Fear ladder examples: five ladders you can adapt

How to read these examples

Every step below ends with a number in brackets. That number is one imaginary person's guess at how anxious the step would make them, from 0 (calm) to 100 (the most anxious they can imagine). They are illustrations, not targets, and nobody's ratings are quite the same.

Your ratings will differ, and that is expected. Something that scores 30 for one person might score 70 for another. What matters is the shape: a good ladder has small gaps between steps, so that each one feels like a stretch you can manage rather than a leap you dread.

Social anxiety: speaking up in a meeting

This ladder starts with the smallest possible moment of being noticed at work and builds toward speaking to a whole group. Each step adds a little more attention from other people, which is the thing the person fears most.

• Say good morning to a colleague you pass in the corridor (20)
• Ask a coworker a short work question in person (30)
• Say one sentence in a small team chat at your desk (40)
• Share an opinion in a meeting of three or four people (50)
• Ask a question in a meeting of ten (60)
• Disagree politely with a point in a meeting (75)
• Give a two-minute update to the whole team (85)

Health anxiety: cutting back on body checks

This ladder is about delaying and then dropping repeated body checks, such as feeling for a lump or taking your pulse. Each step asks the person to sit with the uncertainty for a little longer before, or instead of, checking.

One point matters here: agree with your doctor which symptoms do need a check, so that you are cutting back on repeated, anxious checking and not on sensible care.

• Delay a check by 10 minutes and do something else (25)
• Delay a check by 30 minutes (35)
• Check once instead of three times in a row (45)
• Go a whole morning without checking (55)
• Skip a symptom search online when the urge comes (65)
• Go an afternoon without checking (70)
• Go a full day without checking (85)

Panic: riding the bus again

This ladder rebuilds a routine that panic made feel unsafe. It starts outside the situation and moves in gradually, with the person staying on each step long enough to notice that the feared outcome does not happen.

• Look at the bus route and timetable (20)
• Walk to the bus stop and stand there for five minutes (30)
• Ride one stop in a quiet carriage with a friend (40)
• Ride two stops on a quiet bus alone (50)
• Ride for ten minutes at a quiet time (60)
• Ride for 20 minutes during the day (70)
• Ride for 30 minutes at a busy time (85)

Driving: getting back behind the wheel

This ladder suits someone who has avoided driving after a scare, or simply from lack of practice. It begins with sitting in the car and ends with a stretch of highway alone, and each step changes just one thing at a time.

• Sit in the parked car with the engine on for five minutes (20)
• Drive around an empty parking lot (30)
• Drive two quiet streets with a passenger (40)
• Drive the same streets alone (50)
• Drive to a local store at a quiet time (60)
• Drive on a main road at rush hour (75)
• Drive a short stretch of highway alone (90)

Phone calls: making the call

Many people put off phone calls because they cannot see the other person's reaction. This ladder moves from simply listening to a voice, to making a call you would rather avoid.

• Listen to a recorded message or voicemail greeting (20)
• Call an automated line and follow the menu (30)
• Phone a close friend and have a short chat (35)
• Call a shop to ask their opening hours (45)
• Phone to book an appointment (55)
• Call to ask a question you are unsure about (70)
• Phone to make a complaint (85)

Turning an example into your own ladder

Pick the example closest to your own fear and swap in your own situations. Keep the structure, with seven or eight steps and small gaps, but replace the content so that every step is something you would really avoid.

Then re-rate each step for yourself, from 0 to 100, and reorder them if your numbers say so. Start with a step you rate around 30 to 40, decide when you will do it, and write down how it went afterwards.

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