“The fears we don’t face become our limits.” —Robin Sharma
We’ve all felt it.
That looming dread that keeps us awake at night, that shadowy “what if” that feels impossibly large.
Maybe it’s leaving a soul-crushing job, ending a relationship, starting a business, or having that difficult conversation you’ve been avoiding for months.
Here’s what I’ve learned:
The size of your fear is directly proportional to your distance from it.
The further away you stand, the bigger it appears.
But something almost magical happens when you turn toward it and start walking closer.
It shrinks.
Every time.
The Parable That Shows Us How
There’s a parable I love, widely told in storytelling circles and featured in Ashley Ramsden & Sue Hollingsworth’s The Storyteller’s Way.
Roger Elliott tells it particularly well:
The Villagers and the Shadow Giant
Once, a young travelling woman entered a village and immediately noticed how downcast, demoralized and afraid all the inhabitants seemed to be.
She was told by a trembling villager that each evening a terrible giant, revealed as a silhouette against the skyline, would come and terrorize them. He would stand seemingly a mile high and demand they make sacrifices to please him—and if they didn’t, there would be terrible consequences.
They were eager to fulfill his every demand.
But the girl was unafraid.
That evening as twilight approached, rather than hurry to hide, she waited for the giant’s shadow to appear.
Suddenly there it was, towering and booming, threatening and demanding. The girl now did something that astonished the villagers.
Rather than cower with the rest of them, she began to walk toward the shadowy menace. And as she did so, a strange thing happened.
The closer she got, the smaller the giant became.
Eventually, as she drew near, she was the giant compared to it. She picked up the former “giant” in her hand.
“What is your name, O creature that shrinks as I approach you?” asked the young woman.
The now tiny former giant replied: “My name is… Fear.”
And with that, it disappeared, freeing the villagers from their misery.
Why Fear Actually Shrinks When You Face It
This isn’t just poetic metaphor—it’s psychological reality.
Here’s why your fears literally shrink when you approach them:
1. Fear Feeds on Vagueness When something stays undefined, your brain fills in the blanks with worst-case scenarios. It’s evolutionary—better to imagine a shadow is a tiger than assume it’s harmless. But when you look directly at fear, you force it to become specific. And specific fears are always smaller than vague dread.
2. Distance Creates Distortion Think about looking at your hand held at arm’s length versus right in front of your face. Distance doesn’t just make things look bigger—it makes them look scarier because you can’t see the details. You can’t assess what’s actually dangerous versus what’s just shadow.
3. Your Brain Can’t Maintain Panic When You’re Planning Here’s the neuroscience: When you approach fear analytically—examining it, planning for it—you activate your prefrontal cortex (executive function) which literally dampens your amygdala (fear center). You can’t be simultaneously terrified and strategic.
4. Action Reveals Reality Fear thrives on “What if?” but dies on “What is.” The moment you take even one step toward what scares you, you get real data. And reality, even when difficult, is always more manageable than what we imagine.
5. You Discover You’re More Capable Than the Fear Assumed Every fear contains a hidden insult: “You can’t handle this.” But when you walk toward it, you prove otherwise. The girl in the story didn’t just shrink the giant—she revealed her own power.
Tim Ferriss’s Fear-Setting: A Modern Tool for Shrinking Your Giants
This ancient wisdom that fear shrinks when you approach it is something you can use to face your fears with skill.
Tim Ferriss turned it into a practical tool he calls “fear-setting” (instead of goal-setting), which he credits with every major breakthrough in his life.
The process is beautifully simple: instead of avoiding what scares you, you walk directly toward it with pen and paper:
1. Define Your Fear Clearly Write down exactly what you’re afraid of. What decision are you avoiding? What change terrifies you? Like the girl approaching the giant, you’re already making it smaller by naming it.
2. List the Worst-Case Scenarios What specifically could go wrong? List 10-20 terrible outcomes. Rate each from 1-10 on likelihood and impact. You’ll notice something interesting—most catastrophes you imagine are either unlikely or reversible.
3. Plan Your Prevention and Repair For each scenario, write:
- How could I prevent this?
- If it happened, how could I repair it?
Suddenly, your shadow giant has shrunk to manageable size.
4. Define the Cost of Inaction Here’s what the villagers never considered: What’s the cost—emotionally, physically, financially—of NOT facing this fear? In 6 months? A year? 3 years? Often, the cost of surrendering to fear is far greater than the risk of facing it.
5. List the Benefits of Action What could you gain by walking toward this giant? New skills? Freedom? Confidence? Rate these from 1-10 in terms of impact on your life.
Try This Now: Your 5-Minute Fear-Setting
Grab a piece of paper. Write down one fear that’s been looming large lately. Then quickly answer:
- What’s the absolute worst that could happen? (Be specific)
- How likely is that really? (1-10)
- Could you recover if it did happen?
- What’s it costing you to NOT face this?
Notice how it’s already getting smaller?
The Magic of Approach
Just like in the parable, the very act of walking toward your fear—of examining it closely rather than seeing it as a looming shadow—transforms it.
What seemed like a mile-high giant becomes something you can hold in your hand and, ultimately, release.
Ferriss used this exact process before leaving his soul-crushing job, starting his first business, and taking his first “mini-retirement.”
Each time, the giant shrank.
Walk Toward Your Giant
Your biggest fears maintain their power through distance and darkness.
Bring them close, shine a light on them through careful analysis, and watch them shrink to their actual size—usually something far smaller than the shadow they cast.
The villagers could have been free all along. They just needed someone to show them that walking toward the giant was an option.
What giant will you walk toward today?
Share this with someone whose giant is keeping them small.
Resources to Help You Face Your Giants
Start with Tim Ferriss’s complete fear-setting exercise in The 4-Hour Workweek—it’s where this technique originated. (Or grab his free template Fear Setting: The Most Valuable Tool I Use Every Month to try it right now.)
I also recommend The Tools by Stutz and Michels. Their “Reversal of Desire” technique is like fear-setting’s cousin—instead of analyzing fear, you learn to move through it energetically. Both approaches work brilliantly together.
Want more structure? The Fear Boss Project Workbook by Judi Holler gives you a full guided journey.
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