The key ideas

Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway

Susan Jeffers, 1987

Why doesn't fear go away, however long you wait for the right moment? Susan Jeffers shows that underneath very different fears lies one thought: "I can't handle it." You'll learn five truths about fear, how to make decisions you can't lose, and how to build a life where fear no longer decides for you.

Who it is for

For anyone who keeps putting off an important step until the fear goes away. And for anyone tired of the quiet, constant worry: "what if I can't cope?"

If you knew you could handle anything that came your way, what would you possibly have to fear?

The book nobody wanted to print

When Susan Jeffers sent her manuscript to publishers, they turned it down one after another. The most hurtful letter, in her own words, went like this: even if Lady Di, that is Princess Diana, rode naked down the street on a bicycle handing out this book, nobody would read it. The book came out anyway, in 1987, and became a worldwide bestseller.

Jeffers didn't learn about fear from textbooks. She lived with it for a long time herself, and she writes about how it held her life back. As a young woman she left her studies to get married. After her divorce she went back to them, and Columbia University gave her a doctorate in psychology. In 1971 she became head of a New York organisation called the Floating Hospital, and later she taught a course on fear at the New School for Social Research.

The main idea of the book sounds unusual. You don't have to defeat fear before you act. It will come back again and again, as long as you keep trying new things. What changes is something else: under every fear hides one simple sentence, and that sentence can be replaced.

You'll learn the three levels on which fear lives, and the five truths about it that Jeffers thought mattered most. You'll learn how to make decisions you can't lose, and why a life that rests on a single support is the most frightening of all. And you'll learn how to talk to yourself so that fear shrinks instead of growing.

Fear of speaking in public is only a front

Picture Timur. He's scared to answer an ad for his dream job. He's scared to ask out the woman from the next department. He's scared to show his boss his project. It looks like three different fears. Jeffers would suggest looking deeper.

In her scheme there are three levels of fear. The first is surface fears. Some of them are about things that happen to us: getting old, falling ill, losing a job, being alone. Others are about things we have to do ourselves: change careers, speak in public, end a relationship.

The second level is fears about yourself. That means fear of rejection, failure or disapproval, and fear of making a fool of yourself or of being helpless. They aren't about the situation. They're about how you'll feel and how you'll see yourself.

This is where the trap hides. A second-level fear spreads through your whole life. Timur isn't afraid of the call, the date or the project. He's afraid of hearing "no". So he'll steer around any situation where a "no" is possible. Taking each fear apart on its own does little good until you see that they share a root. And Jeffers asks you to go down one more level.

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About the author

Susan Jeffers (1938–2012) was an American psychologist with a doctorate in psychology from Columbia University, and the author of eighteen books on fear, confidence and relationships. She taught a course on fear at the New School for Social Research in New York.

All books by this author: Susan Jeffers

Terms from the book

  • Affirmation
  • Columbia University
  • Princess Diana: Diana Spencer (1961–1997), Princess of Wales, the first wife of Britain's Prince Charles. In the 1980s she was one of the most famous women in the world.
  • Floating Hospital: A New York charity that since the nineteenth century has given medical care to children and families from poor neighbourhoods. For a long time it worked on ships, hence the name.
  • New School for Social Research: A university in New York founded in 1919. Today it is simply called The New School.
  • Three levels of fear: Jeffers's own scheme, not a scientific classification: surface fears, fears about yourself, and the deep thought "I can't handle it."
  • Pain-to-power scale: An exercise from the book: a line with helplessness and paralysis at one end, and choice, energy and action at the other. You mark on it where you are right now.
  • Chatterbox: An image from the book, not a scientific term: the inner voice that frightens you, criticises you and predicts failure.
  • Higher Self: An image from the book: the part of a person where, according to Jeffers, joy, creativity, love, peace and strength come from.
  • No-Lose Model: Jeffers's approach to decisions: either path counts as right, because each one brings experience and a chance to learn.
  • Whole Life Grid: An exercise from the book: a square of nine boxes, each holding one important part of life, so that life doesn't rest on a single support.

All terms

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