more or less likely to happen. So the exercise I'm gonna give to you right now, it's a set of questions that you walk yourself through every time you get some worry that just won't get out of your mind and it slows you down and it makes you less confident and it makes you doubt yourself, and very often it can even stop you from taking action in the first place. Like to give you a very grounded example. Let's say you are sitting at your computer and you're doing reach outs to either potential clients, or maybe you are about to ask your friends, your network to help you to find a certain connection or to deal with a problem in your business, and you're not sure, oh, you know what people are gonna think about me, what if they say no? And one of the simplest, most profound insights I got one day is using this question for that as well. Like, well, what's the worst that can happen? They will say no, and maybe someone will think that you're not as successful as you th thought that they thought you were, and so what? Get over your ego and ask yourself, does my ego or my results matter more? You know, I also love this phrase from Alex Hermozzi. Like, if you have no money or you are not where you want to be, have no shame. Because what do I have to lose? That somebody will think that you are not as successful, and that will be true. Very often in life we do so much to protect our ego, and by doing so, not doing the work that is needed to not getting our hands dirty to get the results. But anyhow, what can you help with? What can help you with any worry to stop you from taking action and to have less self-doubt, more confidence, and again just taking more action, and action is where progress leaves. So, fear setting exercise has three main parts. Now, there are a couple more parts, but that's more extended version that you can also find if you look up Fear Sitting by Tim Ferris. So, three simple things you do when you worry and the worry starts interfering with you taking effective action. Number one, define. Define your fear. I also love this phrase. I heard it from Leila Hermozzi. She's the wife of Alex Hermozzi, one of my favorite couple of entrepreneurs. Again, if you are living under a rock, then look them up. But other than that, fear is mile wide and an inch deep. Mile wide, inch deep. What it means is when you just worry and you don't define your fear exactly, your worry exactly, what happens is it becomes this like huge sea that you are so afraid to swim into because it just feels so vast. But then when you define that this the first step of fear-setting exercise, like what am I afraid of? And specifically ask yourself this question: what is the worst case scenario here? Okay, even like the worst case, something that I'm truly afraid of. Like, what is the worst case scenario? Spell it out, write it down. And more often than not, you will find, except like, you know, I'm afraid to die. Well, you are gonna die anytime at some point, right? And there are many things that can contribute to dying. So it's not really a very rational fear to hold on to, but even then, when you spell it out, you're like, and then we're gonna get to the next step. So, first is define what is the worst case scenario. Like a lot of times it's just, well, they're gonna say no, or it's not gonna work out, or it's not gonna be perfect, and so what? So define your fear, what it is you're truly afraid of, what is the worst case scenario that somewhere at the back of your mind keeps playing? Then the second is prevent. How do you how what can you put in place? What actions can you take to make sure that it's less likely to happen? Not that it's bulletproof, but what's in your zone of control that you can do to ensure that it's less likely to happen? Here is what I'm talking about. Let's say you are about to give a public talk, and it's the biggest thing that you've done so far, and you are afraid that you're gonna not do it well. Maybe you'll forget your speech, maybe the equipment not gonna work, maybe people won't like it. Here there is a second subpart to this prevent part. First of all, ask yourself what can I do to make this worst-case scenario that I fail less likely to happen. Do you need to practice more? Probably. Can you bring several uh options to access your presentations? Like when I go to an event, I send it to the organizer, I bring my computer, I put it on my hard drive, I send it to another friend to the email. So there is no way my presentation is gonna get lost. It is on my phone, it is everywhere, right? And I bring my laptop in case something happens with their equipment. And then also I do know my material. So even and that happened, even when my presentation doesn't work, I still can do all the things. Maybe even better without presentation when people fully pay attention to me, not to the presentation. So, what's the worst that can happen? That's the first define, and then prevent how what you can put in place, what can you do to make it less likely to happen? And very important again, part here is what is in your control. Like you dying at some point is not really in your control. That is gonna happen. So you might start thinking about how do I make peace with the fact. The same with this, my partner in the coaching room that I told you about at the beginning. There are things he is doing fighting, right? So yes, he can get hurt, and yes, certain he might get an injury that will not be 100% repairable. But if he made this choice to be a fighter, that is a possibility. Yes, prepare more, yes, do all kinds of I don't know, techniques to make it less likely to happen. Do your best, but then put it aside because there are certain things that you will never be able to control. But even you know, defining this fear, for example, this worry, what if I get injured to the point of no repair? Okay, that is a real fear with your set of choice. Well, what will you do then? And we and then we get into the third part of the exercise, which is repair. I'm gonna sip some water. Repair. Okay, the worst case scenario does happen. Well, unless it's dying, and then what are you gonna do then? Can you I don't know, let's say my presentation breaks when I give a public talk again, that happened. So if you know your material, you just keep on going. And just the fact that I played out in my mind and I'm prepared for this moment that something doesn't work, and I have a plan for it, makes it feel like it just detour. You know, it's like you try to drive along one road and then it doesn't work. Well, you do the detour, which you are as a driver always prepared of, sort of. And the same as your presentation doesn't work, well, you do it the other way around. And if you forget uh a piece of a sentence, have a set of questions to ask your audience while you are thinking about the next point, or maybe deciding what to where to take it next from the point where you stopped and forgot and into the logical conclusion or continuation. So, repair, what you're gonna do if you decide to move to another country and it doesn't work, like what's your plan for the repair? When I moved to Cape Town, I had a plan. If this thing doesn't work out, I'm gonna go home and recuperate and think about my plan forward. And that made moving to another country so much easier because then even if it doesn't work out, I had a plan B. And it's not like if it doesn't work out, well what? My life's gonna end. No, it's not gonna end. And when you have an option B, when you have the thing that you will do even when you fail, so many things go so much smoother. And you just stop worrying about that, and then you decide to act because hey, even if the worst case scenario happens and it's survivable, and you have a plan of action, then what's gonna stop you from taking that action? And again, the very important piece of this exercise is also distinguishing, making a separation between things that are in your control and things that are out of your control. And things that are out of your control, like something happens to people I love. Well, the certain things I can help with, but certain things are 100% out of my control. And then my area of mastery, of growth, of working on myself and my emotional regulation, isn't to try to do as many things as possible to try to control the uncontrollable, but instead making peace with that. It's like when parents make peace with that, their kids will choose their path, and this path might be dangerous, or this path might not be what they wanted. But that's what you sign up when you become a parent. You are giving birth to a being with their own autonomous desires and their path, and you won't be able to control a lot of things at all. And letting go of control is also a practice, and it's something that you need to work through internally, through different meditations, through journaling, through uh thinking about that. Like this is out of my control, and so the logical thing is to put it into some sort of metaphorical suitcase, suitcase, and put it down and learn how to direct your attention to things that you can actually control, where you can have take action, where you have some leverage, and where you can actually change, improve, grow things. That's about it, guys. Try it out. Just one big question. I guarantee you, even if you go with it and just ask one question, what's the worst that can happen? Even when you just spell out that fear, make it very, very clear instead of this abstract thing at the back of your mind. Make it very, very clear. And what you learn, what you'll find out, is that all of the monsters and worries and fears all of a sudden become this most of the time, it's just like, is that what I was afraid of? Is that what was stopping me from taking action? Like somebody saying no or thinking something potentially not that good for my ego? Is that what's stopping me from living my most extraordinary life? And very often you'll find your own fears are quite funny. Not always, but often. And then the hard decisions when you really worry that you know things can go wrong and unexpectedly turn south, then make sure that you have a plan in place, this repair stage that even when the worst happens, you have a plan of action and you're gonna survive and keep on living. So define, prevent, repair, right? Whenever you are uh about to make a decision and you can't decide or you worry about things, ask yourself, define what's my fear, what's the worst case scenario? Define it, write it down really clearly. Prevent what can I do to make it less likely to happen? What are actual steps and systems I can put in place? And then repair. Even if it does happen, what can I do to move forward? And even when just thinking through this repair phase, guys, just like with my presentation, when you have that plan B, that worst case scenario worked out, guess when it happens, you're actually gonna do that plan B without stress and worry. That is also a great stress management technique, by the way. Having a plan B, and so when the worst case scenario happens and everyone starts panicking, you're like, I have a plan, so let's do that. And you become this chill person who can navigate rough seas. Thank you guys for tuning in. Thank you for listening. Please do or do not do, but it would be really helpful if you share this podcast with some people who might need it, who worry unnecessarily, who are stopped in their tracks from living their most extraordinary life because they worry too much about the wrong things that they shouldn't worry about. Or if they should, they should just take action, put plan B in place and get on with action if it's really important, right? So please do share, review, rate, send it to your friend via WhatsApp or Instagram or whatever platform you are on. It will make a huge difference for the spread of this podcast to uh people who want to change, evolve, and create some positive impact in the world. And till next time, guys, thank you for learning, thank you for paying attention and keep growing.